Dear all,
thank you very much for invaluable inputs.

I found that using
Qt Code: 
  1. QUrl::fromLocalFile(...)
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is quite useful but on linux systems (, mine is ubuntu 11.04), it can't be used with urls like
Qt Code: 
  1. www.qtcenter.org (web addresses)
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It does open with
Qt Code: 
  1. QDesktopServices::openUrl(...)
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So after some search I came across
Qt Code: 
  1. QUrl::fromUserInput(...)
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I have tested it on WinXP, Win7, Ubuntu 11.04, MacOSX with success. I have tried opening following Urls with it (successfully):

/home (It's a dir path)
/usr/local (It's a dir path)
/home/rupesh/Pictures/1.jpg (it's a file)
/home/rupesh/Pictures/1 2 3 4.jpg (it's a file, please note spaces in file name)
/home/rupesh/Pictures/1.pdf (it's a file)
/home/rupesh/Pictures/1 2 3 4.pdf (it's a file, please note spaces in file name)
http://www.microsoft.com
www.microsoft.com
By the way the code I wrote was
return QDesktopServices::openUrl( QUrl::fromUserInput( theUrl ));
Please give me a feedback if you use it and come across any issues.

Thank you
Rupesh