Ask for browser written in Java

[Intan Y. Purbasari]

Hi, I'm an undergraduated student working on my final year project on Web exploration. My application needs to read the address bar of a browser and detect when the browser moves to another page. Is there anyway to do that with browsers like IE or Netscape? If not, then I guess I need a browser written in Java (along with the source code) so that I can work a little on the code, right?
I've tried looking at Jazilla (a Java version of Mozilla), JoZilla, and Multivalent (written by Tom Phelps of UC Berkeley) but none of them satisfied my need. Either the project is not finished yet, or still have some bugs.
Does anyone here have successfully built a Java based browser that I need? It doesn't have to be as complicated as IE, but at least it can view HTML documents, some pictures, and set the proxy server.
Thank you very much.
-Intan Y. Purbasari

[Cindy Glass]

I'm a bit unclear here. Are you looking to create a utility or service that monitors other processes on the PC, detects which is a browser and then tracks what URLs are being accessed from that browser?
Or are you talking about an application that invokes a browser and then monitors what happens in that browser?
Or are you talking about running a servlet or applet in a browser and then detect when the user trys to go to a different page than that which is currently running?
I'm just not sure what the question is here.

[Intan Y. Purbasari]

Hi, thanks for replying. I'm developing a Java application (not applet or JavaScript). It should run together with a browser (so when I run my program, I also need to open a web browser). My application needs to read URL in address bar of the browser so that it knows what page a user is viewing (also need to copy the content of address bar). That way, (hopefully) my app can detect when the user is about to go to a new page, and do something before the user leaves the old page. For example, I'm in www.javaranch.com and want to go to another page by either clicking one of the links in javaranch.com or directly type URL in the address bar. Before the browser opens the new page, I need a dialog box to pop-up to show some message.
This is my question. Is there anyway to do that with a swing application and with a common browser such as IE? If not, then what should I do? Get source code of a browser and modify a little so that my app can read its address bar?
Regards,
Intan Y. Purbasari

[Stan James]

We wanted to do things like that and some more, and wound up using JNI to call a C++ wrapper that cals the IE Active-X component. As a benefit, it could all be dropped into a Swing GUI or run outside. Not an easy road.
There are a couple Java language browsers around. One called ICE or Ice Storm was getting the most press for a while, but we didn't like it or the company much. Try a Google search for others.