Web hyperlinks: default browser and resulting browser window size?

[gjh3124]

Hi,

Am using Excel 97 (I know it is old but I like it!) with Windows XP Pro
(SP2).

Have a series of web hyperlinks in a worksheet, that load the current
chart for a specified chart, from Yahoo Finance. For example:
http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/c/1y/c/tls.ax will load the chart for
the Australian telco "Telstra".

All the links work just fine but have two questions:

1) My default internet browser is Firefox but the links always open
Internet Explorer. Is there a way to ensure that Firefox is used?

2) The loaded chart appears in a maximised IE window. Which is a bit
silly as the chart is pretty small. Is there a way to make the opened
browser window to be just big enough for the contained chart?

Thanks and regards,

Geoff.

 

[David McRitchie]

Hi Geoff,
When interacting with Excel, I think you would be a lot better off to continue
using Internet Explorer with Excel. For instance you cannot copy and paste
a Yahoo finance table from Firefox into Excel and get a data into cells across
a row, which is usually not much of a problem if you are pasting into IE.

In order to change the browser invoked from Excel you wouild probably
have to change registry settings, because changing the default browser
as you know does not change what Excel invokes.

You might change invoking the browser from a hyperlink to use in
a macro that invokes Firefox.

The two examples below are Event macros, I didn't include any
error checking and only hint at what you might have in a cell.
Install by right click on sheet tab, view code
More information on Event macros in
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/event.htm
my use of shell is primarily used in my (using IE)
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/code/xl2htmlx.txt

Private Sub Worksheet_BeforeDoubleClick(ByVal Target As Range, _
Cancel As Boolean)
Dim RC As Long
RC = Shell("C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe " & _
"http://www." & Target.Value & ".com", 1)
End Sub

or something like

Private Sub Worksheet_BeforeDoubleClick(ByVal Target As Range, Cancel As Boolean)
Dim RC As Long, Filename As String
Cancel = True
'-- Filename = "C:\camera-canonG3\img_2359.jpg"
Filename = "C:\camera-canonG3\25pct\" & target.value
RC = Shell("C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe " & Filename, 1)
End Sub

I think the size and position of your window in both Firefox and IE tends to be
what you had been using before, note the 1 in the shell indicates that the
--- Window has focus and is restored to its original size and position.
there are value 0-6 check VBE Help for shell, a 3 would open as maximized.

Incidentally, I have a pages on Firefox that you might be interested in
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/firefox/firefox.htm

 

[gjh3124]

Hi David,

Thanks for the tip. I have successfully used the first suggested
solution, it works just fine.

Strange thing is, my WinXP SP2 cratered a few days ago - when booting
is announced it could not find a file called 'hal.dll' and just
stopped. This is the first problem I have had with XP, so compared to
W9X it is a great improvement. No idea why this happened and have
restored/rebuilt the OS and all works just fine.

Why am I telling you this? Well, before the cratering of XP, my
hyperlinks would open an IE page, nicely sized to just frame the
requested Yahoo Finance chart. Now it doesn't. I guess I just wish I
knew how it used to work!!

Anyway, had a look at your FireFox page. I still have some "issues"
with opening IE-type pages in FireFox. The only extension that seems
to work almost all the time is the "IE Tab" extension.

Well, thanks again for the assistance.

Good luck,

Geoff.

 

[David McRitchie]

Hi Geoff,
a correction for
usually not much of a problem if you are pasting into IE.
should have been -- if you are pasting from IE.

Actually I did not test which browser would be invoked from Excel,
and was surprised to see that Firefox which is now my default is
invoked as a hyperlink. I probably did not have the browser should
check if it is default browser when I initially used Firefox and was
happy at the time for some inconsistencies.

in Firefox (1.5.0.3): options, [x] Firefox should check to see if it is the
default browser when starting. (and it is my default)
in IE (6.0.2800.1106): Options, internet options, programs,
[ ] Internet Explorer should check to see whether it is the default browser.
which might explain why IE comes up in Excel macros, and that is what I
would want anyway when working with macros, and my own Excel generated
HTML coding (my page xl2html.htm).

I think there is a default size normal or max that you can set up in IE, but
I could not find it in the options.

I would suggest you Google on hal.dll there are lots of hits, hopefully,
you would find something useful from among the early hits.
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_haldll_missing.htm believes the situation
comes from setting up dual boot between Windows 2000 and Windows XP,
and there are methods to repair including updates to his original problem.

Googling on a problem is always the first thing that comes to mind, and with
the help of a Firefox extension you can eliminate the Excel "forums" (advertising
portals that rehash newsgroups) that so much interfer with use of Google web searches and newsgroups searches (Google Groups) as
well .

 

[gjh3124]

Hi David

Thanks for your continuing help/comments.

On the newsgroups, I use Google Groups, which seems to be pretty good.

Had a look at the URL on 'hal.dll'. In fact, I visited that site
during my little disaster. The tricky thing is the "and re-install
windows xp." comment. I am currently away from home and hence away
from my installation disks. The only installation approach I had was
the "system restore" option on my DELL laptop, which re-formats the HDD
and puts the OS and device drivers back in place. Pretty severe.
Luckily, I also have 2 Linux distros on my laptop (thank heavens!), I
used one of these to create a Samba network in the office I am
visiting, copied all my data, special programs, etc across to another
PC and ran the "system restore". I should note that, if the OpenOffice
Excel equivalent had the function range of Excel, I would be using
Linux fulltime.

On the defaut browser: FireFox is set as the default browser, like you
commented and IE is not set as the default, like you commented. If I
open an HTML file on the HDD, FireFox responds but the (original) Excel
worksheet hyperlinks still open IE.

I guess that this is just one of the mysteries of Windows.

Thanks again for the solution to the initial problem.

Regards,

Geoff.