Is there a way to open html page from vba directly in default browser? I don't want to create a form and use webbrowser or similar component.
The idea is open external browser and write page in it somehow...
To open a predefined URL in a named browser you can use VBScript like this:
Dim strURL: strURL="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/67530458/open-html-page-from-memory"
Dim iState:iState=3
Dim bWait:bWait=true
Set oWS=CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
oWS.Run "chrome -url " & strURL,iState,bWait
oWS.Run "firefox -url " & strURL,iState,bWait
set oWS=nothing
If you omit the browser name it should invoke the default browser.
It is years since I used VBA but I'm fairly confident the approach is very similar in VBA.
I've created a Winforms app that uses a WebBrowser control; I dynamically assign its Uri. It worked fine for awhile, but now I'm getting this msg:
You seem to be using an unsupported browser. Older browsers can put your security at risk, are slow and don't work with newer Google Maps features. To access Google Maps, you'll need to update to a modern browser.
The last two words are a link, and following that link, I see:
You are currently using...
IE 11
So, okay, the WebBrowser component uses IE 11; how can I change that?
My machine is set to use Chrome as its browser; perhaps the control should use whatever your current browser is? I don't know if that's possible/feasible.
UPDATE
Okay, I'm willing to give Reza's suggestion a try. But when I navigate to the specified spot in regedit, and right-click in the right pane to add a New entry, it has three options:
Key, String Value, Binary Value
I reckon the string values are the ".exe" strings, and the Binary values are the "dword" vals, but what should the "Key" values be?
Note: The post is about WebBrowser control, however, for all the new
.NET projects the main solution is using
WebView2.
To learn more, take a look at this post:
Getting started with WebView2.
WebBrowser Control
The WebBrowser control uses the same Internet Explorer version which is installed on your OS but it doesn't use the latest document mode by default and shows content in compatibility mode.
Symptom - As a symptom, the site works properly in Internet Explorer or other browsers, but WebBrowser control doesn't show the site well and for some sites it shows script errors.
Solution - You can tell the WebBrowser control to use the latest document mode without compatibility mode in WebBrowser control. You can follow instructions here to disable the setting using registry.
[Reference: Browser Emulation]
Apply Browser Emulation setting using code
If you want to apply the settings using code, run the following code once:
using (var key = Microsoft.Win32.Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(
#"Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION",
true))
{
var app = System.IO.Path.GetFileName(Application.ExecutablePath);
key.SetValue(app, 11001, Microsoft.Win32.RegistryValueKind.DWord);
key.Close();
}
In above code, I've used 11001 which means IE11 Edge mode.
Internet Explorer 11. Webpages are displayed in IE11 edge mode,
regardless of the declared !DOCTYPE directive. Failing to declare a
!DOCTYPE directive causes the page to load in Quirks.
Apply the Browser Emulation setting manually
Open Registry editor and browse HKEY_CURRENT_USER, go to the following key:
Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION
Add the following values:
"YourApplicationFileName.exe"=dword:00002af9
"YourApplicationFileName.vshost.exe"=dword:00002af9
(In older versions of Visual Studio you needed to add vshost.exe value as well, when you run your program in Visual Studio.)
To create entries right click on an empty area of the right pane, then in the window which appears after selecting dword value, choose hexadecimal and enter 2af9:
In above steps, I've used 11001 which means IE11 Edge mode.
Use WebViewCompatible Control for Windows Forms
You can also use the new WebViewCompatible control for Windows Forms. You can see simple steps to use here: Replace WebBrowser control by new WebView Compatible control for Windows Forms.
WebViewCompatible uses one of two rendering engines to support a broader set of Windows clients:
On Windows 10 devices, the newer Microsoft Edge rendering engine is used to embed a view that renders richly formatted HTML content from a remote web server, dynamically generated code, or content files.
On devices running older versions of Windows, the System.Windows.Controls.WebBrowser is used, which provides Internet Explorer engine-based rendering.
Note: WebView2 is a replacement for WebView and WebViewCompatible.
Set X-UA-Compatibile meta tag
In case that you have access to the html content of the page and you can change the content (for example it's a local html file, or the site belong to yourself) then you can set X-UA-Compatibile meta tag in the head like: <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=Edge" />.
Use other Browser Controls
You can rely on other browser controls like CefSharp.
In my case for embedded custom protocol on an application, I will allow only to browse pages served by the application, and no content from the outside, so I wanted to skip saving to the Windows Registry. When I tested after following Reza Aghaei answer and found that you can change the compatibility mode from within the content page. This will skip the need to configure a registry key, but you will have to add it to every page.
For changing the compatibility mode of a page, you must add a meta tag for it to be applied by the rendering engine:
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=Edge" />
</head>
<body>
...
</body>
</html>
The below procedures will add the correct key and remove it again.
Call the CreateBrowserKey upon loading the form that your web browser is in.
Then when closing the form, call the RemoveBrowserKey
Private Sub CreateBrowserKey(Optional ByVal IgnoreIDocDirective As Boolean = False)
' Dim basekey As String = Microsoft.Win32.Registry.CurrentUser.ToString
Dim value As Int32
' Dim thisAppsName As String = My.Application.Info.AssemblyName & ".exe"
' Value reference: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee330730%28v=VS.85%29.aspx
' IDOC Reference: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms535242%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
Select Case (New WebBrowser).Version.Major
Case 8
If IgnoreIDocDirective Then
value = 8888
Else
value = 8000
End If
Case 9
If IgnoreIDocDirective Then
value = 9999
Else
value = 9000
End If
Case 10
If IgnoreIDocDirective Then
value = 10001
Else
value = 10000
End If
Case 11
If IgnoreIDocDirective Then
value = 11001
Else
value = 11000
End If
Case Else
Exit Sub
End Select
Microsoft.Win32.Registry.SetValue(Microsoft.Win32.Registry.CurrentUser.ToString & BrowserKeyPath, _
Process.GetCurrentProcess.ProcessName & ".exe", _
value, _
Microsoft.Win32.RegistryValueKind.DWord)
End Sub
Private Sub RemoveBrowserKey()
Dim key As Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey
key = Microsoft.Win32.Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(BrowserKeyPath.Substring(1), True)
key.DeleteValue(Process.GetCurrentProcess.ProcessName & ".exe", False)
End Sub
The C# WebBrowser class is a basically a IE wrapper and because of this it cannot be changed.
See this link:
The WebBrowser control is a managed wrapper around a component installed with Internet Explorer.
For alternatives you can check out
WebKit.NET
GeckoFX
I have developed a simple application in VB.net that just opens a website, navigates to a certain link in that website and then depending on certain events navigates to another link.
Everything is working fine, except that when I grab the contents of the "href" tag, it seems truncated (for want of a better word). If I inspect the tag in chrome inspector the link is complete, but in my app it is not.
I am using the standard WebBrowser control in VB.Net. But I have tried the WebKit and Awesomium options as well. I must be missing something simple here. Any help would be appreciated thanks.
Below is the code I use to grab the "href" tag:
Dim div2 As HtmlElement = WebBrowser4.Document.GetElementById("ctr1")
'On Error Resume Next
For Each element As HtmlElement In div2.Document.Links
TextBox2.Text = "Navigating Web 3 Again " & element.GetAttribute("href") 'TextBox2.Text & element.GetAttribute("href") & vbCrLf
'element.InvokeMember("Click")
WebBrowser3.Navigate(element.GetAttribute("href"))
Exit For
Next
currently i can accomplish this using IE
Dim ie As InternetExplorer
Set ie = New InternetExplorer
ie.Navigate "www.google.com"
ie.document.getElementByID("blah").value = "blah"
im curious if there is a way to navigate to website and fill out info using other than IE with VBA for example with FireFox or Chrome
i know how to navigate to other websites using any of the explorers for example Chrome as per below, but i would like to know how can fill out fields like search field on www.google.com using Chrome
call Shell("C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe"& " " & URL)
You can use this Selenium wrapper to drive Chrome or Firefox (or PhantomJS). Note that it is currently in beta. Once it is installed, either add a reference to Selenium Type Library or use late binding (example below).
In my (very) limited tests, the only noticeable difference is the couple seconds it takes to load the driver.
Here is a simple example from the link above (modified to use late binding) that fills out the search field in Google and clicks the search button:
Dim selDriver As Object
Set selDriver = CreateObject("Selenium.WebDriver"）
selDriver.Start "chrome", "http://www.google.com/"
selDriver.Open "http://www.google.com"
selDriver.Type "name=q", "Eiffel Tower"
selDriver.Click "name=btnG"
selDriver.stop
As of 2016, the Selenium wrapper was moved to Github instead of the above Google address. Additionally, if you're using Chrome you'll want to update the web driver for Google Chrome here.
Selenium Basic
After downloading these items you'll then need to follow the instructions above for adding the library to in your Visual Basic Editor from within Excel. Afer doing so, you should be able fill out a web form using vba and chrome as originally requested.
I have a webpage that allows users to download excel reports, in Chrome, it just tries to download an aspx page instead of the excel like it successfully does in IE and Firefox.
Is this a known issue and is there a workaround?
I am using this in VB:
db.subRunReader(resultSQL)
dgProperties.DataSource = db.sqlReader
dgProperties.DataBind()
db.subCloseReader()
db.subCloseConnection()
Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-excel"
Response.Charset = ""
Me.EnableViewState = False
Dim tw As New System.IO.StringWriter()
Dim hw As New System.Web.UI.HtmlTextWriter(tw)
dgProperties.RenderControl(hw)
Response.Write(tw.ToString())
Response.End()
Response.Redirect(Request.Url.ToString())
Thanks.
Not sure about your specific situation, but in general whenever you want a file downloaded, it is a good idea to add a Content-Disposition header. In ASP.NET MVC it would be done like this:
Response.Headers["Content-Disposition"] =
"attachment;filename=yourfile.xls";
I expect in ASP.NET 2.0 it would be something similar. This tells the browser that it needs to download the file.