Dear community members,

UPDATE: I made an attempt in CefSharp and could create a working WinForms application. However, as for WebView2, I failed to package CefSharp in a plugin.

Some guidance on how to use WebView2, CefSharp or any other web browser integration which is more modern than the Webbrowser control implementing IE would be welcome.

My first impression is that packaging a plugin with CefSharp would make the plugin quite heavy (several megabytes).

Thanks in advance for your support.

Regards,

Laurent

Hi Laurent Pierret,

We successfully implemented the CefSharp chromium browser with the project Reports Viewer Plus.  Make reference to the plugin manifest to understand what is required to be packaged with the plugin.

https://github.com/RWS/Sdl-Community/blob/master/Reports.Viewer/Reports.Viewer/pluginpackage.manifest.xml

Dear Patrick Andrew Hartnett,

Thank you for your prompt reply. I already had a look at the Report Viewer in Github and still did not manage to make CefSharp work in my plugin. I was going through all steps again to describe them here when I noticed that the package for WPF (used in Report Viewer) is slightly different from the one for Winforms that I want to use. After noticing this and combining it with other information found here and here, I finally managed to use CefSharp as browser in my plugin.

Here are the steps I followed, in case it is of any use for other community members:

1. Add CefSharp.WinForms (version 96.0.170) NuGet package to the project
2. Change pluginmanifest and included the following references (this is based on what is used in Reports Viewer + other references which were missing when running the plugin for the first time). It might be that all references are not required:

<Include>
	<File>CefSharp.WinForms.dll</File>
	<File>CefSharp.Core.dll</File>

	<File>x86\CefSharp.dll</File>
	<File>x86\CefSharp.Core.Runtime.dll</File>
	<File>x86\CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess.Core.dll</File>
	<File>x86\CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess.exe</File>

	<File>x86\chrome_elf.dll</File>
	<File>x86\libcef.dll</File>
	<File>x86\icudtl.dat</File>
	<File>x86\libEGL.dll</File>
	<File>x86\libGLESv2.dll</File>

	<File>x86\chrome_100_percent.pak</File>
	<File>x86\chrome_200_percent.pak</File>

	<File>x86\snapshot_blob.bin</File>
	<File>x86\v8_context_snapshot.bin</File>

	<File>x86\resources.pak</File>
	<File>x86\d3dcompiler_47.dll</File>
	<File>x86\CefSharp.Core.dll</File>
	<File>x86\locales\en-US.pak</File>
</Include>

namespace CefSharpPlugin
{
    public partial class TestForm : Form
    {
        public ChromiumWebBrowser _chromiumBrowser;

        public TestForm()
        {
            CefRuntime.SubscribeAnyCpuAssemblyResolver();

            InitializeComponent();

            InitializeCefSharp();
        }

        [MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.NoInlining)]
        private void InitializeCefSharp()
        {
            var settings = new CefSettings();
            settings.BrowserSubprocessPath = Path.Combine(Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location), @"x86\CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess.exe");

            Cef.Initialize(settings, performDependencyCheck: false, browserProcessHandler: null);

            _chromiumBrowser = new ChromiumWebBrowser(WebSiteURLasString);
            this.Controls.Add(_chromiumBrowser);
            _chromiumBrowser.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
        }

        private void TestForm_FormClosing(object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e)
        {
            Cef.Shutdown();
        }
    }
}

Subscribe to any CPU should be done before any component is initialized. Important is also to set the Browser Suprocess Path. I set the performDependencyCheck to false because it raised an error in debugging.

I don't know if it is the best way to do it but at least it worked for me.

Nevertheless, I am still not 100% convinced by CefSharp. My plugin size is over a 130MB and accessing DOM objects does not look straightforward. If anyone has experience with Webview2, which implementation and use seems closer to the one of the old Webbrowser control, I am still interested.

Thanks.

Laurent

Dear Patrick Andrew Hartnett,

Thank you for your prompt reply. I already had a look at the Report Viewer in Github and still did not manage to make CefSharp work in my plugin. I was going through all steps again to describe them here when I noticed that the package for WPF (used in Report Viewer) is slightly different from the one for Winforms that I want to use. After noticing this and combining it with other information found here and here, I finally managed to use CefSharp as browser in my plugin.

Here are the steps I followed, in case it is of any use for other community members:

1. Add CefSharp.WinForms (version 96.0.170) NuGet package to the project
2. Change pluginmanifest and included the following references (this is based on what is used in Reports Viewer + other references which were missing when running the plugin for the first time). It might be that all references are not required:

<Include>
	<File>CefSharp.WinForms.dll</File>
	<File>CefSharp.Core.dll</File>

	<File>x86\CefSharp.dll</File>
	<File>x86\CefSharp.Core.Runtime.dll</File>
	<File>x86\CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess.Core.dll</File>
	<File>x86\CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess.exe</File>

	<File>x86\chrome_elf.dll</File>
	<File>x86\libcef.dll</File>
	<File>x86\icudtl.dat</File>
	<File>x86\libEGL.dll</File>
	<File>x86\libGLESv2.dll</File>

	<File>x86\chrome_100_percent.pak</File>
	<File>x86\chrome_200_percent.pak</File>

	<File>x86\snapshot_blob.bin</File>
	<File>x86\v8_context_snapshot.bin</File>

	<File>x86\resources.pak</File>
	<File>x86\d3dcompiler_47.dll</File>
	<File>x86\CefSharp.Core.dll</File>
	<File>x86\locales\en-US.pak</File>
</Include>

namespace CefSharpPlugin
{
    public partial class TestForm : Form
    {
        public ChromiumWebBrowser _chromiumBrowser;

        public TestForm()
        {
            CefRuntime.SubscribeAnyCpuAssemblyResolver();

            InitializeComponent();

            InitializeCefSharp();
        }

        [MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.NoInlining)]
        private void InitializeCefSharp()
        {
            var settings = new CefSettings();
            settings.BrowserSubprocessPath = Path.Combine(Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location), @"x86\CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess.exe");

            Cef.Initialize(settings, performDependencyCheck: false, browserProcessHandler: null);

            _chromiumBrowser = new ChromiumWebBrowser(WebSiteURLasString);
            this.Controls.Add(_chromiumBrowser);
            _chromiumBrowser.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
        }

        private void TestForm_FormClosing(object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e)
        {
            Cef.Shutdown();
        }
    }
}

Subscribe to any CPU should be done before any component is initialized. Important is also to set the Browser Suprocess Path. I set the performDependencyCheck to false because it raised an error in debugging.

I don't know if it is the best way to do it but at least it worked for me.

Nevertheless, I am still not 100% convinced by CefSharp. My plugin size is over a 130MB and accessing DOM objects does not look straightforward. If anyone has experience with Webview2, which implementation and use seems closer to the one of the old Webbrowser control, I am still interested.

Thanks.

Laurent