A
System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowser can be used to browse any web page we want, by using its
Navigate() method. It can also be used to display information, real or synthetic, to either its
DocumentText or
DocumentStream property.
One way to make WebBrowser show a document would be to create a big string starting with
<html> and adhering to the HTML specifications; then assigning said string to
WebBrowser.DocumentText
However browsers such as Internet Explorer, and hence also WebBrowser, have sufficient intelligence to recognize several different data types, so when the web page isn't actually providing a valid HTML document, but just a simple object, such as an image, the browser will recognize it and handle it well.
Here is some demo code, that creates an image in a
MemoryStream, and shows it in a little Form+WebBrowser by using the latter's
DocumentStream property.
void CreateAndShowImageInFormAndWebBrowser() {
Form f=new Form();
Bitmap bm=new Bitmap(200, 200);
Graphics g=Graphics.FromImage(bm);
g.FillRectangle(Brushes.Yellow, new Rectangle(20, 20, 160, 160));
g.DrawString("Hello World!", f.Font, Brushes.Black, 40, 40);
MemoryStream ms=new MemoryStream();
bm.Save(ms, ImageFormat.Gif);
bm.Dispose();
WebBrowser wb=new WebBrowser();
wb.Bounds=new Rectangle(20, 20, 500, 500);
ms.Position=0;
wb.DocumentStream=ms;
f.Size=new Size(600, 600);
f.Controls.Add(wb);
f.Show();
}
Warning: you must "rewind" the stream (like a tape recorder!); without the
ms.Position=0; statement, the WebBrowser window would remain very blank.
ADDED: image test using <img src="/script/Membership/Uploads/648011/kitten-high-five.jpg" />
:)
