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Native WPF Browser Hosting Support APIs

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Hosting of WPF applications in Web browsers is facilitated by an Active Document server (also known as a DocObject) registered out of the WPF Host. Internet Explorer can directly activate and integrate with an Active Document. For hosting of XBAPs and loose XAML documents in Mozilla browsers, WPF provides an NPAPI plugin, which provides a similar hosting environment to the WPF Active Document server as Internet Explorer does. However, the easiest practical way to host XBAPs and XAML documents in other browsers and standalone applications is via the Internet Explorer Web Browser control. The Web Browser control provides the complex Active Document server hosting environment, yet it enables its own host to customize and extend that environment and communicate directly with the current Active Document object.

Warning

XBAPs require legacy browsers to operate, such as Internet Explorer and Firefox. These older browser versions are usually unsupported on Windows 10 and Windows 11. Modern browsers no longer support the technology required for XBAP apps due to security risks. Plugins that enable XBAPs are no longer supported. For more information, see Frequently asked questions about WPF browser-hosted applications (XBAP).

The WPF Active Document server implements several common hosting interfaces, including IOleObject, IOleDocument, IOleInPlaceActiveObject, IPersistMoniker, IOleCommandTarget. When hosted in the Web Browser control, these interfaces can be queries from the object returned by the IWebBrowser2::Document property.

IOleCommandTarget

WPF Active Document server's implementation of IOleCommandTarget supports numerous navigation-related and browser-specific commands of the standard OLE command group (with a null command group GUID). In addition, it recognizes a custom command group called CGID_PresentationHost. Currently, there is only one command defined within this group.

DEFINE_GUID(CGID_PresentationHost, 0xd0288c55, 0xd6, 0x4f5e, 0xa8, 0x51, 0x79, 0xde, 0xc5, 0x1b, 0x10, 0xec);  
enum PresentationHostCommands {
   PHCMDID_TABINTO = 1
};

PHCMDID_TABINTO instructs PresentationHost to switch focus to the first or last focusable element in its content, depending on the state of the Shift key.

In This Section

IEnumRAWINPUTDEVICE
IWpfHostSupport