Open browser only if page not displayed

Question

I have a WPF application and I need to shell out to a browser application. I am using the Process.Start({url}) method to do this.

However, if the url is already displayed in the browser, I do not want to open another browser window or tab; I want to navigate to the browser/tab already open.

Is that at all possible?

Answer 1

You can enumerate the open IE windows using the following method:

SHDocVw.ShellWindows shellWindows = new SHDocVw.ShellWindows();

string filename;

foreach (SHDocVw.InternetExplorer ie in shellWindows)
{
    filename = Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(ie.FullName).ToLower();

    if (filename.Equals("iexplore"))
    {
        try
        {
            Uri test = new Uri(ie.LocationURL);
        }
        catch
        {

        }
    }
}

You'll need to add a reference to the SHDocVw COM component.

Also, if you're using a browser other than IE this won't work.

An alternative would be to use something like GeckoFX https://bitbucket.org/geckofx or a separate winform app with a WebBrowser control instead of using Process.Start