Using FireFox instead of TWebBrowser in Delphi applications

admin — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 03:02:34 +0000

I found from here, it’s nice for firefox and delphi fans. By the emamlpe, we can build new web browser by firefox core.

Would you like to display HTML in your applications using an open source solution? The Gecko Runtime Environment by the Mozilla Foundation can be embedded in a Delphi application by using the Mozilla ActiveX Control. This article shows how to use this control and points out some of the differences between it and the IE based TWebBrowser. The accompanying source code was written in Delphi 6 but should work in Delphi 5 and later. If you want to use the Mozilla ActiveX Control with Delphi 4 you also need to read Delphi 4 Lizard Taming.

First some background and terminology. In 1998 Netscape released the source code for Communicator, their Internet suite, to the open source community and created Mozilla.org. After several years development, the project finally released Mozilla 1.0 in 2002. By then Netscape had been bought by AOL, who repackaged Mozilla 1.0 as Netscape 7.0. In 2003, AOL closed its Netscape software division and the Mozilla code is now entirely controlled by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. During development the Communicator code was completely re-written and new technologies were invented such as XUL, a cross platform UI definition language using XML, CSS and JavaScript. The Mozilla Suite of a Browser, Mail and Newsreader, HTML Composer and an Address Book is now being superseded by Firefox (browser), Thunderbird (email), and Nvu (composer). Behind all these applications is the Gecko Runtime Environment (GRE) – a fast, free and standards compliant HTML display engine.

All the Mozilla code is released under an MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license so you can choose the license that suits your needs when using it. For C programmers, building applications based on the Mozilla code is easy, they can just download the code and start hacking immediately but there is also an option for the rest of us. There is an ActiveX control, written by Adam Lock, which can be used to embed the GRE in other applications. This Mozilla ActiveX Control is written to emulate the familiar IE based TWebBrowser.

There is little documentation for the Mozilla Control but you can use the MSDN WebBrowser documentation and ask questions in the netscape.public.mozilla.embedding newsgroup. Read more.

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Using FireFox instead of TWebBrowser in Delphi applications

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