MSHTML and IE 7

[stephen weber]

Hi,

I am working on learning MSHTML to do the usual filling in and interacting with web pages. Is there a clue yet on the new addition to Internet Explorer 7.0 regarding the different pages being TABS?
I guess the proper way to write the question is. How do you interact with the different Tabs?

I tried using SPY .. but that didn't get me far..

[stephen weber]

Alright... I know you are looking at your computer right now and have 12 opened internet explorers on the bottom of the computer screen's toolbar, just because you haven't figured out how to program a program to open one internet explorer 7 with each of those 12 sites in the internal tab, closing the 12 on the computer's toolbar. Or are you going to just spend 12 more months readjusting how you jump to other web sites.

I'll start working on it,... fuming....

[kleinma]

Are you trying to tap into IE7? Usually MSHTML is used in conjunction with the WB control that is part of the .NET 2.0 Framework (Or the ActiveX COM version)

My signature has a good MSHTML tutorial that works with the webbrowser control to manipulate webpages.

[stephen weber]

Hi again.

Yes to your questions.

Now I saw your tutorial. I mean I downloaded it. And that brings me to a delicate subject. Without getting the details it unzips a handful of files. Some of them are .vb . From my previous posts a minute ago you see that I have the express edition of VB. I shouldn't think that would be a problem but I am unsure how to even look through your tutorial. I can see some of the programs (labeled .vb). i am assuming they run as you have a setup webpage included, I couldn't manage to grasp the order of it all. Any idea how I should proceed with examining the files of your tutorial?

Also on a sub note. I may have accidentally deleted my .NET mshtml.dll, cause it isn't there anymore. I found that the COM version loaded (after several minutes) . I was hoping if I deleted the dll file I could just reload it from the internet but my computer says that downloaded mshtml.dll isn't real (something like that). Currently I am thinking of reloading all of vb express edition to get it back that is being able to reference the .NET version of MSHTML...


On a thought about the use. When your message arrived here it runs by opening a separate internet explorer to see my new message. A good change would be to have it just add another tab. And maybe I want to see if I can set the blank tab to jump to google.com or somewhere instead of about:blank....

[kleinma]

when you unzip the files, they should be in the correct directory structure, you should find a .sln file 1 or 2 folders in. That is what you should open, not the .vb files.

Look in your windows system32 directory for mshtml, it should also be in the dll cache folder. If you do a simple search in windows, you can find if you actually deleted it or not.

The things you metion about IE all exist in IE7. Look in the internet options.

You can even set multiple homepages so when you open IE, it automatically opens multiple tabs to the desired pages.

[stephen weber]

Thanks, I missed that Tab button. That solved my immediate problems with it. But one of the tabs said, let Internet explorer decide "whether to open a new window in tabs or a new window". So that at least still is a question to answer for me.

Ok. Now in Windows system32 I have a file mshtml.tlb which is being used by my system. I believe it is the COM version. Next in the list I do have a mshtml.dll. So if I asked you should tell me to go to the add reference (tab) and press add and browse to this file. Ok. Each time I do that I get an error message. (I wish I knew how to place a screen shot like you do)

it says
"A reference to 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\mshtml.dll" could not be added. Please make sure that the file is accessible, and that it is a valid assembly or COM component. "

I then had the assumption that somehow this file was corrupt and I should download a new copy. I did. I put it in another folder and tried to add it with the same error message.

And as for your WebpageManipulation. Ok here is what happens there. I download it, and get a folder with a subfolder, a webpageManipulation.sln and webpageManipulation.suo.
Per your suggestion.
I try opening the second one or WebpageManipulation.sln
It asks me if I am using Visual basic Express or Visual web Developer 2005. I chose Visual basic.
It opens a VB window and then I get this error message.

"One or more projects in the solution could not be loaded for the following reason(S):
The project file or web has been moved, renamed or is not on your computer.
These projects will be labeled as unavailable in Solutin Explorer. Expand the project node to show the reason the project could not be loaded."

Again I did not do anything with the downloading. My computer ran that.
So it asks me to expand project node. I don't know what that means, all I have is a blank project page.

OK I MOved the files into my typical project files directory . Now it opens. And guess what. I have build errors. MSHTML.Dll is missing.
So full circle.

[kleinma]

1) to take screenshots simply do this

bring the window you want to take a screenshot of to the front of all other windows and make sure it has focus. Hold the alt key and press the prtscn (print screen) key.

Now click start -> run -> and type mspaint and hit enter. Micrsoft Paint will open

Hit ctrl+v (paste) on your keyboard and it will paste in the window you just captured a screen shot of. From here you can trim the image if you want to remove excess parts that don't pertain to what you want to show (or scribble out any sensitive data visible in the screen shot)

Then just save it as a jpg (because bmp are generally a lot bigger) and upload it when you post. If you only upload 1 image in a post, it will automatically be displayed when you submit your post. If you upload more than 1, they will just be links (you can make then screenshots using the [img] tags on the forum.

2) As for your issue with mshtml, if you go to add reference, and are on the .NET tab, and scroll down, do you not see it there? (see image)

[stephen weber]

[kleinma]

Ok check this directory... this is where the mshtml.dll is on my PC

C:\Program Files\Microsoft.NET\Primary Interop Assemblies\

[stephen weber]

No... I have a copy as I said. What would it take to get it to this folder, in terms of regsvr32 or whatever.?


I tried copying mshtml.dll to this folder it is 3494 KB and regsvr32 in command window. but I get this

[kleinma]

No its 7.63MB in size and its version 7.0.3300.0 on my system.

It is also installed in the global assembly cache...

Look under Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Configuration and see if its there (see picture)

Worst case scenario, you can try to install the office PIA assemblies, which contains mshtml.dll. It may reinstall it for you.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/897646

[stephen weber]

No It isn't in my cash cache directory.
I tried the download. But it won't continue as I don't have office.

So
Here is the question that I started with. If I redownload VB express edition it should be included with that. I see that their directions say to remove BETA versions etc. Do you know if I have to do all that? Or if it would erase my projects and projects folder that I already have written?

Well I copied my projects to safety. And it appears that the Download has a repair / reinstall item. So it is off and running. hoping for the best.

[kleinma]

you should be ok to reinstall without any issues (I would suggest backing up any projects to be safe though)

You may want to see if VB Express has a repair feature if you go into add/remove programs and select it out of the list. It may just be able to repair without having to do a full reinstall. I don't use express, so I am not sure if it has this or not.

[stephen weber]

It didn't solve the problem.

It "repaired" and didn't change any of my project files which is a good thing.

So now I am left with a few possibilities. I think since it isn't in the global cache then that is the problem as that list looks much like what you get when you press the reference add button.

On the internet search I ran into talk of gacutil.exe with \i to add a dll file.
You have one 7.63 MB in size?

[stephen weber]

Ok I don't have complete confirmation cause downloads take forever.

But what I think happened was at one time I downloaded Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 SDK and running out of harddrive I might have deleted it as it isn't really what I use (yet?). And this might have scrubbed out the bugger.

So I am reloading SDK and I saw it loading microsoft.mshtml.dll. And sure enough a second later the folder you were mentioning c:\program files\microsoft.NET\Primary Interop Assemblies suddenly had it loaded.

I apparently don't NEED this program to run Express. But I read that there are some linkage problems with uninstalling SDK or Express.

It worked. I was successful in placing a reference to microsoft.mshtml.dll

I think I'll forget about the obvious. That I downloaded nearly 700MB just to get one dll.... But other then that office combo I couldn't find microsoft.mshtml.dll by itself..?

On to programming .. First perusing WebPageManipulation.....

[stephen weber]

In regard to WebManipulation. My first question is about the programming itself. You have the Form = frmTest and if I step through it.
It doesn't go to frmTest_Load as I would have guessed. It goes to the last subroutine:

Private Sub rdoPageTypeChanged(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles rdoFind.CheckedChanged, rdoStandard.CheckedChanged
        If Not Me.Visible Then Return
        If rdoStandard.Checked Then
            wb.Navigate(Application.StartupPath & "\TestPage.htm")
            lblHighlightText.Visible = False
            txtHighlightText.Visible = False
        Else
            wb.Navigate(Application.StartupPath & "\HighlightPage.htm")
            lblHighlightText.Visible = True
            txtHighlightText.Visible = True
        End If
    End Sub 

This seems to be a loop to insure the webbrowser loads up properly. But I don't know how it is instigated...