Web Browser integrated into XBMC - HTML Layout Engine with a GUI embedded into XBMC?

Brilliant. I cant see why this havent been done before really. Just have proper zooming like any Android browser out there, and you'd be good to go. Might kill off several poorly maintained plugins for small sites like VBS.tv or whatever. Im rooting for you direx

Would something like this work for netflix and hulu?

direx Wrote:Hi,

actually implementing a webbrowser as an app which can be launched from within XBMC is not very hard (with the Executor plugin). But launching a browser like Firefox or Chrome is sort of useless (at least for me), because I always need to zoom in in order to read the text on my TV.

This is why I have played around with Qt a little bit and made a quick-and-dirty fullscreen WebKit browser (with QWebKit) which is optimised for 720p and 1080p TVs.

Here is a screenshot: http://img52.imageshack.us/i/tvbrowser.png/

What do you think? As soon as I have more time I'll do some more UI polishing (like a settings widget for changing font and icon size) and release the source code. Please note that you need a keyboard/mouse. I am using it with my Logitech diNnovo Mini which works great.


- direx

Any progress on this direx? Any way you can share the code?

Using 'Ctrl/+ and Ctrl/-' you can zoom in and out of a browsers page. I do this with Google.com and a few other pages and the browser remembers that zoom level so it will always open that page at that zoom level.

I would love to see Chrome embedded. I use a Boxee remote so there are some limitations but in all the only thing missing is a web browser.

Oh, and if not already in the forum.. for those that want Youtube, a great UI is youtube.com/leanback. This page is built for Google TV so it is very arrow friendly..

Yo!

Nice to see this kind of discussion!

I've made (there's one or two years) an addon to manage bookmarks and launch them in a browser. The browser and options could be choose by the user, directly in xbmc. The bookmarks could be synchro with google bookmarks.

I can put it in the official repository, if it interests someone.

Since i've made it, i don't really use it. It's difficult to browse a webpage and come back in xbmc (impossible with a remote?!)
It could be perfect if a browser could be link with xbmc (history, bookmarks, and render of course).

I will follow this thread.

Cheers

I agree that browser integration is sorely missing in XBMC currently. Some API to perform clicks from plugins and you could control all these evil DRM'D streaming sites and put them into fullscreen mode, while navigation could be done in the beautiful XBMC interface.

But I understand it is a huge task and there seems to be no interest from the core developpers.

MB

Given that Boxee will release their sourcecode, perhaps their browser integration can be used in xbmc?

blaize Wrote:Given that Boxee will release their sourcecode, perhaps their browser integration can be used in xbmc?

last I checked their browser is coded into the backend solution (on device) they have, i.e. they "stream" the page over IPC to boxee. The backend solution is closed source, i.e. unusable for us.

Your more than happy to digg through their code and find the patches and prove me wrong though

Given that the new Boxee Desktop has been released, including the source code, is there any chance we will see an integrated in XBMC.

Honestly you can't imagine the world of possibilities this would open ... or you can.

MeeGo TV Browser which is Chromium / WebKit based web browser for MeeGo TV platforms could perhaps be the perfect base for XBMC?

http://wiki.meego.com/TV_Browser

Quote:The internet world has created browser for PC. Assuming not only a mouse and a keyboard, but also a 50 cm viewing with a multi windows presentation layer and a skilled human who drive the beast. Unfortunately, a TV has neither a keyboard or a mouse, the vision is done from 3m, there is no windowing concept and the Live TV presentation remains in control of the UI all the time. TV needs is a browser which address some critical issues. Controllable by an external application.

• Instant start
• Accept alternative input method
• Support HW accelerated Video
• Give access to all the TV features from Javascript
  [**]System configuration
  [**]Asset browsing
  [**]Video and Audio
  [**]PVR and Pause live TV.
  [**]Video and Audio output
  [**]Input devices

http://meego.gitorious.org/meego-middlew...tv-browser

MeeGo TV Browser is still an active project and their developers also already use XBMC as their media player for MeeGo TV / Tizen.