Hosting and Reuse
Windows Internet Explorer's components can easily be reused thanks to its Component Object Model (COM)-based architecture. Two commonly used components are shdocvw.dll (the WebBrowser Control) and mshtml.dll (code-named "Trident").
In the majority of situations, it is better to directly host the WebBrowser rather than MSHTML. This is because the WebBrowser supports in-place navigation, history, and so on—in other words, it encapsulates the expanded capabilities of the browser. If you host MSHTML directly, you gain the use of an HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) parser and renderer, but you cannot take advantage of the browser's other capabilities.
This section includes documentation on programming and reusing the browser.
Topics
| Topic | Contents |
|---|---|
| Advanced Hosting Reference | This document describes the interfaces, methods, structures, and enumerated types used for customizing the behavior of MSHTML objects. For a more general overview of MSHTML's hosting and extensibility mechanisms, see Reusing MSHTML. |
| Associated Browser Reference | This section describes various APIs that provide access to browser functionality in addition to the MSHTML, WebBrowser control, and hosting references. |
| Hyperlinks | This section describes Microsoft ActiveX Hyperlinking and the interfaces involved in adding hyperlink navigation to your document or application. |
| MSHTML Editing | This section includes documentation on MSHTML Editing. |
| MSHTML Reference | This section contains references to interfaces and corresponding scripting objects, MSHTML C++ events, MSHTML functions, and CGID_MSHTML command identifiers. |
| Print Templates | This section describes how you can customize the way in which the WebBrowser Control and Internet Explorer print and preview documents, using print templates. |
| Travel Log | This section describes Travel Log technology. |
| WebBrowser Control | This section contains reference information on WebBrowser Control. |