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simpleBrowser - Internet browser for myHTPC

This program was developed to provide users with a internet browser that can be operated by a remote control and that is integrated well with myHTPC. It reads and uses all of the key commands that each user has specified within myHTPC so there is no fiddling with girder or other programs to provide full remote capability.

 

Requirements:

  • Internet Explorer 6
  • .NET Runtime version 1.1 (not just 1.0) installed. Here is the download link if you don't already have it, or just use Windows Update.

 

Installation:

Run the simpleBrowser.msi program and follow all the prompts to complete installation. When it is finished installing, you will want to add a new Programs module in the myHTPCConfigure.exe program. Here is a screenshot with the settings needed:

Features:

  • Fullscreen Internet Browser display
  • Full keyboard command ability using myHTPC key mapping settings and mouse support
  • On-screen keyboard to use for filling in web forms
  • Provides the users Internet Favorites in a list for the user to navigate to
  • Enlarging of text to make browsing a pleasant experience from a distance
  • Navigation of links on current page by remote
  • RSS News reader built in

     

    • Remote control capability All of the navigation keys are read from what you have set in the myHTPC Configure program. So there is nothing else to do for this.
    Mouse capability The mouse can also be used for simpleBrowser navigation. Turn on the toolbar by clicking on the title bar at the top of the window. Once it appears you can select the different options there. All options have tooltips available.

Instructions

The popup menu inside allow you to perform the following options:

  • Navigate links on the current page

Selecting this option will allow you to select a link on the current page by showing a target that you can use to move around the screen until you see a link you wish to goto. Hit Enter and the link will be selected and it will goto that link destination and return to the normal scrolling mode so you can scroll around the screen with the arrow keys.

  • Browse internet favorites

Allows you to access your own internet favorites, including any special folders you have setup, so you don't have to type internet address to navigate to them. Just highlight the one you want to use and hit Enter and you will be taken to that address.

The RSS News folder is a list of RSS Feeds that you can browse. The RSS sites are in the RSSFeeds.xml file in the simpleBrowser directory. You can add new ones by adding them to that file, or by navigating to them in simpleBrowser and selecting the 'Add to Favorite' menu option.
  • Enter a URL:

Using this selection, you have the option of typing in an address to navigate to. All entries are kept in a history so you can navigate any past entries here by moving over to the two little arrows to the right of the text box and hitting them to scroll through all of your previous selections.

  • Change Settings

  • Font Size - Use this setting if you just want to change the size of the text on webpages. 1 is very small, 7 is very large. Use 0 to just use the default setting. To make the entire page larger use the Zoom setting instead.
  • # of pixels cursor moves in Navigator mode - This is how many pixels the cursor moves with each press of an arrow key when you are navigating links.
  • Window scroll speed - This setting lets you set the amount the window scrolls up/down/left/right when you are scrolling the window.
  • Key repeat rate - Use this setting to be able to accelerate the mouse cursor when you are navigating links. If you remote supports repeated key presses with the key held down, then leave this at 0. If your remote doesn't support this, then set to something like 0.5 or 1.0 to be able to accelerate the cursor with each press of the key as long as it is within 0.5 or 1 second of each other.
  • Show Splash Screen? - Checking this option will show the splash screen on startup.
  • Show Hovering Link? - Checking this will show a little popup window with the target URL when the mouse cursor is over a link. The popup window automatically hides after a few seconds.
  • Zoom Webpage Size - This option will enlarge the entire webpage a certain percentage. Choose from 100% (normal) up to twice as large in 20% increments.
  • Desktop to display browser on - Use this setting to specify which desktop in Windows to display this browser on. Use the number from the Windows->Control Panel->Display Settings dialog box.
  • Autohide the TitleBar - Check this setting to hide the titlebar at the top of the screen. It will autohide so that if you goto the top of the screen, you can access it quickly and then move the cursor away it will disappear again.
  • Use On-screen keyboard - Check this setting if you want to use the built in On-screen keyboard in simpleBrowser. Turned on by default.
  • Use Mouse Gestures - This setting will allow you to use a few Mouse Gestures, the History navigation Forward and Back, and the Reload/Refresh command. See this page for information on using Mouse Gestures: Mouse Gestures

 

Command Line Parameters:

/url= Use this parameter to set the internet address that simpleBrowser goes to on startup. For example to use www.myhtpc.net as the startup address, then use this as the parameter: /url=www.myhtpc.net

Remote Key capabilities (these are the keys that you programmed into myHTPC):

These key settings are set in the myHTPC Configure program under 'Remote Control'. Using the Keys page of the Settings screen in simpleBrowser, you can change the mapping between these keys and ones used in myHTPC.

Play - Will refresh the current page

Channel Down -Will scroll down the page

Channel Up - Will scroll up the page

FFW - Will go forward in the browser history

REW - Will go backward in the browser history

Back - Will bring up a menu that allows you to navigate onscreen links, access your internet favorites, and exit out of the program.

Arrow keys - Allow navigation around menus and scrolling around on the page. If you are in the ' Navigate onscreen links ' mode, the arrow keys will move around the link selection target allowing you to select any link on the page quickly and easily. Otherwise the arrow keys will scroll up, down, left, and right around the page.

Enter - Will select the currently highlighted link on screen if in ' Navigate onscreen links ' mode.

Navigation Mode - Will toggle the Link Navigation Mode on/off.

Zoom In/Out keys - Will increase/decrease the zoom amount by 10% with each keypress. By default I have them mapped to the PREVIOUS and NEXT (default is NumPad8, and NumPad2 repectively) buttons in myHTPC.

Favorites Popup Key - Will immediately show the Favorites popup menu instead of having to go through the normal menu. By default it uses the INFO key from myHTPC (F11 by default).

Keyboard Popup Key - This key will bring the Onscreen keyboard up immediately upon keypress. By default, it uses the DISPLAY key from myHTPC ( default is INSERT key).

 

 

History:

 

  • 2.1.1 - 1/07/2004
    • Added some more debugging and a couple of tweaks to fix the initialization bug some users are having on startup.
  • 2.1 - 1/06/2004
    • Fixed a problem with refreshing the page using the Refresh key.
    • Fixed a problem with some RSS feeds not working (and now am using colors suggested by user '1408'; Thanks Chris).
    • Added a button to the toolbar to dropdown the favorites menu. Also added a new key to popup the Favorites popup menu without having to go through the other menus. By default it uses the INFO key from myHTPC (F11 by default).
    • Added two keys to zoom in and out of a webpage by 10% with each press of the button (I personally really like this feature). By default I have them mapped to the PREVIOUS and NEXT (default is NumPad8, and NumPad2 repectively) buttons in myHTPC.
    • Added a key to popup the On-screen keyboard at any time. By default, it uses the DISPLAY key from myHTPC ( default is INSERT key)
    • Added a Language.ini file so you can specify all strings on the menus and in the Settings screen. Just replace the text to the right of each setting with whatever you want, and save the file and restart simpleBrowser.
    • Fixed the problem with popups IE windows from javascript code. It will suppress them now if you tell it to ignore the popup, but it will possibly still have the popup if you choose the 'Use simpleBrowser' choice from the dialog.
    • Font size has more options including half sizes, 1.5, 2.5, etc.
    • I added a debug log to help us figure out some users problems. To enable it, go to the settings.xml file in the simpleBrowser directory and change the LogErrors entry from False to True . Then report back to the forum with your log file entry in the Log.txt file that is generated.
  • 2.0 -11/26/2003
    • Added RSS reader functionality. You can access the RSS feeds from the Favorites popup menu. You will notice that the first link in your favorites list is now RSS News. I have included a few to get started with. You can change and add items either by going to a page on the internet and then select the 'Add Favorite' from the simpleBrowser menu. The other way you can add them is by manually entering them in the RSSFeeds.xml file inside the simpleBrowser directory.
    • Fixed a lot of the little wierd problems in the browser:
      1. Clicking the scrollbars problem is fixed
      2. You can now move around in a text box on a webpage (although there is still a problem with using On-screen keyboard that it doesn't update the display to show where the cursor actually is in the text box)
      3. Can select text from a webpage
      4. Right click the browser window to bring up normal IE context menu works now
      5. You can even navigate links now with the Tab key just like in the normal IE.
    • Added a few Mouse Gestures, the ones for navigation Back and Forward in the history, and Reload (Refreshes the browser). You can turn Mouse Gestures on/off from the Settings screen.
    • Added a progress bar for the page loading progress.
    • Added arrows to the onscreen keyboard; and on password fields, the text isn't shown to the user as you type it in.
    • Added a new key to toggle between Link Navigation mode and regular mode. You can change it in the Settings screen under the Keys page. By default it uses the 'Guide' key from myHTPC and is F9.
    • Added a new setting to allow you to turn off the On-screen keyboard from popping up when textboxes are clicked in.
    • Worked on the Splash screen to fix the problem with it hanging up. It is still off by default, but can be turned on by using the Settings screen.
  • 1.5.2 - 10/30/2003
    • Added a setting to Autohide the titlebar. If you choose to hide the titlebar, it will stay hidden until you put the mouse at the top of the window, then it will stay shown until you move the mouse away from it (ie. like the Autohide for the windows Taskbar).
    • Made all the On-screen keyboard characters larger and made it generally more pleasing to the eye. Now if you use a mouse it will highlight each key as you hover over them. Also fixed a minor bug when you use a mouse on the keyboard.
    • Changed the way the Navigating links functionality is handled. The Menu item in the Popup menu now acts as a toggle turning OFF the link navigation mode. Also link navigation can be cancelled by just cliking the mouse or hitting Enter on an empty part of the page. So now navigating to another page doesn't get rid of navigating link mode anymore.
    • Fixed a problem with clicking on the titlebar with the mouse; if you used overscan offsets from the top of the screen it didn't work properly.
    • Fixed a problem with navigating links going left-to-right, it wasn't scrolling the window when it got to each edge.
  • 1.5.1 - 10/24/2003
    • Added a new page to the settings screen so that you can change each key used in simpleBrowser to a corresponding key function in myHTPC.
    • Added a fix for user having trouble with on-screen keyboard
    • Default path for simpleBrowser is now myHTPC/simpleBrowser so that future versions don't have a different installation path.
    • Added an extra 'Exit' key command that just quickly exits simpleBrowser.
    • Fixed a couple of annoying flicker problems with the popup menu and controls on the Settings screen.
  • 1.5 (10/14/2003)
    • Fixed issues with certain pages not resizing correctly, all pages should now be uniformly enlarged. It will now work for the myHTPC forum even!
    • Added a 'tooltip' popup window that shows you where you are about to navigate to. You can, of course, turn this option off by changing it in the Settings screen.
    • Changed the way the mouse acceleration works for navigating on the page. If your remote setup doesn't support repeated keypresses with the key held down, then you will need to change the new 'Repeat Rate' setting to something like 0.5 or 1.0. Read the Settings screen section above for more details.
    • Fixed the onscreen keyboard for the Shift function. It now acts as a toggle like it should.
    • Moved the 'desktop' parameter to the Settings screen. Also fixed this desktop setting for some instances where it was not set correctly.
    • Fixed a flicker problem when a menu or the On-screen keyboard was brought up.

     

  • 1.4
    • All Menus will now wrap back to the top and vice versa
    • Added a Splash screen.
    • Added mouse acceleration when you are navigating a page. You can make the actual mouse movement small, but when you hold a button down to navigate it will accelerate to get you to where you want to go faster.To change this setting, go to the new Settings dialog box.
    • The Settings dialog box is now a window that can be navigated with just a remote control (in addition to the normal mouse operation) so you never have to pick up the mouse even for changing settings.
    • Fixed a problem with the Favorites menu: the little arrows at the top were not working correctly for mouse users.

 

  • 1.3
    • Fixed mouse wheel scrolling so it works anywhere on the page now.
    • Added Alt-F4 to close the program and also uses the Exit key in myHTPC (by default F12).
    • Improved onscreen keyboard: uses a regular QWERTY style keyboard with all 'normal' keys now available. Also navigating when at the edge of the keyboard will scroll to opposite side to help for quicker key input.
  • 1.2
    • Added the ability to use the onscreen keyboard (picture above) to enter text into text boxes on a web page. It is a little elementary since I have to catch each keypress to send to the web page's text area. For example, right now you can't highlight a section of text to delete or use arrows to insert into a particular part of a text box. Also if use a regular keyboard, a lot of keys I don't process right now. Basically I only process the keys that are on my on-screen keyboard.
    • Added some more characters and a few common strings(.com, www., and .net) to the on-screen keyboard for entering text on a web page.
    • Can scroll the mouse wheel now, but only if the mouse pointer is above the title bar at the top of the page. It is a problem I am having with the Web object taking control.
    • The Channel Up/Down buttons now do Page Up/Down in browser instead of normal scrolling.
    • Fixed all keypress issues in the URL drop down box if using a regular keyboard.
    • Fixed the issue with Refreshing not resizing the text again.
  • 1.1.1 (Maintenance release)
    • Fixed the problem if you specified a url the popup menu wouldn't come up
    • Fixed the problem with the Url entry from the toolbar. You should now be able to use it for entry of new addresses.
    • Fixed the refresh button problem.
  • 1.1
    • Added a new parameter to specify which desktop to display this browser on.
    • Added a new parameter to specify an internet address to goto on startup.
    • Made the toolbar bigger and now clicking the title bar toggles the toolbar on/off.
    • Menu's now use anti-aliased fonts and should look better for low-res displays
    • Fixed the problem with anchors not working on the same page. It still has a problem with not going Back from a named anchor to the top of the page . It seems to want to go to the last page you were at instead.
  • 1.0
    • Initial Release

Enjoy,

Kenny