C# Snippet Tutorial - The Web Browser Control [Beginner]

OK, so you may be thinking to yourself "Why do I need a browser control when I have Firefox or IE?". Well, considering it has all the power of Internet Explorer, you can use it for lots of things. You can use it to show a website in your application or even just load in an HTML file from the local computer. The greatest thing is that it is quite easy to use and control.

So the first thing you want to do is get a browser on the window. Go ahead and start up Visual Studio and create a new project, call it whatever you wish. Next you need to add the web browser control, which is in Common Controls in your toolbox on the Design View tab. Once you have that up, the first thing we need to do is get the browser to browse someplace. This is fairly easy to do put needs some slight explanation.

In order to change the URL, you are going to use WebBrowser.URL, which makes sense. But the URL property uses an object called Uri which stands for Uniform Resource Identifier. This class just gives you an easy to use object for internet and local paths, and gives you the ability to compare and combine them as well. Since the URL has to be such an object, changing the URL of our browser object looks like so:

webBrowser1.Url = new Uri("http://blog.paranoidferret.com");

One of the upsides is that whenever you change the URL, the page loads automatically. So when you call the code above, you are essentially changing the location of the browser. This makes it easy to create a nice simple browser. Now the object itself draws off of the current IE install, so any plugins and addons will be available inside the object. This means flash and such objects will work as long as the plugins are installed in IE.

Now beside directly changing the URL, there is actually a method called WebBrowser.Navigate() which takes in a string URL and navigates to the site. This is probably the best way to browse with the control, and by far the easiest. The browser control also keeps a history, just like IE, and offers the functions WebBrowser.GoBack() and WebBrowser.GoForward(). Also, since it pretty much just uses an IE tab for the object, you can also call WebBrowser.GoHome(), which as you guessed takes you to the IE homepage.

This is pretty much the basis of the WebBrowser control. It is simple and easy to use, offering a full browser object that can be used with very little code. There are so many reasons this can be useful and just plan cool.