WebBrowser Control - Console Application - Events Not Firing - printing

Question

I have been navigating the various WebBrowser control stackoverflow questions, and I can't seem to find an answer to a problem I am having. I am trying to use the WebBrowser control to print a web page. Following MSDN's example, I have created the following console application:
namespace WebPrintingMadness
{
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
/// <summary>
/// The entry point of the program.
/// </summary>
class Program
{
/// <summary>
/// The main entry point of the program.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="args">Program arguments.</param>
[STAThread]
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
string url = "https://stackoverflow.com/";
WebPagePrinter webPagePrinter = new WebPagePrinter();
webPagePrinter.PrintWebPage(url);
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}
namespace WebPrintingMadness
{
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
/// <summary>
/// This class is used to print a web page.
/// </summary>
internal class WebPagePrinter : IDisposable
{
/// <summary>
/// A System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowser control.
/// </summary>
private WebBrowser webBrowser;
/// <summary>
/// Initializes a new instance of the WebPagePrinter class.
/// </summary>
internal WebPagePrinter()
{
this.webBrowser = new WebBrowser();
this.webBrowser.DocumentCompleted += new WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventHandler(this.WebBrowser_DocumentCompleted);
this.webBrowser.ScriptErrorsSuppressed = true;
}
/// <summary>
/// Disposes of this instance.
/// </summary>
public void Dispose()
{
this.Dispose(true);
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
}
/// <summary>
/// Prints a web page.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="url">The url of the web page.</param>
internal void PrintWebPage(string url)
{
this.webBrowser.Navigate(url);
}
/// <summary>
/// Disposes of this instance.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="disposing">True if disposing, otherwise false.</param>
protected virtual void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
if (disposing)
{
if (this.webBrowser != null)
{
this.webBrowser.Dispose();
this.webBrowser = null;
}
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Event handler for the webBrowser DocumentCompleted event.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="sender">The event sender.</param>
/// <param name="e">The event arguments.</param>
private void WebBrowser_DocumentCompleted(object sender, WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventArgs e)
{
WebBrowser navigated = sender as WebBrowser;
if (navigated == null)
{
return;
}
navigated.Print();
navigated.Dispose();
}
}
}
However, the DocumentCompleted event never fires. Is it possible to use this Windows.Forms control in an console application?

Answer 1

It will work as long as process events while it's running.
You can simply call "Application.DoEvents()" in a wait loop. You don't need to do anything fancier than that, and it works fine in my console application.

Answer 2

The basic requirement of an STA thread is that it needs to run a message pump.
In Windows Forms, you can use Application.Run. Or you could write the message pump by hand, using user32!GetMessage & DispatchMessage. But it's probably easier to use the one in WinForms or WPF.