VC Venture Beta - My Browser

[danielneri]

alright i made a crappy attempt at making a web browser in c++.
shockingly enough i succeded, though the main options menu doesnt work. Just wanted to get some peoples input on it.

---EDIT:
- added installshield using the windows msi thingy
- automatic shortcut generation+registration entry(none though)
---

urls
server 1:
http://www.vipercreations.com/venture
server 2:
http://www.eliteczlteam.com/venture

2 different servers incase any of you have trouble downloading from one of them

[CannonBallGuy]

It won't let me unarchive it on Mac OS 10.4.

[danielneri]

right i didnt make a mac release yet :P

[CannonBallGuy]

I'm suprised it still didn't let me unarchive it...

[Nuvo]

Let me guess...
Made with Visual C++ Express using the browser component or Gecko via the ActiveX control...
If any of this applies, there's never going to be an Apple or Linux compatible release since ActiveX is windows only.
Microsofts browser component is actually just an activex control that hooks into the rendering engine from Internet Explorer and the component is accessable from any IDE or language with support for ActiveX controls (I installed it ages ago in delphi by hand).
There's a similar, 3rd party ActiveX control available for the Gecko engine which is used in Firefox and Mozilla suite, but that requires a manual install (easy enough to do) and the end user would need the control and the GRE (which is just Gecko without a browser front end, but since you need the GRE to run Mozilla browsers, you don't need to download the GRE if you're already using Firefox or Mozilla auite, just the component).
Of course, Gecko is accessable without the ActiveX control if you're programming in C++, which makes it much more portable, but manual use of the GRE isn't for beginners.

I built a small browser myself some time ago based on the Explorer rendering engine with a partially Flash based GUI, but Explorer sucks and the last time I looked, the mozillabrowser activex project wasn't as flexible as it wasn't 100% complete (it was being designed to be almost identical to code for as the explorer control, but it wasn't as far along so some things were possible with the explorer one, but not the mozilla control).
I wouldn't bother making a browser with the Explorer component as Explorer isn't overly reliable, secure or popular
http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/control.htm is the site with the mozillabrowser control and look at the list of environments that can support it... Yes, you can run Mozilla in Explorer

The reason why you can't inflate the archive CBG, is that his archives simply don't work.
Using both XP's inbuilt ZIP manager and winRAR on archives from both of those download sites failed miserably (I could see the files when exploring, but the compression algorythm was unknown).
Perhapse daniel is using a compression tool which doesn't use standard ZIP format compression (althout winRAR is usally pretty good with compression formats including *nix ones).

[danielneri]

oh yeah well i used winzip and used a winzip only compression on that one (oops) i think it was something like pp2d or something like that.
yeah nuvo it was made with visual c++ 05 express with the explorer component. but its all i could do since i know VERY limited v-c++

[Nuvo]

The mozilla control is designed to be used almost exactly like the explorer one once it's installed.
Winzip only compression algorythms = bad (.ZIP isn't the best, but at least people can open it).

[danielneri]

yeah alright ill use winrar

[sec]

Well all I can say is nice work

No matter what it uses its still an achievement for a complete C++ beginner to make something like that

Ive made basic web browsers in Visual Basic before... They were running of exploreres active x though

[Nuvo]

Yeah, you have a point in that C++ is a pain to learn, but I'm sure Microsoft offers at least SOME documentation on using their HTML rendering engine via their activex control in their IDE on their OS... But who knows, Microsoft has done some dumb things before (hello windows ME)!

[CannonBallGuy]

But who knows, Microsoft has done some dumb things before (hello windows ME)!

That's too specific.
Try this:
But who knows, Microsoft has done a lot dumb things before (hello Windows)!

[danielneri]

haha nice one cbj!
alright i put it into a rar file for you people

http://www.vipercreations.com/venture - server 1

http://www.eliteczlteam.com/venture - server2

right nuvo i installed the mozilla activex plugin thingy and apparently it works really well. i have to redo the entire thing but thats not the point. So far so good!