Webview2 Observation

[spl]

Jim has given a great gift for WB with his latest extender. But before going further with this thread, a shout out to those logging in who have either a Win10 or Win11 PC.

Take a second to open up a cmd administrator window
 
then execute:  C:\ dir \Microsoft.Web.WebView2.WinForms.dll /s

and similar command with
Microsoft.Web.WebView2.Core.dll
WebView2Loader.dll
Microsoft.Web.WebView2.Wpf.dll

and if you get more than one folder/file we can continue this

[JTaylor]

I quit after I hit about 17 for the first one.

jim

[spl]

I quit after I hit about 17 for the first one.
jim

...and I assume same filename but different size depending on app/folder contained in... now to re-quote Tony from your original thread announcing the extender

Interesting. WebView2 is already on our to-do list. But since the list is long it hasn't been gotten to yet.

To me that seems like a major challenge and a lot of effort for WB, with considerable cost/benefit. The question being, what are the benefits? If the object of having Webview2 components in WB is for web-scraping, that can already be done with MSXML or other components. And Webview2 can be frustrating... I tried it with PS, downloaded the Nuget packages, tested scripts placed on-line trying to get a winform webview2 and kept failing with versions of Microsoft.Web.WebView2.WinForms.dll {unable to load errors} until I found one with size of 40,880. And I assume that was one of the 17 you scrolled through.

Anyway, finally got my GUI, but fairly meaningless since Webview2 does NOT have an internal DOM parser component. All cynicism aside... who wants an app that just shows content you can already see in a browser unless you can scrape it.

Would like to ask Tony for just a general concept for including Webview2 into WB, otherwise maybe work with Jim to make his Extender a web-scraper w/out need to display a url. 

[td]

I quit after I hit about 17 for the first one.

jim

That is because of how MSFT decided managed applications should be packaged. It's sort of like a cow depositing the results of digestion.

[JTaylor]

Having grown up on a farm raising cows, I concur.

Jim

[spl]

Having grown up on a farm raising cows, I concur.

Jim

Can relate to the cows. I was 5 when first kicked in the head while milking. Relating to MSFT seems a stretch.

[td]

Can relate to the cows. I was 5 when first kicked in the head while milking. Relating to MSFT seems a stretch.

The simile targeted the managed application policy, not the company in general, but since MSFT has a large pile of cash, it could also apply to the company. Think cash cow.

[spl]

Back to 'observations' about WebView2. Seems the .dll's can come in either 32 or 64 bit, depending upon the app they are associated with. I believe (could be wrong) webview is part of the chromium open-source, and because the file sizes for the dll's are different, as is the bitness, one might assume they can be built to support different apps.

I discovered this anomaly. The Microsoft.Web.WebView2.WinForms.dll I finally found that worked with my PS script to display and parse url's is 32bit. It runs well in 64-bit PS ISE, but if run in 32-bit ISE displays the winform but not the webview. The webview dll's associated with my Office 64-bit are all 32-bit while those associated with  Duck-Duck-Go browser are 64-bit. Decided Webview2 not worth exploring any further. The good news, however, was I discovered a simple way to determine if a dll was 32 or 64 bit.