Make a Web Browser
While there are many Internet browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome that can be downloaded and installed on your computer for free, creating web browsers yourself gives you more control over how you want to browse the Internet. With a custom web browser you can not only decide how the appearance should be but also add custom buttons and features. Visual Basic is one of the most common programs used to make a web browser on the Windows operating system.
Contents
[hide]Steps
- Install Visual Basic on your computer by either downloading the software from the Visual Basic Developer Center website or using an installation disk.
- Run Visual Basic and start a new project by going to the File menu and clicking on "New Project."
- Browse over "Text" and select "Web Browser" in the form page that appears.
- Go to "View" in the top menu bar, browse over "Other Windows" and click on "Toolbox." This will display the Visual Basic toolbox.
- Double-click on the Web browser tool in the toolbox.
- Press the right arrow icon on the top-right of the form and click on "Undock in Parent Container." This will change the view of the form from full-screen to a smaller window within the Visual Basic interface.
- Resize the web browser form to your desired size using the clickable outline around it.
- Set the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) property to a website address that you wish to visit. This will open up a default website on open so you can see what a website will look like when opened through your Internet browser.
- Create a new button and assign the following properties to it.
- The text on the button should say "Go."
- Name the button "GoBtn."
- Trigger the button by double-clicking on it. This will pop up a private sub. Enter the following code between the private and end subs (you can replace "URL" with any website address).
- WebBrowser1.Navigate(URL)
- Test the button by clicking on it. It should take you away from the default website to the destination website assigned for the button.
- Select the TextBox tool from the toolbox.
- Drag the TextBox tool and drop it on the custom web browser form that you are creating.
- Name the text box as "addressTxt."
- Go back to the button you created earlier and replace the URL with "addressTxt.Text." This indicates that you want to use the button to go to whatever URL is typed in the address bar.
- Test the address bar by using it to visit different websites.
- Save the web browser that you have just created as a program through Visual Basic by selecting the option to save through the File menu.
Tips
- Creating web browsers is not always necessary to benefit from custom settings. Many pre-designed Internet browsers such as Firefox and Google Chrome allow you to customize the appearance and features of the browser by using different backgrounds, add-ons and apps. However, their capabilities for customization are still limited.
- If you want to make a web browser without using Visual Basic you may want to consider programs such as Q-R Web browser Maker and Flock Social Web Browser Maker. These programs have preset options that you can select to give your web browser customized settings.
- Without using pre-made programs, need to be using an official browser will help you to know programming languages.
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