I have a large project in Vb.net which drives a web browser control around. What's the best, and easiest, way to manage browser pop ups? Note, I am not just looking to cancel or close them. I need to manage them just like the main window.
Check out the NewWindow/NewWindow2/NewWindow3 events:
Related
Requirements:
Our application replaces the usual windows shell (explorer.exe). This is a product requirement for a closed system that we're supplying.
We oughtta let the user select a wi-fi network and connect to it.
The problem: The wi-fi networks dialog only shows up when explorer.exe is running
What we tried:
Write our own wi-fi manager that uses wlan API. It lists connectible networks and allows the user to connect/disconnect. Problem: too many network types/configuratons that have to be tested, especially when the wheel has already been invented and reinvented all over.
Try and check how is the networks dialog implemented. It appears that it's and undocumented COM interface (IUIRAdioManager). Problem: it's undocumented, so no API
Use an existing network manager, for instance the one that comes with the driver. Problems: it's ugly, not to the product's taste; and it opens too many options for the user, like creating and loading profiles, browsing for files on a file system - these things are unacceptable.
Running explorer.exe just for the purpose of showing the networks dialog and then killing it. Problem: once we run explorer.exe - it pops up metro view and hides our fullscreen application or shows the taskbar.
The latter seems like the preferred solution: no need to reinvent the wheel, it does what's needed. Just gotta make explorer.exe not pop out, keep it quiet in the background.
So, we're down to two options:
How to show the networks flyout dialog without explorer.exe?
How to run explorer.exe without it popping out metro or taskbar above our application?
Your first solution would be incredibly difficult to implement. I am almost certain that the Networks window is dependent on explorer.
However, your second is entirely possible.
To hide the taskbar, you will need to find a window (using FindWindowEx) to find the taskbar (name is Shell_traywnd). This will hide the taskbar and start button. EDIT: Unless you are implementing your own taskbar, you might want to set the taskbar to autohide.
Next you will need to hide all of the metro programs. In a similar fashion as above, find the class named EdgeUiInputWndClass and close it. You should be able to get the process name of it and then kill the process.
Windows key. This is a little more difficult. You will probably need to use a program and delete the key or a keyboard hook (a low level keyboard hook) and just ignore key presses with the same scancode as the windows key. Left Windows is 0x5b and Right is 0x5c (source). Note that this will not block Ctrl+Alt+Del.
Finally, to show the Flyout, you can run %windir%\explorer.exe shell:::{38A98528-6CBF-4CA9-8DC0-B1E1D10F7B1B}
(source).
EDIT2:
You should also be able to hide toast notifications via this
Of course, I don't see why you cannot just use Windows 8/8.1 and put the app in kiosk mode.
Hi ive developed a application that works with my site by using
SendKeys.send("{ENTER}") to submit info on one of my forms.
Is there a way to stop it from running outside the application?
For example im trying to run the program in the background and when im browsing my facebook or on google it randomly keeps hitting enter.
Any help is greatly appreciated thanks for your time.
The short answer is to look at the windows available for a process and check the titles to see if it's the page you want.
If System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcessesByName("firefox").MainWindowTitle = 'My Page Title'
...
End If
That said, there are much better ways to do this - If you're using firefox, look into GreaseMonkey, if in Chrome, look at TamperMonkey.
Both allow you to inject custom javascript into any page whose url matches a pattern you choose. In effect, you could write some Javascript to submit a form (say) 30 seconds after page load.
This would have the benefit of working if a different tab is selected as well as not requiring a whole application.
The SendKeys.Send method will indiscriminately send the key stroke to the active application. There is no way to use this API to target a specific application.
You could change your app to try and verify the active application is the one you want to send keys too. This is destined to be a flaky process though. No matter how good your verification is it's always possible that the active app is switched to another app after your verification completes.
If VerifyActiveAppIsTarget() Then
SendKeys.Send("{Enter}") ' Active app could change before this runs
I would persue a different solution for sending data between my apps
I'm working on a project that will use a Surface table to show web browsers that can be manipulated via the multitouch behaviors. I'd like to be able to show a browser at full screen and then resize, move, etc.
I'd also like to be able to launch a new, separate browser windows that can also be manipulated through multitouch.
Any suggestions on controls to look into for this?
Thanks!
This is a non-trivial task. As far as I know, many have tried and put months of effort into it but none of been very successful. Don't even bother trying to get something to work well based on WPF's built in WebBrowser control. Best bet is to start with the SurfaceScatterView control and trying to put a 'Chromium' control inside of it (http://wpfchromium.codeplex.com/). It appears that even this isn't straightforward though: http://wpfchromium.codeplex.com/discussions/244117
I have code that opens a new window but I want to be able to edit the same one.
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("iexplore.exe", "http://www.live.com")
I'm not sure exactly but a good pointer to start off might be to get the handle of the window you're interested in:
http://www.pocketpcdn.com/articles/dotnetcf_hwnd.html
And then separately investigate what interop messages you can send to IE to change the URL in tab X
In order of increasing difficulty and increased control/power:
Send input text to your IE process. Alt-D to focus on the navigation bar, then the URL, then ENTER.
Use MSAA to find the navigation bar and send it text, as above.
Use MSAA to get IHTMLDocument access to the browser, and then programmatically drive the browser with that, and the related interfaces.
I don't know your exact scenario, but if you can host your own instance of MSHTML, or a WebBrowser control, it will make it a lot easier to get the interfaces and do the manipulations mentioned in #3 above; doing that stuff cross-process is fraught with peril.
I just did a web search and turned up a WatiN tool that apparently wraps a lot of this work; perhaps it would be useful for you.
If you are using 2008 there is a feature where you could create a second form and then add a Webbrowser control
the page could then be called by
myForm.show
The page could then be changed with the
Webbrowser1.Url = New Uri("http://www.google.com")
Use the following code:
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("http://www.live.com")
That is: do not invoke iexplore.exe directly – just let the system figure out which default browser to open.
This may yield two behaviours:
Either it opens a new tab in an existing Internet Explorer window,
or it creates a new window.
The important point is that this depends on a preference that can be controlled within the Internet Explorer application. If a new window opens, then this is the setting chosen by the user – do not try to override it: overriding the user’s preferences is considered bad manners.
If the users don’t want a new window opened, they can simply change that in their Internet Explorer preferences.
Shell ("explorer.exe www.google.com")
is how I'm currently opening my products ad page after successful install. However I think it would look much nicer if I could do it more like Avira does, or even a popup where there are no address bar links etc. Doing this via an inbrowser link is easy enough
<a href="http://page.com"
onClick="javascript:window.open('http://page.com','windows','width=650,height=350,toolbar=no,menubar=no,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,location=no,directories=no,status=no'); return false")">Link text</a>
But how would I go about adding this functionality in VB?
If you want it to look professional, you need to use an actual browser component. VB.NET comes with one. If you are using an older version of VB, you'd need to go third party. If you want to stay with a shell open, you would have to individually target the browser command-line and pass arguments to indicate that it should not have toolbars etc.
Speaking as a user, I find castrated popup windows annoying and unproductive.
So my answer is: "don't".