i am looking for a programming team to help me with a web browser i am developing

[Meoint]

okay... you probably saw my long thread title and wanted to see what i needed
and what i need is some good and average personen inside VB2008 programming
i am trying to make a big web browser and i hoped i could get someone here
to help me to compleet it.

soo if you are interesed please post a replay here or pm me

and i realy hope someone will help me

[RobDog888]

I removed your email to help protect you from spam. Members can contact you via your user profile

[Meoint]

okay

[RudiVisser]

The issue with building a web browser is that it's not just drawing the page. You have to consider things such as Javascript and plugins (Flash, Java, etc.). Then you have the W3C standards to compete with, as well as taking unstandard code (see below).

Problem is that some (obviously old web pages too) pages are written in (bad) HTML, which means you can't use something like an XML Parser to build a document tree.

I've had this idea before, but what with a custom HTML (not XHTML) parser and having to make a whole Javascript engine, then having to find a way to display everything on screen too in the exact positioning like it does in other browsers, I just gave up.

[agent]

The issue with building a web browser is that it's not just drawing the page. You have to consider things such as Javascript and plugins (Flash, Java, etc.). Then you have the W3C standards to compete with, as well as taking unstandard code (see below).

Problem is that some (obviously old web pages too) pages are written in (bad) HTML, which means you can't use something like an XML Parser to build a document tree.

I've had this idea before, but what with a custom HTML (not XHTML) parser and having to make a whole Javascript engine, then having to find a way to display everything on screen too in the exact positioning like it does in other browsers, I just gave up.

I've been thinking about how difficult it would be to build a standards compliant html/css parser and renderer in either vb.net or c#.

It shouldn't be too hard to make a parser that works on html using recursive regular expressions. I think Expresso (an expression builder I've used) even comes with a sample expression for a rudimentary html parser.

CSS is the same.

As far as javascript and (if you want to implement it) vbscript? Implement that as a plugin. The parser sees the <script> tag and sends it to the appropriate plugin. No plugin? Treat it as if JavaScript is turned of. <embed> tags are treated the same way.

You could probably even treat Firefox plugins and ad-ins the same way. You'd have the "Firefox Plugin Host" plugin.

The main renderer uses GDI+ to draw everything. Exact positioning follows a very standard procedure which shouldn't be too hard to work out. Relative positioning goes by where the tag itself lays with regards to the surrounding text (move the paragraph, move the item). Percentage-based positioning counts the width and height of the drawing surface as 100%.

Step one, though is to build a document object model and parse the html and css into it.

[RudiVisser]

It shouldn't be too hard to make a parser that works on html using recursive regular expressions. I think Expresso (an expression builder I've used) even comes with a sample expression for a rudimentary html parser.

Sounds good, but it's when you're looking at one page in your browser, then in IE, then in Opera, then in Firefox, and they all display it differently that you're going to be at the point of giving up the will to live on trying to work out why, then adding some messy code in for this specific case.

As far as javascript and (if you want to implement it) vbscript? Implement that as a plugin. The parser sees the <script> tag and sends it to the appropriate plugin. No plugin? Treat it as if JavaScript is turned of. <embed> tags are treated the same way.

You could probably even treat Firefox plugins and ad-ins the same way. You'd have the "Firefox Plugin Host" plugin.

I completely agree about the plugins thing, but Javascript, imo, must be built in, since it needs access to everything the browser knows about this page (ie. DOM/navigator strings blahblah). I guess you could use Mozilla's Javascript Engine, but is that cheating?

The main renderer uses GDI+ to draw everything. Exact positioning follows a very standard procedure which shouldn't be too hard to work out. Relative positioning goes by where the tag itself lays with regards to the surrounding text (move the paragraph, move the item). Percentage-based positioning counts the width and height of the drawing surface as 100%.

Yes of course but I'm talking about it in the view of, for example, take a look at absolutely positioned things in IE, then take a look in Safari. Safari has a nice problem with pixel perfection and if Apple still can't get it right

Step one, though is to build a document object model and parse the html and css into it.

We should speak more.

[agent]

I completely agree about the plugins thing, but Javascript, imo, must be built in, since it needs access to everything the browser knows about this page (ie. DOM/navigator strings blahblah). I guess you could use Mozilla's Javascript Engine, but is that cheating?

Put the definition for the DOM classes into a different file, say DOM.dll. All plugins that need to access it can reference it. Next, when the plugin is initialized for a particular document, the DOM for the currently loaded page is passed to it. I've written several plugin systems that do similar to this. Simple as pie.

To render plugins, btw, I propose that the plugin returns it's size to the browser which makes room for it. Then, the plugin provides a control, say ".PluginWindow as Control" which is then placed on top of the document. This is how most browsers do it and relieves us of painting each frame of a flash animation manually.

[RudiVisser]

Put the definition for the DOM classes into a different file, say DOM.dll. All plugins that need to access it can reference it. Next, when the plugin is initialized for a particular document, the DOM for the currently loaded page is passed to it. I've written several plugin systems that do similar to this. Simple as pie.

I see what you mean yes, or even if there was 1 DLL for the whole rendering engine each plugin could just render that and access all of the public methods/attributes/classes that would expose all of the information that it would ever need.

To render plugins, btw, I propose that the plugin returns it's size to the browser which makes room for it. Then, the plugin provides a control, say ".PluginWindow as Control" which is then placed on top of the document. This is how most browsers do it and relieves us of painting each frame of a flash animation manually.

I see exactly what you mean and it's definately the best way to go about it.

I think if any browser was to seriously compete it would need to have support for Mozilla plugins (like Opera does for example) so that the plugin vendors (read Adobe) wouldn't need to support your browser at all with a new version, it would just work. Would take a bit of reading

[agent]

One issue I see, though, is this: what do the mainstream browsers (other than IE) have on us that we don't have the means to correct easily?

Portability.

Firefox is available for something approaching 15 different operating systems. I have Opera on my phone and my brother has it on his Wii. Safari is available on both Mac and PC.

If we are doing this in .Net, we are probably stuck on windows. I know next to nothing about Mono or GTK. Some of the more intricate stuff, such as reflection, which is required for the plugin system, might not even be possible in Mono.

We need to find a good Mono person to ask for this one.