Microsoft KB Archive/259935

= BUG: DocumentComplete Does Not Fire When WebBrowser Is Not Visible =

Article ID: 259935

Article Last Modified on 5/12/2003

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 128-Bit Edition
 * Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 2
 * Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 1
 * Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 2
 * Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0
 * Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01
 * Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5

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This article was previously published under Q259935



SYMPTOMS
When its Visible property is set to &quot;False&quot;, the WebBrowser control (Shdocvw.dll) does not fire the DocumentComplete event and a document does not reach READYSTATE_COMPLETE state.



RESOLUTION
The best workaround for applications that rely on a hidden WebBrowser control is for you to position the control so that it draws its user interface off its container window. To do this, set the Left property of the control equal to the negative of its Width property. In multimonitor scenarios, negative values can be valid screen coordinates, so the Left property value must be set to coordinates that are outside the values returned by calling the EnumDisplayMonitors method.

Alternately, if the WebBrowser user interface is not needed, the WinInet APIs can provide much of the same functionality.



STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.



Steps to Reproduce Behavior
 Start a new Standard EXE project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default. Add the Microsoft Internet Controls (Shdocvw.dll) to the project. To so, from the Project menu, click Components.  Add the following controls to Form1:   Object                     Name                  Caption ---

WebBrowser                WebBrowser1 CheckBox                  chkVisible            Visible (value of 1 - checked) CommandButton             cmdNavigate           Navigate CommandButton             cmdReadyState         ReadyState

  Copy the following code into the Code window of Form1: Private Sub cmdNavigate_Click WebBrowser1.Navigate2 &quot;http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop&quot; End Sub

Private Sub cmdReadyState_Click MsgBox WebBrowser1.Document.ReadyState End Sub

Private Sub chkVisible_Click WebBrowser1.Visible = chkVisible.Value End Sub

Private Sub WebBrowser1_DocumentComplete(ByVal pDisp As Object,                                           URL As Variant) MsgBox &quot;DocumentComplete!&quot; End Sub

Private Sub WebBrowser1_NavigateComplete2(ByVal pDisp As Object,                                            URL As Variant) MsgBox &quot;NavigateComplete2!&quot; End Sub  From the Run menu, click Start or press the F5 key to start the program.</li> Click the Navigate button. Notice that both the NavigateComplete2 and DocumentComplete events are fired.</li>  Clear the Visible checkbox to hide the WebBrowser control. Click the Navigate button again. Notice that only the NavigateComplete2 event is fired. Using the ReadyState button, verify that the control's ReadyState has not reached READYSTATE_COMPLETE (4).

When you click Navigate again, the same behavior occurs. The DocumentComplete event is only fired when the Visible checkbox is selected, making the WebBrowser control visible again. You can correct the behavior by replacing the chkVisible_Click handler with the following code: Private Sub chkVisible_Click If chkVisible.Value Then WebBrowser1.Left = 120 ' or whatever the normal Left value is      Else WebBrowser1.Left = -WebBrowser1.Width End If  End Sub </li></ol>

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