Network Programming in .NET

If you embed a webbrowser control in a C# application, you can interact with third party websites in ways that you would not be permitted to within a standard webpage. One limit though, is although you can detect page changes, you can’t detect ajax calls. Which is one thing you may like to read.

But, a workaround is to inject javascript that hooks into the XMLHttpRequest.open method, and then reports this back to the host application.

First you need a function to inject Javasript into the page;

var strJs = File.ReadAllText(“inject.js”);
webBrowser.Document.InvokeScript(“eval”, new object[] { strJs });

Here is the injected javascript:

(function (open) {

XMLHttpRequest.prototype.open = function (method, url, async, user, pass) {

this.addEventListener(“readystatechange”, function () {
if (this.readyState == 4) {
window.external.Hook(this.responseText);
}
}, false);

open.call(this, method, url, async, user, pass);
};

})(XMLHttpRequest.prototype.open);

Where window.external.Hook  is going to be defined in C# as follows;

[ComVisible(true)]
public class ScriptManager
{
public void Hook(string message)
{
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(message);
}
}

You pass a ScriptManager instance to the webbrowser control as follows;

webBrowser.ObjectForScripting = new ScriptManager();

Now, whenever an ajax call is made, it is written to the debug console.

To read more about IE in C#, check out this article:

http://www.webtropy.com/articles/InternetExplorer.asp?Internet%20explorer