Can we use IShell in Metro Style app

Question

Hi,

Can we use IShell in Metro Style app for WinRT to build a browser application?

Answer 1

No. You can find the list of Win32 and COM API which are available to Windows Store apps in the          Win32 and COM API reference.

--Rob

Answer 2

I want to know something about Ishell , I read in internet its an authoring tool and can be used to create some fancy applications .
Can i use Ishell to embed Internet explorer inside my application and use its service api set.
e.g : NavigateToUrl, beforeNavigate2 etc ...
Actually i am trying to make one browser on metro style app in win8 Rt environment.
Kindly put some light on it , before i jump into learning ishell and finding its not going to help me ...

P.S: As Rob stated can't be used ,but i want to know is ISHELL Supported in WIN8 RT even ?

Answer 3

I know quite a bit about Win32 Shell Programming but never heard of IShell. You should not even try to implement a webbrowser as metro app. You will run into all kind of troubles. Look at Google how they not even could manage to create a working metro browser.

Answer 4

Phil_ke : Thanks:)  Actually I tried to use WebView , but as you rightly said i will end up into troubles ;I did .. Hence i want to use another approach . Anyways thanks for your reply.

Answer 5

Like Phil says, there isn't an "IShell" interface. There are a number of interfaces starting with that (IShellFolder, IShellView, IShellItem, IShellBrowser, etc.), none of which are used in Windows Store apps, and none of which are used for embedding IE as a control.

Webbrowsers generally are not written as Windows Store apps, but are desktop apps with special privileges granted to the user's chosen web browser (see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=243079 ). I believe that Chrome and FireFox both have or are working on implementations that do this. IE definitely does.

Again though, none of this is relevant to hosting a browser in your app.

Short of writing your own browser from scratch or porting somebody else's engine the WebView is the only way to host web pages in a Xaml app. Depending on what specifically you need a highly web-centric app may be better written in HTML/JavaScript.

--Rob