Java API for WebShell

• History
• Requirements
• Getting and Building the Code
• Using the webclient
• References

Pre mozilla.org history

This project was started by Kirk Baker <kbaker@eb.com> and Ian Wilkinson <iw@ennoble.com> and was originally called RaptorCanvas. In the first quarter of 1999, the AOL/Netscape/Sun deal closed and a group at Sun started the blackwood project, to better integrate Java and Mozilla. One of the subprojects in blackwood was to provide a Java API to the mozilla webshell, which Kirk and Ian had already done. Thus, Sun has joined forces with Kirk and Ian to produce webclient.

Requirements

• JDK1.1.7 or later (on Linux, you will need JDK1.2 or later)
• a built mozilla M8 tree
• a built mozilla java util package

Getting and Building the Code

Getting the Code

1. You must first grab the latest mozilla milestone source tarball. This can be found at http://www.mozilla.org/download-mozilla.html.

2. cd to your newly created mozilla directory and Follow the steps for getting mozilla via CVS, but instead of doing the SeaMonkeyAll thing type: cvs update -d -P java.

Building the Code

1. Build the m8 tarball using the instructions found at http://www.mozilla.org/build/

2. Follow the steps in the mozilla/java/README and mozilla/java/webclient/README files.

Using the webclient

There is an example browser in the java-webclient distribution that illustrates how to use the basic webclient features. This class is included by reference here [1] for your convenience. Note that the referenced document may be out of date with respect to the actual source tree.

Basically, you create yourself a BrowserControlCanvas, which is a subclass of java.awt.Canvas, and add it into your display hierarchy.

	// Create the browser
	BrowserControlCanvas browser  = 
	               BrowserControlCanvasFactory.newBrowserControlCanvas();
	add(browser,      BorderLayout.CENTER);

	
      

Then you can control the embedded mozilla via the BrowserControl interface.

public void actionPerformed (ActionEvent evt) {
    String command = evt.getActionCommand();
    
    try {
	if (command.equals("Back")) {
	    if (browserControl.canBack()) {
		browserControl.back();
		int index = browserControl.getHistoryIndex();
		String newURL = browserControl.getURL(index);
		
		System.out.println(newURL);
		
		urlField.setText(newURL);
	    }
	}
	else if (command.equals("Forward")) {
	    if (browserControl.canForward()) {
		browserControl.forward();
		int index = browserControl.getHistoryIndex();
		String newURL = browserControl.getURL(index);
		
		System.out.println(newURL);
		
		urlField.setText(newURL);
	    }
	}
	else if (command.equals("Stop")) {
	    browserControl.stop();
	}
	else {
	    browserControl.loadURL(urlField.getText());
	}
    }
    catch (Exception e) {
	System.out.println(e.toString());
    }
} // actionPerformed()

	
      

References

• 1. org.mozilla.webclient.test.EmbeddedMozilla
• 2. api docs