WebBrowser Control in C# and Windows Forms

Mahesh Chand

6y763.9k23100Article

Web BrowserWebBrowser controlC# WebBrowserWebBrowser in Windows

23 Comments

Join the conversation! Your thoughts help the community grow.

Mahadevan3y ago
Is this can I use for Authentication purpose in Windows Form application like MS365 OAuth 2.0 requires to open the browser and authenticate the user and gets the secrete token ?
- Baskman3y ago
  +1 I'm seeking for the same
Akshay Doshi5y ago
This web browser control uses Internet explorer specific configurations(UI), are there any enhancements in web browser controls more specific to Edge/Chrome?
tarun prusty5y ago
Is This Control is supporting .Net 5.0?
- Mahesh Chand5y ago
  I'm not sure. You will have to try new Visual Studio. I've not worked with Windows Forms for years. This article was actually written in 2011 :)
vikas sangal6y ago
Sir i want to open web page through window.open, is it possible?
simma lakshmana6y ago
I wanted to Know this webviewer which broswer to match like (IE,Crome.....)
Prashant /Technology/ABPL7y ago
When I run the project, facing scripts error. How to solve the scrip error.
Sourabh Choubey9y ago
Sir i want to click a button from web browser control but it does not responds to the click event.I dont know why it does not respond.Here is my code given below.neither this works. HtmlElement submit = doc.GetElementById("CphPageMiddle_btnSubmit"); submit.InvokeMember("click"); nor this works submit.InvokeMember("Click");
Amit Pandey9y ago
I have an anchor tag in the Webbrowser control. How can I open a image file from click of the anchor tag.
Chandu Kumawat10y ago
nice
Ashish Gupta11y ago
can i read all html available in Web browser document instead of the reading HTML displayed on the current page??
arun tyagi12y ago
hi,webbrowser class is launching the Browser version 7, How i can make it ,it's launch latest Browser Version
Ashraf Nazir13y ago
Nice work.....can any body tell me,how to retrieve url path from Address bar in webbrowser1?
Taraspreet Sing Brar14y agoedited
Once web page is opened through web browser how to edit that page? I mean i want insert one button on click of that button new window should open,,Please reply.... Thanks,
J R15y ago
If I use the webbrowser class to browse my local drive and select some random text file to open. It normally pops open in Notepad or something that it is mapped to. How do I intercept this call and do something simple like a MessageBox.Show("Don't open that file.") and return without the actual file being opened?
- J R15y ago
  The question concerns how the webbrowser post messages regarding 'what to do' when an item is clicked inside of its window. For instance, click a folder and you navigate to that folder, or click a link and you navigate to that link. You can override these methods. But if you click a file, that file is opened. What the heck do you override on that one? What is the message that is being sent? Is it the webbrowser class that should be looked at, or something else? I can't figure it out yet.
- Sam Hobbs15y ago
  I think that the question of intercepting a file open is not directly a WebBrowser question. I think it is a more general Windows question. I am not sure however what the question is so it would be better to ask in one of the forums in this web site.
Joe15y ago
I been looking for a sample to show me how to use the toolstrip progessbar1 and a web browser control. and the samples I did fine don't work. I wanted the tool strip progress bar to show the progress of the page being loaded. Can some one, any one make a sample for me and every one else would like that sample too.
Gary Blake15y ago
How would you use to view local files............file://// doesn't work
- Mahesh Chand15y agoedited
  You can create a new Uri and pass it Uri localFile = new Uri("file://local/filename.html"); webBrowser1.Navigate(localFile);
- Sam Hobbs15y ago
  The following works for me: webBrowser1.Navigate(@"C:\Temporary\t.html");
Sam Hobbs15y agoedited
The WebBrowser.Navigate Method can also be used with a string containing the address without a Uri object. That is a very minor convenience. A major capability is to be able to put HTML into the control; the HTML can be obtained from wherever we might get it. How to do that is not totally obvious. Since the document object is created asynchronously, we must wait until the document has been created before putting HTML into it. The common way to do that is in the DocumentComplete event; for an example see my http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/SamTomato/227/?ArticleID=39601c1c-a660-48a0-a3b0-9645db32fe2a

WebBrowser Control

WebBrowser control allows developers to build Web browsing capability within Windows Forms applications. In this article, I will demonstrate how to use the WebBrowser control in a Windows Forms application using C# and Visual Studio 2010.

In 2001, I published an article Web Browser in C# and VB.NET that showed how to use the WebBrowser ActiveX control in a Windows Forms 1.0/1.1 application. Well, things have changed since then.

This article is written using Visual Studio 2010 and Windows Forms 4. If you do not have Visual Studio 2010, you may use Visual C# 2010 Express which is free to download from the MSDN website.

Creating a WebBrowser

Create a Windows Forms application using Visual Studio 2010 or Visual C# 2010 Express.

In this application, I am going to add a ToolStrip and WebBrowser control to the form. In my ToolStrip control, I add a Label, a TextBox, and a few Button controls with a few separators.

By the time we are done with the application, the final user interface will look like Figure 1.

Figure 1

After your Toolbar looks like Figure 1, drag a WebBrowser control from Toolbox to the Form and resize and dock the control the way you like on the Form. I dock the WebBrowser control at the bottom of the window.

Figure 2

In the next step, I am going to set default properties of the WebBrowser control.

To do so, right-click on the WebBrowser control, and select Properties. This action launches the Properties window. Feel free to set any properties you like. The Url property represents the web page a WebBrowser displays. In Figure 3, I set http://www.c-sharpcorner.com as the default page to display in the browser.

Figure 3

Navigation

The WebBrowser class in code behind is associated with the WebBrowser control. So when you drag and drop a WebBrowser control to the Form, a WebBrowser class instance is created in the code behind.

The Navigate method of the WebBrowser class is used to open a URL in the WebBrowser.

webBrowser1.Navigate(new Uri(url));

The following code snippet is code written on the Go button click event handler where I open a URL in the WebBrowser using the Navigate method.

// GO button click event handler.
private void GoButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(UrlTextBox.Text) || UrlTextBox.Text.Equals("about:blank"))
{
MessageBox.Show("Enter a valid URL.");
UrlTextBox.Focus();
return;
}
OpenURLInBrowser(UrlTextBox.Text);
}
private void OpenURLInBrowser(string url)
{
if (!url.StartsWith("http://") && !url.StartsWith("https://"))
{
url = "http://" + url;
}
try
{
webBrowser1.Navigate(new Uri(url));
}
catch (System.UriFormatException)
{
return;
}
}

WebBrowser control also has built-in browser methods to go home, forward, backward, refresh, save, print and others.

The following code snippet shows how to use GoForeward, GoBack, GoHome, and Refresh methods.

// Home button takes user home
private void HomeButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
webBrowser1.GoHome();
}
// Go back
private void BackButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (webBrowser1.CanGoBack)
webBrowser1.GoBack();
}
// Next
private void NextButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (webBrowser1.CanGoForward)
webBrowser1.GoForward();
}
// Refresh
private void RefreshButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
webBrowser1.Refresh();
}

The ShowSaveAsDialog, ShowPrintDialog, ShowPrintPreviewDialog, and ShowProperties methods are used to display SaveAs diaog, Print dialog, PrintPreview dialog, and Properties dialog respectively. The following code snippet shows how to call these methods.

// Save button launches SaveAs dialog
private void SaveButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
webBrowser1.ShowSaveAsDialog();
}
// PrintPreview button launches PrintPreview dialog
private void PrintPreviewButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
webBrowser1.ShowPrintPreviewDialog();
}
// Show Print dialog
private void PrintButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
webBrowser1.ShowPrintDialog();
}
// Properties button
private void PropertiesButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
webBrowser1.ShowPropertiesDialog();
}

Summary

In this article, I discussed how to use a WebBrowser control in Windows Forms at design-time as well as run-time. After that, we saw how to use various properties and methods of the WebBrowser control.

Recommended Readings

Here are some more articles on the WebBrowser control including different versions of Visual Studio and Windows Forms.