Opening external application and embed it without opening application out of application

Thank You

How can I embed application like a widget in application that I created.
I searched about this and found couple of implementation. I don't know anything about this and never read about this. But I want to make something working browser.

This one is first answer that I found about this topic

mainwindow.cpp

  QString prog = "C:/Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/firefox.exe";
    QStringList arg;
    arg << "google.com";
    QString workDir = "C:/Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/";
    program->startDetached(prog, arg, workDir, 0);
    WId hWnd = 0;
    while (hWnd == 0)
    {
    hWnd = (WId) FindWindowW(NULL, L"C:/Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/firefox.exe");
    }
    window = QWindow::fromWinId(hWnd);
    container = QWidget::createWindowContainer(window, ui->mdiArea);
    QMdiSubWindow *subWindow = new QMdiSubWindow();
    subWindow->setWidget(container);
    subWindow->setAttribute(Qt::WA_DeleteOnClose);
    subWindow->setWindowTitle("Program 1");
    ui->mdiArea->addSubWindow(subWindow);
    container->show();

In mainwindow.h
Added necessary headers and these variables in private

private:
WId id;
    QProcess *program;
    QWindow *window;
    QWidget *container;

second answer

mainwindow.cpp

 browserLocation = "C:/Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/firefox.exe";
    mainWidget = new QWidget(this);
    browserWidget = new QWidget(mainWidget);
    mainLayout = new QVBoxLayout(mainWidget);
    QLabel *label = new QLabel(mainWidget);
    label->setText("Is label showing up?");
    proc = new QProcess(this);
    proc->setProgram(browserLocation);
    proc->start();
    qDebug()<<"Started with pid "<<proc->pid();


    WId id = this->winId();
    QWindow *window = QWindow::fromWinId(id);
    browserWidget = QWidget::createWindowContainer(window,mainWidget);



    mainLayout->addWidget(label);
    mainLayout->addWidget(browserWidget);
    mainWidget->setLayout(mainLayout);
    setCentralWidget(mainWidget);

In mainwindow.h
added necessary headers with these variables in private:

private:
QString browserLocation;
    QProcess *proc;
    QWidget *mainWidget;
    QVBoxLayout *mainLayout;
    QWidget *browserWidget;

Both of the programs run and open firefox as seperate window. And our application doesn't show up. On both way , application doesn't die until we force it to with either from task manager or by rerunning program.

I couldn't find anything working

I came to know that Qtwebkit isn't that much supported by big services and I have been using MINGW :
https://forum.qt.io/topic/132551/using-qwebkit-for-windows-with-mingw

Christian Ehrlicher

@Thank-You said in Opening external application and embed it without opening application out of application:

I came to know that Qtwebkit isn't that much supported by big services:

Use MSVC and Qt WebEngine

Thank You

@Christian-Ehrlicher
Sorry I forgot to mention for MINGW. I will update question.
But I am not actually sure that we can embed another application inside widget without opening it as application but it is only my thought 😂😂. Can we do it????.

JonB

@Thank-You
@Christian-Ehrlicher is suggesting that a much more Qt solution is not to try to run some external Firefox browser program but rather to use Qt WebEngine which is a Chromium engine you can use as a widget in your application. It's an awful neater. However, it is true that under Windows it means you would need to use MSVC toolchain instead of MinGW.

Thank You

@JonB Yes that would be good choice. I couldn't use it because some dependencies are compiled with mingw only and can only be used with them.

Can we do it????.

?

JonB

@Thank-You No, you cannot use Qt WebEngine with MinGW.

Thank You

@JonB
I guess you misunderstood my question
I mean can we embed other application in QT inside widget without showing it up in another window

JonB

@Thank-You
Probably depends on the application, don't know whether there are issues with FireFox, and I don't use Windows.

Since you appear to say you got one or other of your code examples from somewhere, why don't you reference where that was? If that was an example of embedding, surely that code would have been tested as working, I imagine.

A post from 2009, https://www.qtcentre.org/threads/23290-Embedded-browser-in-QT, answers

Is it possible to create a QWindow (or something like it) and embed a browser in this window?

The browser could be chosen by the user, IE, Firefox, Chrome...

with

The answer is "it depends but in general no".

I don't know if that still applies....

Thank You

@JonB
It's limereport
https://limereport.ru/en/index.php

Almost a year ago I built it with mingw and stuck with it.
Thanks for your suggestion.

whether there are issues with FireFox

No I don't mean firefox specific. Any browser.

Although this is out of context but,
If you have used edge , then each tab is considered as separate window and using ALT + TAB it shows a lots of windows opened. If I got this solution I could use it there too and make it as unified so it would be easier with it too.

JonB

@Thank-You
I updated my previous post with some (potentially bad) news.

I don't see anything in your "LimeReport" which has anything to do with embedding an external application into a Qt UI/widget, so i don't know what connection to your application is. Since it appears that you have its source code, why aren't you integrating it into your code (it says "Pure Qt4/Qt5 compatible code") rather than something about trying to run Firefox?

I would start out Googling for qt embed external application to assess what might be possible.

Thank You

@JonB
I mean that library is compiled with mingw 32bit and used in my application. So I linked it.
It doesn't have any connection with embedding.
As a whole main purpose is to make application run browser without opening real browser window.

JonB

@Thank-You said in Opening external application and embed it without opening application out of application:

It doesn't have any connection with embedding.

Then I don't know what relevance it has to your question.

As a whole main purpose is to make application run browser without opening real browser window.

I quoted a potential answer of "No, not for Firefox", but suggested what you should Google for to investigate embedding external applications into Qt. (There are further specific hits for qt embed firefox.) Find one of those, see if it works, see if it can applied to your situation or not.

Thank You

@JonB
I have seen many of posts about this topic.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33699258/qt-5-5-embed-external-application-into-qwidget
All of these go out of my head. I haven't learned about these topic before.

I will try installing msvc and will try to work with it.
HOPING for the best

JonB

@Thank-You
You already have

    window = QWindow::fromWinId(hWnd);
    container = QWidget::createWindowContainer(window, ui->mdiArea);

The solution at that stackoverflow link is merely to add

window->setFlags(window->flags() | Qt::FramelessWindowHint);

I have no idea whether that is relevant to your situation, just saying that is all they are adding.