Open multiple arbitrary URLs automatically in a webbrowser

load_urls.py

#!/bin/env python
#
# Open multiple arbitrary URLs in a webbrowser
import optparse
import webbrowser
import time
import sys
if __name__ == '__main__':
    p = optparse.OptionParser(usage="%prog [-f FILE] [-b BROWSER] [-p INTERVAL] "
                              "[URL [URL,...]]",
                              description="Launch URLs supplied on command line in "
                              "BROWSER (or read URLS from FILE)")
    p.add_option('-b','--browser',action='store',dest='browser',default='firefox',
                 help="browser to load URLs into (default is firefox)")
    p.add_option('-f','--file',action='store',dest='file',default=None,
                 help="read URLs from FILE (one URL per line)")
    p.add_option('-p','--pause',action='store',dest='interval',default=5,type='int',
                 help="time to pause between opening each URL (seconds; default is 5s)")
    options,args = p.parse_args()
    urls = []
    for arg in args:
        urls.append(arg)
    if options.file is not None:
        print "Reading URLs from file '%s'" % options.file
        for line in open(options.file,'rU'):
            if line.startswith('#'):
                continue
            urls.append(line.rstrip('\n'))
    if not urls:
        print "No URLs specified; nothing to do"
        sys.exit(0)
    print "Fetching browser instance '%s'" % options.browser
    try:
        browser = webbrowser.get(options.browser)
    except webbrowser.Error,ex:
        print "Unable to acquire browser instance for '%s'" % options.browser
        print "Exception: %s" % ex
        sys.exit(1)
    print "Opening new browser window"
    browser.open(urls[0],new=1,autoraise=True)
    for url in urls[1:]:
        if options.interval:
            time.sleep(options.interval)
        print "Opening %s" % url
        browser.open_new_tab(url)