WPF WebBrowser Control: What browser does it use

internet explorerwebbrowser-controlwpf

Does the WPF WebBrowser control always use Internet Explorer or does it use the default web browser on the system ?

Regards,
MadSeb

Best Answer

One issue the Web Browser Control has that it’s perpetually stuck in IE 7 rendering mode by default. Even though IE 8 and now 9 have significantly upgraded the IE rendering engine to be more CSS and HTML compliant by default the Web Browser control will have none of it. IE 9 in particular – with its much improved CSS support and basic HTML 5 support is a big improvement and even though the IE control uses some of IE’s internal rendering technology it’s still stuck in the old IE 7 rendering by default.

This applies whether you’re using the Web Browser control in a WPF application, a WinForms app, a FoxPro or VB classic application using the ActiveX control. Behind the scenes all these UI platforms use the COM interfaces and so you’re stuck by those same rules.

See this: Web Browser Control – Specifying the IE Version

http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2011/May/21/Web-Browser-Control-Specifying-the-IE-Version

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C# – WPF User Control Parent

Try using the following:

Window parentWindow = Window.GetWindow(userControlReference);

The GetWindow method will walk the VisualTree for you and locate the window that is hosting your control.

You should run this code after the control has loaded (and not in the Window constructor) to prevent the GetWindow method from returning null. E.g. wire up an event:

this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(UserControl_Loaded);

Running Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8 on the same machine

I wouldn't do it. Use virtual PCs instead. It might take a little setup, but you'll thank yourself in the long run. In my experience, you can't really get them cleanly installed side by side and unless they are standalone installs you can't really verify that it is 100% true-to-browser rendering.

Update: Looks like one of the better ways to accomplish this (if running Windows 7) is using Windows XP mode to set up multiple virtual machines: Testing Multiple Versions of IE on one PC at the IEBlog.

Update 2: (11/2014) There are new solutions since this was last updated. Microsoft now provides VMs for any environment to test multiple versions of IE: Modern.IE

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C# – WPF User Control Parent

Running Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8 on the same machine

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