How to build an shipable, "local", branded mini-browser

Question

Hello,

since i don't really have a good idea for word to search with myself i'd like to ask you:

Is there some project, technology, w/e that enables you to build a 'browser' with a very slim ui. Just some CI and a customised "starting page".

I'm thinking of something like the Webkit engine (and interface) Valve/Steam uses for it's clients store page.

In what direction should i search for something like that ? How would one start implement something like that ?

Thank you for your time !

Answers to questions:

• We need this to provide something like a "Kiosk" application (for touchscreens) and shippable to our Customers. Running a browser in "full screen" is a temporary solution.

• As of Plattforms: Windows is absolutely sufficient for now, but Mac/Linux wouldn't hurt.

• Prism looks nice so far but lacks the "shipable" part, e.g. i see no way of packageing it.

Answer 1

Various graphics toolkit libraries contain some components which can display a limited amount of HTML. I've seen this in qt (a C++ GUI library) and in Java Swing, and have indeed built a tiny "browser" in Java within a couple of hours. Java Swing lets you attach a link listener so links can be made clickable and thereby jump to different URLs. Thus, my application could be made to work as a very limited browser.

This approach lets you display text, images and links; in the case of Java, there's even fairly good support for CSS styling. However, there's no simple way to make buttons and form fields work, and of course no support for manipulating the DOM or anything else done in JavaScript.

Answer 2

Take a look at Mozilla Prism. It's a "UI-Less" version of the Mozilla/Gecko rendering engine aimed at deploying web apps on the Desktop. It's also multi-platform. It might be fairly close to what you need, with comparably little work.

Answer 3

WebKit has bindings for many languages, is cross-platform, and is full-featured as a HTML engine. A bit of work capturing signals and calling functions will make it into any kind of web browser you like.

Answer 4

You could use Adobe Air and follow this tutorial: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/air/build/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d118666ade46-7ecc.html and include your website with an i frame. That would allow you to build an executable you can ship to your customer.