openurl – Node.js module for opening URLs

openurl is a Node.js module for opening a URL via the operating system. This will usually trigger actions such as:

• http URLs: open the default browser
• mailto URLs: open the default email client
• file URLs: open a window showing the directory (on OS X)

Example interaction on the Node.js REPL:

> require("openurl").open("http://rauschma.de")
> require("openurl").open("mailto:john@example.com")

You can generate emails as follows:

require("openurl").mailto(["john@example.com", "jane@example.com"],
    { subject: "Hello!", body: "This is\nan automatically sent email!\n" });

Install via npm:

npm install openurl

I’m not yet terribly familiar with implementing npm packages, so any feedback is welcome (especially experience reports on Windows and Linux, which I can’t test on).

Related reading:

• Write your shell scripts in JavaScript, via Node.js