C# Winforms WebBrowser open links in default browser

cwebbrowser-controlwinforms

I know this has been discussed several times around here but the default behaviour for opening links
clicked in a WebBrowser control does not work for my application.

So while this works as in it opens a link clicked in IE:

private void webBrowser1_Navigating(object sender, WebBrowserNavigatingEventArgs e)
{
    System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(e.Url.ToString());

    e.Cancel = true;
}

I am using a dropdown list to update the html file that the webBrowser is displaying like so:

private void ddl_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
   webBrowser1.Url = myURI;  
}

Now the problem I'm having is that with the _Navigating method above, the webBrowser does not load any subsequent changes to the URL (thanks to the e.cancel I guess) so it only displays the first html file it loads.

If I remove the _Navigating method it updates fine but then the links open up in the same webBrowser control which is what I do not want.

How can I get it to work both ways?

Best Answer

I hope this can help you.

If you want to open a link in a browser, you can add this simple code:

Process.Start("http://google.com");

Remember, there is a lot of information about it. Here in stack Overflow you can take a look in this post: How to open in default browser in C#

If you want to open your link in another browser, you can use this code:

System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("firefox.exe", "http://www.google.com");

Don't forget to visit this post called: How do I open alternative webbrowser (Mozilla or Firefox) and show the specific url?

And Finally, I could recommend you this stack overtflow post called: .NET C#: WebBrowser control Navigate() does not load targeted URL

I hope this information can help you a little bit.

Related Solutions

C# – Clickable links in WebBrowser control in edit mode

Here's a small WinForm App which seems to work. When setting the edit mode it record all the link positions of all A tags and then check the cursor position of the mouse. I'm not sure if OffsetRectangle gives correct values if there is frames or nesting of tags, but the sample html in the app works.

It could be modified to capture onclick etc from other tags if needed.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace WindowsFormsApplication1
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        private readonly Dictionary<Rectangle, Uri> _links = new Dictionary<Rectangle, Uri>();
        private readonly Regex _reLink = new Regex("href=['\"](?<link>.*?)['\"]");

        private const string _html =
            "<html><body><br><div style='top:20px;left:50px;border:solid 1px red'><a href='http://www.cnn.com'>CNN</a></div><br><font size='14'>xx</font><a href='http://stackoverflow.com'>stackoverflow</a></body></html>";

        private bool _isEditMode;

        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            webBrowser1.DocumentText = _html;
            webBrowser1.Document.Click += Document_Click;
            webBrowser1.Document.MouseMove += Document_MouseMove;
        }

        private void Document_MouseMove(object sender, HtmlElementEventArgs e)
        {
            if (!_isEditMode) return;
            ChangeCursorIfOverLink(e);
        }

        private void ChangeCursorIfOverLink(HtmlElementEventArgs e)
        {
            foreach (KeyValuePair<Rectangle, Uri> link in _links)
            {
                if (CursorWithinControl(e, link.Key))
                {
                    if (Cursor.Current != Cursors.Hand)
                        Cursor.Current = Cursors.Hand;
                    return;
                }
            }
            Cursor.Current = Cursors.Default;
        }

        private void Document_Click(object sender, HtmlElementEventArgs e)
        {
            NavigateLinkInEditMode(e);
        }

        private void NavigateLinkInEditMode(HtmlElementEventArgs e)
        {
            if (_isEditMode)
            {
                foreach (KeyValuePair<Rectangle, Uri> link in _links)
                {
                    if (CursorWithinControl(e, link.Key))
                    {
                        webBrowser1.Navigate(link.Value);
                        return;
                    }
                }
            }
        }

        private bool CursorWithinControl(HtmlElementEventArgs e, Rectangle rectangle)
        {
            return e.MousePosition.X >= rectangle.Left
                   && e.MousePosition.X <= rectangle.Left + rectangle.Width
                   && e.MousePosition.Y >= rectangle.Top
                   && e.MousePosition.Y <= rectangle.Top + rectangle.Height;
        }

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            RecordLinkPositions();
            webBrowser1.Document.ExecCommand("EditMode", false, null);
            webBrowser1.DocumentText = _html;
            _isEditMode = true;
        }

        private void RecordLinkPositions()
        {
            foreach (HtmlElement element in webBrowser1.Document.All)
            {
                if (element.TagName == "A")
                {
                    string url = _reLink.Match(element.OuterHtml).Groups["link"].Value;
                    _links.Add(element.OffsetRectangle, new Uri(url));
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

C# – How to open in default browser in C#

You can just write

System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("http://google.com");

EDIT: The WebBrowser control is an embedded copy of IE.
Therefore, any links inside of it will open in IE.

To change this behavior, you can handle the Navigating event.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C# – Clickable links in WebBrowser control in edit mode

C# – How to open in default browser in C#

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