Building a browser shell

A short worked tutorial: turn a WebView2 control into a working browser with an address bar, back / forward / reload buttons, zoom, and a few helpers (DevTools, Task Manager, PDF export).

The complete project ships as Sample 0 — WebView2 Examples in the New-Project dialog (form Example 1). This tutorial walks through its key pieces.

The form

Drop a WebView2 control onto a Form and rename it WebView. Around it, add a TextBox named AddressBar plus seven CommandButtons — btnBack, btnForward, btnRefresh, btnZoomIn, btnZoomOut, btnPDF, btnDevTools, btnTaskMgr.

The bare-bones navigation surface — Navigate, GoBack, GoForward, Reload — is one-liners:

Private Sub btnBack_Click() Handles btnBack.Click
    WebView.GoBack()
End Sub

Private Sub btnForward_Click() Handles btnForward.Click
    WebView.GoForward()
End Sub

Private Sub btnRefresh_Click() Handles btnRefresh.Click
    WebView.Reload()
End Sub

To make the back / forward buttons follow the actual history state, sync them against CanGoBack and CanGoForward after every navigation:

Private Sub WebView_NavigationComplete( _
        ByVal IsSuccess As Boolean, ByVal WebErrorStatus As Long) _
        Handles WebView.NavigationComplete
    btnBack.Enabled = WebView.CanGoBack
    btnForward.Enabled = WebView.CanGoForward
End Sub

The address bar

Pressing Enter in the address bar triggers a navigation. The reverse direction — keeping the visible URL in sync with the page — is the SourceChanged event, which fires whenever DocumentURL changes (including same-document history.pushState updates):

Private Sub AddressBar_KeyDown(KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer) _
        Handles AddressBar.KeyDown
    If KeyCode = vbKeyReturn Then WebView.Navigate AddressBar.Text
End Sub

Private Sub WebView_SourceChanged(ByVal IsNewDocument As Boolean) _
        Handles WebView.SourceChanged
    AddressBar.Text = WebView.DocumentURL
End Sub

Navigate accepts any URI string; if the scheme prefix is missing, https:// is added automatically.

Zoom

ZoomFactor is a Double — 1.0 is 100%, 1.5 is 150%. The design-time default is 0, meaning “don’t override Edge’s default of 1.0” — so multiplying by 1.1 from cold gives 0, not 1.1. Clamp to 1 before scaling:

Private Sub btnZoomIn_Click() Handles btnZoomIn.Click
    If WebView.ZoomFactor = 0 Then WebView.ZoomFactor = 1
    WebView.ZoomFactor *= 1.1
End Sub

Private Sub btnZoomOut_Click() Handles btnZoomOut.Click
    If WebView.ZoomFactor = 0 Then WebView.ZoomFactor = 1
    WebView.ZoomFactor /= 1.1
End Sub

PDF export

PrintToPdf saves the current document to disk asynchronously — the result surfaces as PrintToPdfCompleted or PrintToPdfFailed:

Private Sub btnPDF_Click() Handles btnPDF.Click
    Dim outputPath As String = _
        Environ$("USERPROFILE") & "\Documents\page.pdf"
    WebView.PrintToPdf(outputPath)
End Sub

Private Sub WebView_PrintToPdfCompleted() Handles WebView.PrintToPdfCompleted
    MsgBox "PDF saved.", vbInformation
End Sub

DevTools and Task Manager

Both windows are one-shot — call the matching method and Edge opens the window in its own process:

Private Sub btnDevTools_Click() Handles btnDevTools.Click
    WebView.OpenDevToolsWindow()
End Sub

Private Sub btnTaskMgr_Click() Handles btnTaskMgr.Click
    WebView.OpenTaskManagerWindow()
End Sub

OpenDevToolsWindow works even when AreDevToolsEnabled is False (that setting only disables the user-initiated path — keyboard shortcut and context menu).

Form-title sync

To make the host window’s caption track the page’s <title>, listen for DocumentTitleChanged and read DocumentTitle:

Private Sub WebView_DocumentTitleChanged() Handles WebView.DocumentTitleChanged
    Me.Caption = WebView.DocumentTitle
End Sub

Where next