• Home
 · 
• Internet/HTML
 · 
• The 15 minute WWW browser

The 15 minute WWW browser

It took Netscape months to create their first browser, and Microsoft wasnt able to follow up that trick until years later. But you can create a world wide web browser in less than 15 minutes, even if you are a Visual Basic novice! The following tutorial will show you how to create an Internet browser using the Microsoft Internet Control (part of Internet Explorer). My only caveat is that if you end up putting the big-boys out of the Internet business with your creation, that you give me a litle credit in your About box! ;)

Side Effects
If you are running Visual Basic 5.0 or 6.0 the Microsoft Internet Controls are included with VB, so you don't need to do anything special to get them. If you are running an older version, you may still be able to get the controls for free from Microsoft's site at www.microsoft.com.

Rate The 15 minute WWW browser

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

(8(8 Vote))

1)Create a new Visual Basic project.
2)Add the Microsoft Internet Controls to your project. In 
VB6 you add new custom controls to a project by going to
the Project menu and choosing the Components sub-menu, and
choosing the control you want to add. In other versions of 
VB, consult your help on adding custom controls. The name 
of the custom control is: Microsoft Internet Control. This 
will add two icons to your toolbox. Place the one that 
looks like a globe (the Web Browser control) on your form 
by double-clicking it. This control will display the web 
page, so make sure you size it so that it looks presentable.
3)Next, place a text box on the upper portion of the form--
above the WebBrowser Control. This will be your browser's 
address bar. To complete the address bar, place a button 
next to it. Change the Caption property of the button to:&Go
4)Now add the following code to your form:
Private Sub Command1_Click()
 WebBrowser1.Navigate Text1
End Sub
That is it! Run your project and type www.microsoft.com 
into the text box and press the GO button. (Dont forget to 
start your Internet connection if its not already up). The 
page will load and display just like a browser!
Now that you have an idea of how simple the control is to 
use, you can take a little more time to create some more 
sophisticated functionality for your browser:
1)Since the world wide wait can be taxing on your browser 
users, you can create a status bar at the bottom of your 
form that lets them know how much of their page has loaded. 
You can use the following web browser events (see the 
Microsoft Internet Controls help file, if you need examples)
WebBrowser1_DownloadBegin
WebBrowser1_DownloadComplete
WebBrowser1_ProgressChange
2)Create a menu system on your form--just like IE and 
Netscape. See the VB help if youve never done this before. 
You'll want to at least create &File and &Exit. 
3)Create a combobox instead of a text box that remembers 
old URLs.
4)Let your imagination run wild!
5) For more features, check out the other browser 
submissions to this site. An outstanding example is:
http://www.planet-source-code.com/vb/scripts/ShowCode.asp?txtCodeId=2628
6)Some other features created by other users:
Passive Matrix(mailto:[email protected])
Here are some helpful button commands...
back button 
WebBrowser1.GoBack
Forward button
WebBrowser1.GoForward
refresh
WebBrowser1.Refresh
stop
 WebBrowser1.Stop
home 
WebBrowser1.Navigate ("www.cow.com")
By William:mailto:[email protected]
An answer to the questions about the favorites and the bookmarks:
1) Make a 
commandbutton cmdAdd
2) Make a commandbutton cmdFav
3) Make a listbox 
lstFavs
The code for cmdAdd:
Private Sub cmdAdd_Click()
 FN = 
FreeFile
 Open "favs.txt" For Append As FN
 Print #FN, txtUrl.Text & 
Chr(13)
 Close #FN
End Sub
The code for cmdFav:
Private Sub 
cmdFav_Click()
 On Error Resume Next
 FN = FreeFile
 Open 
"favs.txt" For Input As FN
 lstFavs.Visible = True
 Do Until 
EOF(FN)
  Line Input #FN, NextLine$
  lstFavs.AddItem NextLine$
 
 Loop
 Close #FN
End Sub
The code for lstFavs:
Private Sub 
lstFavs_Click()
 txtUrl.Text = lstFavs.List(lstFavs.ListIndex)
 
txtUrl_KeyPress 13
 lstFavs.Visible = False
 Close #FN
End Sub
By:CheaTzZ mailto:[email protected]
To print:
Private Sub printmenu_Click()
 Dim eQuery As OLECMDF
 On 
Error Resume Next
 eQuery = WebBrowser1.QueryStatusWB(OLECMDID_PRINT)
 
If Err.Number = 0 Then
  If eQuery And OLECMDF_ENABLED Then
   
WebBrowser1.ExecWB OLECMDID_PRINT, OLECMDEXECOPT_PROMPTUSER, "", ""
  
Else
   MsgBox "The Print command is currently disabled."
  
End If
 Else
  MsgBox "Print command Error: " & Err.Description
 
End If
End Sub
======================
To open up new window:
Private 
Sub WebBrowser1_NewWindow2(ppDisp As Object, Cancel As Boolean)
 On Error 
Resume Next
 Dim frmWB As Form1
 Set frmWB = New Form1
 
 Set 
ppDisp = frmWB.WebBrowser1.Object
 frmWB.Visible = True
 Set frmWB = 
Nothing
If you want to cancel the new window, Cancel = True.
For a proper progressbar:
Private Sub WebBrowser1_ProgressChange(ByVal 
Progress As Long, ByVal ProgressMax As Long)
 On Error Resume Next
 
ProgressBar1.Max = ProgressMax
 ProgressBar1.Value = Progress
End 
Sub
To show the percentage:
Progress * 100 / ProgressMax
by: Bones mailto:[email protected]
You can easily view the source of the webpage you're
viewing by using 2 
controls: A RichTextBox control,
and the microsoft internet transfer 
control.
If your internet transfer control is Inet1, and your
Textbox is 
RichTextBox1, then use the following code
download and view a page's 
source:
RichTextBox1.Text = Inet1.OpenURL(" address ")
The address must be 
the valid URL of an .htm or .html
file.