Hide Address Bar and Start Menu

[S@discussions.microsoft.com Peter S]

We are deploying a browser based warehousing application on handhelds
dedicated to this one function. The handhelds are using Windows CE 5.0.

Our goal is to simplify the start up of the handheld to auto launch the
browser to the URL of the application and show the browser in full screen
mode. We do not have access to the code for the application.

QUESTION 1: Is there a registry entry I can set to hide the top address/tool
bars and the Start menu at the bottom?

Ideally I can use a registry merge file to configure the browser to hide
these components.

Question 2: If I cannot use registry entries to hide the address bar, can I
write a small ASP page that would run local on the handheld? This page would
hide the address bar, Start Menu, then auto redirect to the URL of the
Warehousing system we want to lock the users into.

If possible any examples would be appreciated.

Thank You
Peter Saastamoinen

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

1. No, not really. You'll see, if you right-click on the task bar, that you
can set it to auto-hide mode, but that doesn't prevent the user from
clicking there and showing it later. I'm not sure if there's a way to
recover the toolbars if you hide them on the browser itself. Generally,
though, you want to change the browser application to make it a real
full-screen/single-program/kiosk sort of thing. Steve Maillet had an
article a while back on MSDN that I think talked about this. We ship a
version of the browser on our devices that runs in this way.

2. I think that the answer to this is no, but I've never tried to control
the application that wraps the Web browser control from some sort of script
code on the page.

Since I know how to do it, I'd just write/copy the browser application code
and arrange to disable the menus that you don't want, etc. I did that in
about three or four days when we wrote ours, including making sure that
JavaScript code can still exit the browser, but that the user can't, that
things like Ctrl+F for Find work or don't work in the locked-down version,
etc.

Paul T.

"Peter S" <Peter S...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:F3738465-C8CF-44BC...@microsoft.com...

[Peter S]

Hi Paul, I appreciate the feedback. your comment " I'd just write/copy the

browser application code and arrange to disable the menus that you don't
want, etc".

I do not have access to the application code.

Do you know if there are any examples out there in C# or VB.Net to make my
own browser shell (run IE within my own browser)?

[r_z_...@pen_fact.com]

On Fri, 7 Mar 2008 08:31:00 -0800, Peter S <Peter
S...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>We are deploying a browser based warehousing application on handhelds
>dedicated to this one function. The handhelds are using Windows CE 5.0.
>
>Our goal is to simplify the start up of the handheld to auto launch the
>browser to the URL of the application and show the browser in full screen
>mode. We do not have access to the code for the application.

As Paul mentioned, a possible key here is "kiosk mode". I just used
google (http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search) to look up
browser kiosk
in microsoft.public.pocketpc and got 2 hits. I took a very quick look
and think they might help. When I tried the same search string in
microsoft.public.pocketpc.developer, I got 8 hits.

-----------------------------------------
To reply to me, remove the underscores (_) from my email address (and please indicate which newsgroup and message).

Robert E. Zaret, eMVP
PenFact, Inc.
20 Park Plaza, Suite 478
Boston, MA 02116
www.penfact.com

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

As I mentioned, Steve M. had an MSDN article. You can download the Platform
Builder evaluation edition for CE5; the code for IESimple is a good starting
place, or you can start with IESample, which *is* the IE browser that gets
built into the OS.

You can do that, I guess. There are no samples that I know of. COM
interactions still intimidate me from trying to do that sort of thing from
managed code (and you need .NET CF 2.0 or later on the device to do any COM
to speak of). Again, with the source code for the real browser just laying
around and a relatively small list of to-do changes to accomplish what you
want, it's a lot easier to stay in native code, I think.

Paul T.

"Peter S" <Pet...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:D28A4A55-DFB6-4288...@microsoft.com...

[Peter S]

Hi Gang, I found another way. Here is a solution to the requested problem
using registry entries.

This does not prevent the use of hardware keys to close Internet Explorer
(ALT + F4) or open the Start menu. But it does hide the tool bar, menu bar,
address bar (at top) and the status bar at bottom.

;Hide the address bar and task bar
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
"Status"=dword:0
"Command Bar"=dword:00000000
"Task Bar"=dword:00000000

Just in case it helps here are some more registry entries that helped me
configure to desired Kiosk mode. With these registry entries and configuring
device to start IE during cold/warm boot recovery I have locked my users in
(note if they know the hot keys they can get out (Alt + F4)).

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
"Start Page" = "http://{desired URL}"
- replace {desired URL} with path needed for application

;disable SIP panel or else every time we enter edit field SIP will show
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Sip]
"AllowChange" = dword:0

;Defualt text size option to smallest
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\International\Scripts\3]
"IEFontSize"=hex:00,00,00,00

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

Glad you found something that satisfies you! Watch out for the
accessibility of the Start menu, though. Lots of bad things can be done by
one guy with the knowledge that Alt+Tab will give him the ability to run
anything at all.

Paul T.

"Peter S" <Pet...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:8E483EB3-E9B3-4302...@microsoft.com...