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In-app browser
I would need to render a browser within an app made with Unity.
Is there any plugin available to do so? Or can I open Edge within an app? I think I remember doing it and it would leave the app to open Edge in the shell.
I would need it within the app. Any ideas?
Best Answer
-
jbienzms
mod
Sorry for the late reply. From a conversation I had with one of the engineers, I don't think TryShowAsStandaloneAsync works the same on HoloLens as it does on desktop / tablet. At least not when your application has a 3D view. I believe when your application has a 3D view TryShowAsStandaloneAsync runs like SwitchAsync. The 3D view isn't lost, but you can't have both of them running at the same time.
On HoloLens, 2D apps integrate with the Holographic Shell and can be mixed with other 2D apps and holograms. But 3D applications run in a sort of "Exclusive Mode". Therefore it makes sense that trying to show more than one view would switch you out of exclusive mode.
Awesomium integration with Unity would be phenomenal because then you wouldn't actually need to leave the 3D context at all. But as @ems316 pointed out, that DLL is compiled for Win32 and has problems running in the UWP sandbox. Oh, and just to be clear, it's actually not a problem that Awesomium leverages Win32, the problem is with which Win32 APIs and libraries it needs. Here is the full list of supported Win32 and COM APIs supported in the UWP Sandbox:
Win32 and COM APIs Supported
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/mt592904.aspxI'd love to see this resolved. If any of you have purchased Awesomium and are using it in other projects, please feel free to reach out to them. If they are interested in getting the plugin to run on HoloLens I'm more than happy to personally help them resolve any compatibility problems.
Our Holographic world is here
RoadToHolo.com WikiHolo.net @jbienz
I work in Developer Experiences at Microsoft. My posts are based on my own experience and don't represent Microsoft or HoloLens.7
Answers
Hi @LucasSoftability , Did you found a solution for this?
You could try any from the Unity Asset store.
or one based on chromium :
https://github.com/bkeiren/AwesomiumUnity
But keep in mind Awesomium is not free
Stephen Hodgson
Microsoft HoloLens Agency Readiness Program
Virtual Solutions Developer at Saab
HoloToolkit-Unity Moderator
Hi, @stephenhodgson:
It shows document for windowsstand alone Do you have any idea how to export for UWP what all dependency should we export or place in any directory? simply it's not working for UWP.
THANKS.
So at the moment (09/16), it is not possible to open two apps together, like Edge within your Unity app on Hololens. This restriction should be removed in a later update, though there is nothing about it yet.
Just like the Microsoft Hololens videos showing the user talking on Skype while working on app (CityGroup demo), this is more of a marketing videos, not quite yet possible.
All plugins on AssetStore are about mobile or standalone app, there is nothing about Hololens, most likely since it is still brand new so no one had time to get the device and work on it.
Ahh yeas, good point. I have not tried that myself.
Stephen Hodgson
Microsoft HoloLens Agency Readiness Program
Virtual Solutions Developer at Saab
HoloToolkit-Unity Moderator
I've been able to get UnityAwesomium to build and display with Hololens SDK in the Unity Editor and as a UWP application on my desktop, however, on the emulator and on the device it has been a literal nightmare. I've been tracing system dependencies for days. Does anyone know if this is actually possible? I've gotten all system wide dependencies to link to the correct DLLS, but I crash with a runtime linking error: "xxxx (ntdll.dll) Entry Point Not Found"
I think the issue is that you can't simply link System64WoW (32 bit system dependencies) from your computer and expect these dependencies to work correctly on the Hololens. What's so frustrating is there is no way to actually see what DLLS are on the Hololens, so I've been using a combination of guess and check, the dependency walker and a verbose VS debugger.
I guess we are so close . just we need to figure out where to put all . DLL files or how to create .appx out of this DLL files . In my case DLL are not linking with project. if somehow we can do this then it will solve our problems .
Please Note:as per my knowledge we have to place some required dlls(Other then AwesomiumUnity.dll) in ProjectName_Data directory in case of windows standalone application so we need do same for UWP but I am Not sure how to do that .
Thanks for Helping in advance .
The DLLs have to be linked in to visual studio, otherwise it won't know to link them unless you specify them in the makefile. You need to add in all the DLLs that are said to be added in to the project on the github page. The main issue is the awesomium.dll file. This is because I think it is using certain system APIs that aren't supported on UWP but are on Win32. I'm going to try refactoring/rebuilding the Awesomium.dll to be compliant with UWP standards.
Nevermind, without access to the source code for Awesomium, I can't rebuilding it for UWP support.
The code to make the Unity DLL is on GitHub at
AwesomiumUnity Instructions are from readme
Build the MSVC project and copy the resulting .DLL file (AwesomiumUnity.dll) to your Unity project's Assets\Plugins folder.
Basically its Vs2013 and needs upgrading to 2015 then change to .csproj file to use Universal Windows
Then place this in the Unity Assets\Plugins\WSAPlayer\x86\AwesomiumUnity.dll.
It seems in Unity 5.5 this is now
in the Unity Assets\Plugins\WSA\x86\AwesomiumUnity.dll
Unity WSA Player builder will transfer this into you Project and the set the File properties in VS2015 Solution to "Copy Always" otherwise you will get an error about missing AwesomiumUnity.dll
The issue is that the Awesomium.dll was built to support Win32 applications not a UWP application. When you bring it over to the emulator or the actual device, it can't link the correct system libraies so it fails. The source code for the Awesomium.dll needs to add support for UWP applications, however, their code is not open source, so you either have to pay and do it yourself or wait for them to support UWP.
Good point, and good luck with that. I think that project is dead, unfortunately. Haven't heard a peep from them since 2014 when they were promising to support 64 bit.
Stephen Hodgson
Microsoft HoloLens Agency Readiness Program
Virtual Solutions Developer at Saab
HoloToolkit-Unity Moderator
I've seen a couple of variations on the forum describing using a combination of XAML and D3D to jury-rig the application views.
https://forums.hololens.com/discussion/1620/rendering-html-in-3d-view
https://forums.hololens.com/discussion/comment/7750#Comment_7750
@jbienzms has an active example up at
https://github.com/jbienzms/Adept/blob/master/Lib/Unity/Assets/Adept/Utilities/Scripts/AppViewManager.cs
With these work arounds I've been successful in swapping the views, but I haven't been successful in displaying both the D3D and XAML in the same perspective.
TryShowAsStandaloneAsync hasn't been working as I want it to work.
Sorry for the late reply. From a conversation I had with one of the engineers, I don't think TryShowAsStandaloneAsync works the same on HoloLens as it does on desktop / tablet. At least not when your application has a 3D view. I believe when your application has a 3D view TryShowAsStandaloneAsync runs like SwitchAsync. The 3D view isn't lost, but you can't have both of them running at the same time.
On HoloLens, 2D apps integrate with the Holographic Shell and can be mixed with other 2D apps and holograms. But 3D applications run in a sort of "Exclusive Mode". Therefore it makes sense that trying to show more than one view would switch you out of exclusive mode.
Awesomium integration with Unity would be phenomenal because then you wouldn't actually need to leave the 3D context at all. But as @ems316 pointed out, that DLL is compiled for Win32 and has problems running in the UWP sandbox. Oh, and just to be clear, it's actually not a problem that Awesomium leverages Win32, the problem is with which Win32 APIs and libraries it needs. Here is the full list of supported Win32 and COM APIs supported in the UWP Sandbox:
Win32 and COM APIs Supported
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/mt592904.aspx
I'd love to see this resolved. If any of you have purchased Awesomium and are using it in other projects, please feel free to reach out to them. If they are interested in getting the plugin to run on HoloLens I'm more than happy to personally help them resolve any compatibility problems.
Our Holographic world is here
RoadToHolo.com WikiHolo.net @jbienz
I work in Developer Experiences at Microsoft. My posts are based on my own experience and don't represent Microsoft or HoloLens.
@jbienzms Any updates on the In-app browser?
I saw there's a few Unity Assets on the AssetStore but none work on the Hololens
Would love to also participate in solving this issue 
@papiot Have you got any ideas? Been searching on this topic as well, but no evident solutions seem to come up.
@Touke Not yet. Still experimeting with some asset store items. They work in unity, but not when deployed to Hololens.
Still diggin'
For anyone still interested in this topic, this particular asset works in the hololens. I managed to render a simple site with it inside my Hololens app.
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/10374
Awesome @papiot! Thank you for sharing. It's not intended to be used as a browser but it looks like it can render many kinds of pages. Please let us know if you find another one, but this is helpful.
Our Holographic world is here
RoadToHolo.com WikiHolo.net @jbienz
I work in Developer Experiences at Microsoft. My posts are based on my own experience and don't represent Microsoft or HoloLens.
@jbienzms For my needs I did not need a full fledge browser, so this will do for now, but I am still following to see when a full browser will work inside a project.
Although I am not particularly happy to bring HTML inside the Holo worlds - it might be a good short term solution, but it's fundamentally flawed and we should come up with better ways to render UIs
I'm attempting to do this in the Hololens as well. Awesomium does a fantastic job at what I need (including allowing me to display embeds from Microsoft Azure); however, does not seem to want to deploy to UWP / Hololens from Unity. I've also downloaded the https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/10374 mentioned above, but it currently uses it's own language similar to Javascript which does not play well at all with the included file I need to embed from Azure (would be unrealistic to change all of the code to the new format). The main developer is very prompt and helpful, and mentioned that they are creating a way to read typical Javascript in their software.
Long story short, if anyone finds a way to get Awesomium (or something similar that fits the bill) working on the Hololens, you are incredible.
@jbienzms Is there a possibility to run Chrome or Firefox in hololens?
Hello, Any news about this topic? I need to open a browser in my hololens app. We tried awsomnium and power ui but nothing is really correct ...
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/network/wwebview-97395 I do not know if it works but here is one!
I just wanted to bring this matter up again. This is still indeed an issue. I have not been able to find a solution to this problem.
Just wanted to add that this asset does not work on hololens. that is inside a 3D program.