Tag / Internet Explorer

by Aaron

Forcing IE to run as IE9 with embedded web browser

If you embed IE in a windows application, you may notice that it runs in IE7 Emulated mode. This is likely NOT what you want.

I’ve added code like below to solve the problem:

string appName = "";
try
{
    appName = Path.GetFileName(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location);

    const string IE_EMULATION = @"Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION";

    using (var fbeKey = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(IE_EMULATION, true))

    { 

        fbeKey.SetValue(appName, 9000, RegistryValueKind.DWord);
 
    }
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
    MessageBox.Show(appName + "\n" + ex.ToString(), "Unexpected error setting browser mode!");
}

There’s a special registry key that must be set before IE9 loads and is navigated … it must be set to the name of your application. Oddly, not the full path to your application, just the name of your executable.

You may want to delete this registry setting when your application exits.

by Aaron

Announcing Html Grabber v3 (The Spy Who Loved Embedded Internet Explorer)

It’s been a long time since v2 of the Html Grabber.

I updated the Html Grabber earlier this year in response to some requests at work. It was performing poorly with long documents, and occasionally crashing in a few edge cases. I rewrote a few portions of the core code and created a new shell in .NET.

SNAGHTML120a4bae

The core functionality is basically the same. Press and hold the primary mouse button on the image button. Then, with the mouse button still pressed, drag and point at a window/region that you believe is using Internet Explorer. If it is, the cursor changes to include a small green circle. You may then release the mouse button to capture the contained HTML.

SNAGHTML120cc9e2

Once captured, double-click on the capture row and then paste the results into your favorite text editor (ideally, a syntax highlighting editor).

As usual, use at your own risk. It’s designed for debugging, so treat it accordingly. It’s been tested with IE8 and IE9. It requires .NET 4.0. 

Download it here. (Yes, the file name is called v2 … don’t worry, it’s correct). There’s no installer, just run the included EXE.