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winapihaskellactivexolemshtml

Creating a minimalistic MSHTML-based window

I have a library for Haskell that can take an ordinary web application, run it on a local server, and then open up a window displaying that application using QtWebkit. The code to interface with Qt is very short. However, I would like to avoid the Qt overhead for Windows users.

It seems like the best approach would be to have an alternative to this QtWebkit-based C++ file that instead uses the MSHTML library on Windows. Unfortunately, I have almost no experience with Windows-specific libraries. It seems like I need to use the IWebBrowser2 interface, but that seems mostly speculative.

If someone can point me in the right direction on this, I would be much obliged. The final trick here is that it has to compile with MinGW. Not sure how much of a complication that is in this case.

Thanks

Solution

  • You can use hdirect to call the IWebBrowser2 interface from Haskell. It's messy to code against OLE/COM but it can do the job. Making a C binding to the interface is possible but if you need MinGW then it may actually be harder than a purely Haskell approach.