Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF)

Chromium Embedded Framework

The Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) is an open source framework used to embed the Chromium (Chrome) browser engine in other applications.

Windows Vista/7/8/8.1 via CEF

With CEF, Nutrient can be integrated into almost any desktop-style application on any OS, similar to Electron. The most common use case is integrating Nutrient into apps that are built with WIN32 or WPF instead of UWP.

CefSharp, a popular binding for CEF, supports Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, and 10.

Using CEF with CefSharp on Windows

Support for CefSharp on Windows is currently in beta. Contact us for a sample app.

The 7zip file provided contains a modified version of the official CefSharp minimal example solution. It’s a Git repository, and the last commit on master contains the complete changes necessary for using our SDK with CefSharp.

A scheme handler, which supplies the files requested by the CefSharp control, is registered for HTTP. This is just a very basic custom scheme handler to demonstrate how to handle requests, and it isn’t production-ready code. To fully implement a custom scheme handler, consult the CefSharp documentation.

Chromium Embedded Framework running on Windows 10, compatible down to Windows 7

Running the sample

To get the sample to run, do the following:

  • Unzip the minimal example project and open the solution contained within it.

  • Make sure CefSharp.MinimalExample.Wpf is the active project.

  • Right-click the project CefSharp.MinimalExample.Wpf and click Build.

  • Start the project and it will display default.pdf in the app.

Adding the license key

Nutrient is a commercial product and uses a license key to verify your copy against the package name you registered. Alternatively, you can initialize the SDK in trial mode without a license.

  • Unzip the minimal example project and open the solution contained within it.

  • Make sure CefSharp.MinimalExample.Wpf is the active project.

  • In the Solution Explorer, open the file CefSharp.MinimalExample.Wpf\Properties\assets\license.

  • Replace the LICENSE_KEY_GOES_HERE text with your license key.

  • Open CefSharp.MinimalExample.Wpf\CefSharpSchemeHandlerFactory.cs and change the cef.example.com string to match the bundle ID of your license. This is essential!

  • Open CefSharp.MinimalExample.Wpf\MainWindow.xaml and change the cef.example.com string to match your bundle ID.

  • Right-click the project CefSharp.MinimalExample.Wpf and click Build.

Troubleshooting

If the PDF isn’t displayed, you can troubleshoot the app while it’s running by opening a Chrome browser, navigating to http://localhost:8088/, and clicking Nutrient Web SDK.

This will open a connection to the running app, and you can then switch to the Console tab of the developer tools and examine any error messages.