WebKitX

[JTaylor]

Anyone using WebKitX with WinBatch?   If so, willing share what is needed for the COM control in a dialog?   Assuming that is possible.    They say on their site that is works with WinBatch but they provide no info on what is needed.   I have tried numerous things but no luck so far.

Jim

[JTaylor]

No takers?   :'(

[JTaylor]

Got an answer from the WebKitX folks.  There was a WinBatch related bug.   They sent me a fix and it now works so feel better in that I was doing things right.

Seems crazy expensive to me but looks like they have done a nice thorough job in implementation.


Jim

[kdmoyers]

Jim,
If you get to the other side of the webkitx project, it would be great if you could post a quickie "what I did over my summer vacation" post about it.  I have not the faintest idea what Webkitx is good for and would love to hear what you are up to.  It's bound to be interesting!
thanks,
Kirby

EDIT: Oh I see, so it's like a controllable web browser control? that's cool.
What does one do with that?  Can you automate web site interactions?

[td]

From the WinBatch perspective, my guess is that it allows a WinBatch user to embed a browser in a WIL Dialog and then create a fancy HTML5/javascript user interface with application like functionality. The components appear to be off-the-shelf opensource javascript interpreter and HTML rendering. This is a good thing because that means the latest Google/whoever dictated standards are supported.  One thing I find interesting is that a lot of the screenshots appear to be from Windows 7 systems. Not that the Consolidated WIL Help file doesn't have a number of those also...

[JTaylor]

Will do.  Once I had something useful I was going to post and ask Tony to put it in the Tech Database so as to save others the time I have spent tracking down information about how to get started.    Not going as smoothly as I would like but partly due to differences between it and the windows browser control.  So far the support there has been very helpful.  Nice to see a vendor that actively supports WinBatch in their project.

Assuming I understand, it is an ActiveX version of CEF (Chrome Embedded Framework).   I use the windows browser object a lot but it doesn't always handle things as well as it could but CEF is a different story.  A few months ago I grabbed the C# version and worked through implementing it in a project and it works very well.  Handles all the javascript and multimedia stuff like a browser should.   Again, assuming I have read things correctly, they have carried it further though in that they have fully implemented access to the DOM and just about anything you might want to do regarding access, manipulation and control of a web page.   Now to see how far I can take it in WinBatch before my trial expires.


Jim

[td]

CEF is basically an API cover of the various parts of Google's Chrome browser.  Those parts include the V8 javascript engine, Blink - Chomes HTML rendering engine, and Google's  Pepper Plugin API.

[JTaylor]

Yep.   It sounds better coming from you :-)

They are looking into another issue that seems to affect WinBatch...will keep you posted.

Jim

[stanl]

WebKitX kinda crept up on me to. Pretty nice section giving cred to Winbatch with sample script. I assume the download is more a developer/limited version pre-licensing..... but testing/contributing to any code for the Tech DB - count me in.

[td]

Yep.   It sounds better coming from you :-)

Not sure about the "sounds better" part but we did look into incorporating some of Google's APIs into a WinBatch extender awhile back. So there is some familiarity with the various Google web browser related offerings around here.

[JTaylor]

Yes on download and credit page.   Slightly different than implementing browser control in that you have to detect the "OnBrowserReady" event and then initialize the browser object.   The thing holding me up is that for some of the events, such as "OnBeforeNavigate", you have turn them on via a Setttings object.  You have to get that during the "OnCreate" event but that appears to trigger too early for WinBatch to detect it.  They are looking into the issue.  Again, I have been very impressed with their support responsiveness.  They immediately fixed a problem that was hindering the control to initialize in the dialog and are not working on the event issue.  Guessing they don't have a lot of WinBatch users because someone would have surely bumped into this problem before.

If you want to hold off on the download so as to not use up the 30 days I will let you know once it can be fully utilized and you can start at that point.

Jim

WebKitX kinda crept up on me to. Pretty nice section giving cred to Winbatch with sample script. I assume the download is more a developer/limited version pre-licensing..... but testing/contributing to any code for the Tech DB - count me in.

[JTaylor]

You have my VOTE.   If you do mail-in voting I will even send in a hundred or two in favor.    I would love to use WebKitX but not sure I can justify the price.   Would happily help work on a project to implement it in WinBatch though.   I was actually looking into what it would take to do that and is how I ran across WebKitX.    Not sure I could do it right though without your involvement as I have no idea how the Dialog connects to the COM controls.

Jim

Yep.   It sounds better coming from you :-)

Not sure about the "sounds better" part but we did look into incorporating some of Google's APIs into a WinBatch extender awhile back. So there is some familiarity with the various Google web browser related offerings around here.

[JTaylor]

Just got word back that they should have the OnCreate Event issue resolved in the September release.   If I wasn't clear before, this doesn't keep the control from working.  You just don't have access to the Settings object which is required to turn on some of the events such as OnBeforeNavigate.   Other than this issue everything I have tried works well.    The number of events, methods and properties available is almost overwhelming.    In case anyone goes to try this and have used the browser object before, the one big difference over the browser object is that you must set up and wait for the OnBrowserReady event before you initialize your browser object.   

Once they get this other issue resolved I will post some sample code.   Happy to post something sooner if anyone is having a problem.   The sample on their site should get you started though.

Jim