c# Adding web functionality to a windows forms project

Question

I am running a windows forms application on a server which do many things. My intention is to get some web functionality to the application, for example view the logfile in a browser or manipulate the Settings.Defaults via browser.

Is it possible to add the web functionality to a winforms application ?

What do you mean by view the logfile in a browser using a winform application? — Shaharyar
– Shaharyar, Commented Jan 14, 2016 at 6:30
<h2>to get some web functionality to the application</h2><br/>I think you need to explain more about that however you can search for http listener but instead of it i rather suggest you to build a web application which could share content coming from your winform app. — Francesco Milani
– Francesco Milani, Commented Jan 14, 2016 at 6:48
No WebBrowserControl is for using a Webbrowser in a windows form, what i mean is to access the winform app from a browser outside the server. For example I contact via browser from a client pc the url servername/winformapp.aspx or something to get the mentioned features. @Shaharyar: On this page I would see what the app on the server is doing. At the moment it writes to a local textfile. — user1073472
– user1073472, Commented Jan 14, 2016 at 6:49
You will have to make a web service which will read that file and return the data to you. You can also achieve it by making a simple webform and throw data using Response.Write. But web service is preferable. — Shaharyar
– Shaharyar, Commented Jan 14, 2016 at 6:57

Muhammad Nagy · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-16 02:11:56Z

2

Yes, you can by self hosting web API into your windows form application like demonstrated here

The second option is to use ASP.NET 5 self-hosting but it is still in beta and has no good documentation yet.

Edit 1: To support viewing pages using Web API 2 you need to follow the following steps: First, let JSON formatter handle HTML requests like the following

config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
  "API Default", "api/{controller}/{id}",
  new { id = RouteParameter.Optional });

// Add the supported media type.            
config.Formatters.JsonFormatter.SupportedMediaTypes.Add(new MediaTypeHeaderValue("text/html"));

Second, Save the desired html template files on disk with placeholders that will be replaced with your actual data at runtime and change the controller like below

    public String GetAllProducts()
    {
        //Should be loaded from HTML template file ex. Products.html
        string html = "<html><body><table border=\"2\"><tr><th>ID</th><th>Name</th><th>Category</th><th>Price</th><tr>{{placeholder}}</table></body></html>";
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        foreach (var item in products)
        {
            sb.AppendLine("<tr><td>" + item.Id + "</td><td>" + item.Name + "</td><td>" + item.Category + "</td><td>" + item.Price + "</td></tr>");
        }
        return html.Replace("{{placeholder}}", sb.ToString());
    }

Note: If you don't like the default JSON formatter you can write your own like there did tn this project

edited Jan 16, 2016 at 2:11

answered Jan 14, 2016 at 6:45

Muhammad Nagy

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2 Comments

user1073472 Over a year ago

The link sounds interesting I will have a look at that.

user1073472 Over a year ago

Hi, the link helps me much, bit I used the owin method. I'm now able to get for example the Setting.Default.sourcepath value by localhost:9000/api/settings. But how give I the app a web interface ? I mean, going to localhost:9000/index.aspx (or html?) where I define all my Settings for example which post it to my api ?

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