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Take a head start by embracing the latest browser changes

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Wednesday, March 4, 2020

What has been going on lately?

Microsoft and Apple recently announced big changes regarding their browsers and more importantly on the embedded browser components that are currently available in Windows, iOS and macOS. Microsoft announced it will start rolling out replacements for Internet Explorer and the legacy version of Edge with Edge Chromium in January (https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/4501095/download-the-new-microsoft-edge-based-on-chromium). Starting from April this year, Apple is blocking applications that still use UIWebView (iOS) and WebView (macOS), which already have been deprecated for a while now. (https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=12232019b).

What does it mean for my application?

It means that applications that use TWebBrowser or any other webbrowser component that uses Internet Explorer, UIWebView or WKWebView, will eventually stop working, potentially throw JavaScript errors, will not be accepted to the App Store, ... . It also means that your application is less secure as security updates will no longer be applied. Sit tight!, we have a solution for that!.

Taking a headstart!

Yesterday we released the TAdvWebBrowser, available in v10.2 of TMS VCL UI Pack. Today we released TTMSFNCWebBrowser available in v2.1 of TMS FNC Core. Instructions on how to get up and running with the browser under Windows can be found here. For macOS and iOS the WebKit framework needs to be added (instructions on how to add frameworks can be found here). Our main focus is to support the latest browser changes through these 2 components. Note that FNC is supporting FMX, VCL, LCL and WEB (here the TTMSFNCWebBrowser is not a real browser but actually a DIV that can add HTML), and can easily be combined with default components under all these frameworks. So get up and running with the new and improved browser under VCL and FNC, take a head start and please provide feedback on which functionality you want in the next updates.



Pieter Scheldeman


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This blog post has received 13 comments.


1. Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 4:21:43 PM

Is there documentation for TTMSFNCWebBrowser yet?

Dixon Mike


2. Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 4:29:53 PM

Hi,

Installation instructions can be found here:
https://www.tmssoftware.com/site/edgechromium.asp

There is a small guide that shows how to setup the TTMSFNCWebBrowser as well as the most important functionality that is exposed. Please note that this is a first release and there is still a lot of ground to cover. The guide can be found here: http://www.tmssoftware.biz/download/manuals/TMSFNCWebBrowserDevGuide.pdf

Pieter Scheldeman


3. Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 4:34:17 PM

Thanks for the link. For windows end users, will they need to have Edge installed, or is it all handled by the WebView2Loader DLL?

Dixon Mike


4. Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 4:39:00 PM

This is correct. The end user need to have Edge Chromium installed together with a correct distribution of 2 dlls (one for 32 and one for 64 bit). Eventually Microsoft will push out Edge Chromium, it''s unclear however when that will happen. The current version of Edge Chromium that is supported is v82 (we have developed against the Canary build) which is one of the versions that can be found here: https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/nl-nl/download

Pieter Scheldeman


5. Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 7:50:13 PM

Are there any limitations such as putting it on a tab that is not shown by default like the old one was? I remember TWebBrowser had a problem with that on FMX.

Dixon Mike


6. Thursday, March 5, 2020 at 8:44:11 AM

Mike,

In FMX this is still an issue, because the embedded browser is still needing a WindowHandle which is not available in FMX components. There is currently no workaround for that other than changing the Visible property manually.

Pieter Scheldeman


7. Thursday, March 5, 2020 at 12:05:16 PM

MS is already pushing out the new Chromium based Edge. Developers should already have it, but it was also pushed to my wife''s bog standard laptop.

Thaddy de Koning


8. Tuesday, March 10, 2020 at 10:03:19 AM

Does this work on Win7 and up, or only Win10?

Hansen Keld


9. Tuesday, March 10, 2020 at 10:21:42 AM

Hi Hansen,

Yes it should work on Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 and Server

Pieter Scheldeman


10. Tuesday, March 10, 2020 at 10:44:21 AM

How do you install Chromium Edge on Win7?

Hansen Keld


11. Tuesday, March 10, 2020 at 10:46:22 AM

Use this link:

https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/download

And scroll down to other platforms

Pieter Scheldeman


12. Tuesday, March 17, 2020 at 6:28:24 PM

Are there any plans to support TMSWebGMaps under chromium?

Dustin


13. Tuesday, March 17, 2020 at 8:32:51 PM

You can expect something in that direction, but it will exceed your expectations.

Bruno Fierens




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