Controlling multiple Internet Explorer windows?

Question

We've got several web-based applications that are launched from our ERP system (SAP R/3 in this case, but since we're using ShellExec, I don't consider this a SAP issue). The problem is that we can either set the IE to "open every URL passed from the ERP system in a new window" or to "reuse any one of the existing IE windows" (same problem with tabs). Both settings are not acceptable for our users: one of the web applications is a rather bulky medical image viewer applet that wreaks havoc if invoked multiple times. The other option is a no-go either because this way opening the image browser for a patient automatically displaces the lab result display for the very same patient and vice versa.

I'd like to have some control over which window may or may not be reused. My idea would be a kind of "window tag" and a helper program that checks if a window with that tag exists - if it does, reuse it, if not create it. So basically

IELauncher SEARCH http://www.google.com

would open a new window and tag it as SEARCH.

IELauncher DEVEL http://stackoverflow.com

would open a second window, tagging it as DEVEL. Then

IELauncher SEARCH http://www.wikipedia.org

would replace the contents of the first (google) window only.

Is this possible at all? Do you have any pointers for me where to start? I don't even know what to look for...

Answer 1

I had to resort to some rather ugly methods - dynamically assembling a HTML page that uses JavaScript and window.open() to open and access a window by name, then close the page executing the JavaScript. Ugly, but at least this way you get the additional benefit of being able to control certain aspects of the browser window like switching of the menu bar, toolbar and location bar.