[AddonScriptorDE]

Hi,
here comes some other kind of add-on from me:
A few months ago i wrote a simple webbrowser for a friend, so that he can read his favourite news sites and watch Silverlight DRM videos (Netflix, Lovefilm, Redbox, ...).
Maybe its useful for some of you, so i bundled the browser into a standalone XBMC addon and pimped it a bit.

You can define your favourite websites via the addon/xbmc and launch them via the WebBrowser. Its based on the Internet Explorer.
I also tried some alternatives like Awesomium (Chrome/Webkit) or Gecko (Firefox), but it worked best with IE.
So, the add-on uses binary files - Because of that it wont be available via the xbmc.org repo.
The Source Code of the Browser/KeyMapper is on github.

The following features are implemented:

• Website definitions via Addon/XBMC
  - Website title
  - Website URL
  - Default Zoom Level in %
  - Stop XBMC Playback
  - Show Popups
  - Show Scrollbar
  
• Custom mouse cursor
  
• Mouse control via keyboard/remote
  
• Keymapping for special-keys via GUI
  
• Magnifier, Virtual Keyboard, Navigation
  
• Zoom / Default Zoom for favourite websites
  
• Sub-Shortcuts for favourite websites
  
• Function Menu
  

General Addon settings:

• Minimum mouse speed
  
• Maximum mouse speed
  
• Scroll speed
  
• Use custom mouse cursor
  
• Custom mouse cursor size
  
• Magnifier size
  

Default Keymapping:

• Mouse/Scroll: Up = "NumPad8"
  
• Mouse/Scroll: Down = "NumPad2"
  
• Mouse/Scroll: Left = "NumPad4"
  
• Mouse/Scroll: Right = "NumPad6"
  
• Mouse/Scroll: UpLeft = "NumPad7"
  
• Mouse/Scroll: UpRight = "NumPad9"
  
• Mouse/Scroll: DownLeft = "NumPad1"
  
• Mouse/Scroll: DownRight = "NumPad3"
  
• Toggle Mouse/Scroll = "Multiply"
  
• Mouse Click = "NumPad5"
  
• Zoom In = "Add"
  
• Zoom Out= "Subtract"
  
• Show Function Menu = "Divide"
  
• Close Window/Browser = "NumPad0"
  

The websites could be edited/removed via context menu.
Thumbs could be added to the sites by editing the website config file in the addons userdata directory.
You can also use any png as the mouse cursor. Just save it in the addons userdata directory as "cursor.png".

The Browser is controllable via default browser keys (Arrow-Keys, Enter, BackSpace, TAB, ESC, ...) and via special-keys, which can be mapped via GUI:

Most important functions

Code:

Mouse/Scroll: Up, Down, Left, Right, UpLeft, UpRight, DownLeft, DownRight, Toggle Mouse/Scroll, Mouse Click, Zoom In, Zoom Out, Show Function Menu, Close Window/Browser

Optional functions (Also accessible via Function Menu)

Code:

Double Click, Enter URL, Show Keyboard, Show Magnifier, Show Favourites, Show Shortcuts, Press TAB, Press ESC, Press F5

Notes:

• To use the browser, you need to have the Internet Explorer and .NET Framework 4 installed.
  
• The manual double-click will not work well with all remotes (except you change the systems double-click speed value) - So theres an extra function for this.
  
• To correctly use Google, you have to disable Instant Search (Settings -> Search Settings -> Google Instant predictions -> Never show Instant results)
  

To add-on developers:
You can use the following plugin url to display websites (like the LoveFilm.com addon)

Code:

plugin://plugin.program.webbrowser/?url=URLENCODED_URL&mode=showSite&zoom=100&stopPlayback=yes&showPopups=no&showScrollbar=yes

Feedback is welcome - I'm sure there's a lot that could be improved!
Available via my testing repo!

Happy testing,
asde

[Jmhthefirst]

how do i add your addon to my xbmc?

[artrafael]

There's a link to the testing repo near the bottom of the first post.

[Jmhthefirst]

Thanks.

[AddonScriptorDE]

A lot of changes / improvements in v1.0.3:
- Added custom mouse cursor
- Added website sub-shortcuts
- Added access to favourites via browser
- Improved virtual keyboard
- Improved magnifier

[AddonScriptorDE]

Changelog v1.0.4:
- Fixed bug, that Xbmc is minimized after closing the browser (on some systems)
- Some other small bugfixes

[AddonScriptorDE]

Changelog v1.0.5:
- Changed default custom cursor

[sagaopc]

Is a Marvelous Work!!!

Sugestions:

Enable Xbox 360 Support Control
Zoom in - Zoom out (like Steam Big Picture)
Virtual Keyboard to Xbox 360 controller (again like Big Picture)
prior Mobile Layout option.

Thanks for addon!!! is very usefull!

[AddonScriptorDE]

Thanks for your feedback!

Zoom in - Zoom out (like Steam Big Picture)

I did not know Steam Big Picture, but had a look at a youtube video: The Zoom In/Out in my browser is not so stylish but works the same:
You can zoom in/out and then scroll up/down/left/right. On some sites scrolling is not working with default arrow keys but i'll will add a workaround for this in the next version.

Enable Xbox 360 Support Control
Virtual Keyboard to Xbox 360 controller (again like Big Picture)

Sorry, i have no xbox 360 controller to test this! But maybe later...

prior Mobile Layout option.

Nice idea! I tried it - but it seems a bit buggy.
I will add a UserAgent setting to the next version, so you can test it on your sites.

[_XbmcUser_]

Awesome addon! Very useful!
Thanks so much...

[al101]

Thanks for another great add-on.

I tried it with below url it doesn't work it fails to launch web browser.

Code:

http://www.mast.tv/index.php?stream=sony&location=france

Code:

plugin://plugin.program.webbrowser/?url=http://www.mast.tv/index.php?stream=sony&location=france&mode=showSite&zoom=100&stopPlayback=yes&showPopups=no

However it works with percent encoding.

Code:

plugin://plugin.program.webbrowser/?url=http://www.mast.tv/index.php%3Fstream%3Dsony%26location%3Dfrance&mode=showSite&zoom=100&stopPlayback=yes&showPopups=no

So are ? and & characters the problem?

[senna99]

Could not connect to network server

so what I'm doing wrong my URL is http://www.google.rs/

Best Regards

---

do I need net framework 4

[senna99]

Everything works perfectly, with net framework 4. Exceptional work, thank you very much for this.

[senna99]

How to replace mouse png image,is it possible to add thumb for each url.
Best Regards

[AddonScriptorDE]

However it works with percent encoding.
So are ? and & characters the problem?

Yes. Plugin url parameters have to be urlencoded.
Else, the http url parameters would be recognized as plugin parameters...

---

How to replace mouse png image,is it possible to add thumb for each url.
Best Regards

Answers to your questions are in the first post:

Thumbs could be added to the sites by editing the website-file in the addons userdata directory.
You can also use any png as the mouse cursor. Just save it in the addons userdata directory as "cursor.png".

You find the userdata directory here: ".../XBMC/userdata/addon_data/plugin.program.webbrowser"
The website config files are in a subfolder "sites".