Importing a local HTML file/code into a WebBrowser

Question

I'm trying to get a local HTML file to display within a WebBrowser in a VB.NET program. I'm using the code below, however it doesn't seem to work, and I can't figure out why:

    'first method
    WebBrowser1.Navigate(@".\index.html");

    'second method
    HTML = "normal"
    WebBrowser1.Document.Body.InnerHtml = HTML

The first method produces the error "" in the Debug console when I go to run it. If I try it with out the @, I get an empty white page. If I change the address, however ,so I know its a broken URL, I get a 404 message, which makes it seem like it's finding the file but not rendering it?

The second method does the same as the first except no error is produced, its like its finding the text but doing nothing.

In both examples I have tried the following HTML and plain text variations:

<b>bold</b>normal

and

normal

Why isn't this simple code working?

Answer 1

The @ thing is for C#; you don't need it for VB.NET because VB.NET has a different (read: better :-)) escaping system for strings. So, remove the @ before the string, and also get rid of the ; after your lines, which is also C#.

The problem is that, since you're using a WebBrowser, you need a file:/// URL. There are a couple things you can do, the most simple of which is probably to point your WebBrowser to about:blank and put the file in directly, like so:

WebBrowser1.Document.Write(IO.File.ReadAllText("index.html"))

For example. You could also get the file's absolute path, and use that:

WebBrowser1.Navigate("file:///" & IO.Path.GetFullPath(".\index.html"))

Answer 2

I fully agree with the answer given by Minitech. I was making an HTML code tester and wrote this code and it worked.

Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
    Dim sb As New System.Text.StringBuilder
    sb.AppendLine(RichTextBox1.Text)
    IO.File.WriteAllText("htmltester.html", sb.ToString())
    WebBrowser1.Navigate("file:///" & IO.Path.GetFullPath(".\htmltester.html"))
End Sub
End Class

This code worked for my program and i want to tell you that please remove those '@' and ';'.

Answer 3

Another option I found that works, don't have to create a file.

WebBrowser1.DocumentText = strHTML WebBrowser1.Update()