Script to automate URL opening in multiple tabs in Firefox or Opera from a text file

Question

I have a text file with lots of links-each line has a link (i.e the separator is '\n'). i want to write a script so that each link opens in a different tab in Firefox or Internet explorer. How can I do this? I'm on Windows 7

Answer 1

Create a text file called whatever.bat and put it on your desktop. edit the file and enter:

set "fileList="
FOR /F "usebackq delims==" %%i IN ("C:\Documents and Settings\mdevine\Desktop\urls.txt") DO call set "fileList=%%fileList%% %%i"
start firefox %fileList%

close and save

double click on it

Note: C:\Documents and Settings\mdevine\Desktop\urls.txt is a text file that contains the following:

http://www.rte.ie
http://www.python.org
http://www.bbc.co.uk
http://www.google.com

Answer 2

The solution that worked for me is:

set "fileList="
FOR /F "usebackq delims=," %%i IN ("C:\Documents and Settings\xwell\Desktop\urls.txt") DO (
start %%i
)

Four changes I made:

1. I set the delimiter to a comma - delims=,
2. Put a comma between each URL in my text file
3. And put the for loop function in brackets
4. Changed the start function. This uses the default browser, though you could specify it as per the above example

So, the text file urls.txt looks like:

http://www.rte.ie,
http://www.python.org,
http://www.bbc.co.uk,
http://www.google.com

Answer 3

@iceman, @amadain:

refining @amadains solution: the "line continuation character" in batch files is ^, so iceman should change his text files accordingly (add a ^ at the end of each line) and put "start firefox ^" at the beginning of the file . Don't know max length of command line string, though.