why doesnt followhyperlink open website + shell syntax solution explanation

[excellol]

1) this works:

thisworkbook.FollowHyperlink "https://www.google.com"

(remove the space after h)

but not this:

ThisWorkbook.FollowHyperlink "https://www.bi.go.id/en/statistik/indikator/IndONIA.aspx"

instead i got either one of these errors:

why is this so? both are normal websites so theoretically it should work?


2) i found this solution on stackoverflow which is able to open my website
Shell "explorer ""Indicator"""

could u explain the syntax to me? i tried googling for the shell syntax explanation but they werent helpful for my context
what does 'explorer' refer to? im sure that it isn't explorer.exe, as the code opened the website in my default browser which is firefox
why are there double quotes ("") for the website?
lastly, i used the shell code above for each of the 4 websites that i want to open. however, the websites did not open in the order of the shell code. is there a way to make them open in order?

for eg
Shell "explorer ""website1"""
Shell "explorer ""website2"""
Shell "explorer ""website3"""

firefox opened websites 1 and 3 followed by website 2

 

[RoryA]

im sure that it isn't explorer.exe

But it is. The double quotes are there because it is a literal string within the argument being passed to the shell command.

 

[excellol]

But it is. The double quotes are there because it is a literal string within the argument being passed to the shell command.

sorry i mean why are there 2 double quotes before and after the website? strings usually need only one double quote

explorer.exe opens the file explorer in my pc. how does this link to firefox?

 

[RoryA]

As I said, it's because that literal string is a quoted string within an already quoted string argument:

Shell "explorer ""https://www.bi.go.id/en/statistik/indikator/IndONIA.aspx"""

The red quotes are surrounding the one argument being passed to the Shell command. The blue quotes are for the string argument that is actually passed to the Explorer program. If the blue quotes weren't doubled, the first one would actually close the first red quote.

 

[RoryA]

explorer.exe opens the file explorer in my pc. how does this link to firefox?

Using shell extensions, which tell explorer the correct program to use for a given file type. I could for example, enter:

explorer "c:\testing\book1.xls"

into the Windows Run box and it would load Excel with that workbook opened, because it knows what the default program for opening xls files is.

 

[excellol]

is it possible to run the shell code with the variable replacing the website? the following code opens my file explorer instead of the website in my default browser

dim msia as string

'store website link in variable
msia="https://www.bnm.gov.my/interest-rates-volumes?p_p_id=bnm_market_rate_display_portlet&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&_bnm_market_rate_display_portlet_product=rri&_bnm_market_rate_display_portlet_monthStart=5&_bnm_market_rate_display_portlet_yearStart=2021&_bnm_market_rate_display_portlet_monthEnd=5&_bnm_market_rate_display_portlet_yearEnd=2021"

shell "explorer msia"

 

[RoryA]

You need:

shell "explorer """ & msia & """"

 

[excellol]

could u explain the intuition behind using 3 quotation marks and "&"?

 

[RoryA]

Using a simpler link, let's say we want to pass this to the Shell command:

explorer "http://www.mrexcel.com"

but we want to use a variable for the address, so we try:

dim add as string
add = "http://www.mrexcel.com"
Shell "explorer add"

That doesn't work because it literally passes explorer add to the Shell command, not the value of the add variable. That happens because add is within the quotes. So we try:

dim add as string
add = "http://www.mrexcel.com"
Shell "explorer " & add

(That will actually work, because you don't need the quotes round a simple link like that, but you do with your link so let's pretend it doesn't!)

what that passes to the Shell command is Explorer http://www.mrexcel.com which is missing the quotes we want. Now, as I mentioned before, to get a literal quote mark inside a quoted string, we need to double it. So:

Shell "explorer " & add

needs a quote added within the first quoted string - hence:

Shell "explorer """ & add

and then we need to append another quote at the end, so finally we have:

Shell "explorer """ & add & """"

Does that make sense?

 

[excellol]

Shell "explorer """ & add & """"

this part

" & add & "

is the string to be passed in the main string (ie "explorer ") ?

if yes, am i right we would then get "explorer & add &" ?

why do we need a second & after add ?