Web Browser Express Overview

Summary: Create your own Web browsers that support tabs and integrated links to search engines.

Brief introduction

One feature of a Web browser is that it is becoming more popular to open different tabs or pages within the same browser window. When browsing multiple sites, using tabs to separate multiple pages will keep your desktop neat. There are a number of Third-party Web browsers that provide this functionality on Windows and other platforms, and if you're like me, you'll find this an addictive browsing method. Many browsers, whether by default or through Plug-ins, also provide a quick way to perform Web searches without using a search engine directly. Isn't it great to be able to write your own browser and make it all work, and tweak it to fit your needs exactly?

Figure 1: Designing and implementing your own Web browser with Visual C # Express

Turning these functional cravings into a brand new product seems to require a lot of work. After all, how much time does it take to develop Internet Explorer? (A: a long time.) How can I replicate the powerful HTML rendering of Internet Explorer and add my own list of new features in one night alone? That's because I use Visual C # Express.

Use the benefits of other people's achievements

The secret to writing a Web browser in one night is to use other people's results. In this case, the secret is to use the C # Express WebBrowser control. If you installed the C # Express and turned on help, you might have seen a topic called ¡° How to: Create a Windows application ¡± with C # Express. This short project will guide you through the steps involved in creating a Windows forms application. If you haven't finished, and you're not familiar with C #, I recommend that you read it.

The point is that it is easy to create multiple applications, including a complete Web browser, by using the controls associated with the C # Express. Once the WebBrowser control is indeed on a Windows form, you simply tell it which URLs are to be fetched and displayed, and whether you need to return, forward, refresh, or stop. All the hard work of connecting to the Internet, getting data, formatting HTML, displaying graphics, and so on, is handled by the control.

This project is similar to a Help project, except that the project creates multiple WebBrowser controls and adds them to the pages in TabControl instead of just adding one WebBrowser control to a Windows form. Yes, I don't even need to write code to create a TabControl. This is another example of dragging and dropping from the toolbox to Windows forms.

Well, while I know it looks like a huge and complex application, it seems as if it will take months of work to complete, but in fact I just link the dots between the existing controls and finish all the work one night. This is my way of programming!

Designing a Web Browser

Figure 2: Dragging a control from the toolbox is the key to writing this application