I'm thinking about making a webbrowser...

[funxus]

I'm doing my last year at (the Swedish equivalent of) highschool next year, and one of the classes I'm taking (compulsory for everyone doing highschool) is to do some kind of project.

One idea is to combine it with my work this summer, but I don't think it'll be very fun. It'd involve reading many scientific reports and do some experiments with welding.

In the past week though I've been thinking about making a browser instead. I've done one before, but it wasn't very advanced. There's even a wizard in Visual Basic where browsers are made automatically. Still, my goal would be to create a browser based on internet explorer (having more pages built for it), but with some of the many functions in opera that are missed in IE. Examples are mouse gestures and tabbed browsing (MDI instead of SDI). Failing to make the browser wouldn't be the worst scenario, since the point of the project is to work hard and regularly with it and analyze what was good and bad.

It would be nice though to know whether it's a realistic project, and if anyone else has tried it? Either in VB or any other language? Anyone have good pointers for making a project? (I will get a lot of help with it from teachers, but if anyone has experienced any problems or common traps?). Anyone interested in testing it if I decide to do it? Any good links where I'd be able to get help with the programming if I get stuck with something?

Thanks for any replies

 

[GenghisK]

Just a reminder. The only sh*t with VB is that you'll have to get the users download all those VBruntime.dll craps. Otherwise it will never ever work. Trust me it's really a pain each time I try a freeware written in VB. Blabla .dll missing. Grrr

 

[funxus]

I thought those were included in the installation files when creating them with the package and deployment wizard? I also thought you'd be able to get rid of them when compiling to native code?

 

[ainwood]

No. Compiling to native code just means that your executable is no longer interpreted like it is in p-code, which is where the increase in speed comes from. However, it still makes lots of calls to windows DLLs.

The standard runtime files for VB 6.0 are bascially all included with IE5 and above, so it shuoldn't be a problem for most Windows users. If you call any non-standard DLLs, or any third-party or your own dlls, you will need to ship them as well.

If you are going to do it in VB, then a great place for help is www.visualbasicforum.com .

 

[funxus]

OK, thanks

 

[CornMaster]

I made a MDI web browser.

It had bookmarks, and quick launch and custom home pages.....

It's pretty sweet. I couldn't get everything to work like I wanted though. But if you need any help....

Oh...I'd also suggest AGAINST the P&DW cause it sucks royal goat ass. I use Setup Specialist 2001. But Install Maker from Clickteam is good too. Many people swear by INNO setup which is free (like Install Maker) but I tried it a few years back and I found it too confusing. It may be much better now though.

 

[funxus]

I know that the things I have in mind seldom works out when I try to program them, but since it's a project I've decided to plan a lot more and try the main functions separately first to make sure that I know how to program them.

I never knew that there were other install makers, but then I seldom get that far with a program. I'll try them out to see which I like best.

If I'm lucky I'll get some help from a guy who's known for being good with computers in general, and my programming teacher at school. I'll probably discuss things generally with them, but when it comes to solving problems at lower levels I've decided to to use the net, books and MSDN. Any help I can get is appreciated...