[WIP] INBrowser - The No Frills Web View

INBrowser
The No Frills Web View
​

Summary
When we began work on Imagine Nations, we also looked into a modular approach to our engine and how we could offer it piecemeal to the community. The largest portions of our game, the CellSystem and the SimulationSystem, are two modules that we would like to offer in the future for anyone that is building expansive voxel games, or just wants to utilize a highly efficient simulation engine that can handle whatever NPC load you want to throw at it (within reason).

INBrowser is the first module we're offering, and came about due to recent needs. A simple to use browser interface is lacking currently within Unity. We weren't after a full fledged browser, nor a full UI system. All we needed was a simple drag and drop interface with Canvas to output an interactive web page to the screen. With our main menu, we are currently showing the latest news, a link to our Wiki page, and a connected Twitch page whenever we stream. We wanted these to be easily accessible for anyone playing our game rather than needing to access them externally.

What is INBrowser?
INBrowser is a no frills web view. Its not meant to offer full browser functional, or be used for a UI system. Right now, it does exactly what we need within Imagine Nations. It allows you to setup a Canvas UI, drop in the INBrowser script, connect a RawImage to the INBrowser, and set a URL to view. Its that simple. Rather than stopping at a static image, however, we wanted a better experience for our community and provided the full Chromium backend (we are built off of ChromiumFX at https://bitbucket.org/chromiumfx/chromiumfx/overview) so you get a fully interactive experience. Videos, browser games, and whatever else you want to show on the defined URL just work.

Everything is automated. You don't have to do anything else with INBrowser in your game or application. Update the URL in INBrowser, and it will update. Change the size of the RawImage connected to INBrowser, and it will resize appropriately. We want this to be accessible to everyone with or without coding experience.

Who should use INBrowser?
If you're looking for a simple web view that still allows you to properly interact with the webpage (play videos, host chat, post on forums, etc.) then INBrowser is for you. We promise to offer all functionality that we currently need within our game, and as we identify new areas that are needed within Imagine Nations, those new features will be added here.

Why use INBrowser?
This is something that we personally need within our game. We hold the quality of our game to a high standard, and this is approached equally to as high a standard as everything else. The real benefit of INBrowser is that not only will we be able to identify issues and handle critiques through the wonderful community in the Asset Store, but we will also be running INBrowser through the grinder with our Imagine Nations backers and community. If issues or quality concerns arise, we're seeing them both from the developer *and* end user sides at the same time.

When will INBrowser launch?
INBrowser is feature complete and going through heavy testing within the team. As soon as we are confident it is running appropriately for all of us, we will launch it. Ideally we'd like to have this submitted to the Asset Store within the next week unless bugs or performance concerns crop up. We're testing this on a wide range of hardware to see how well it handles for all users.

​

 

uWebKit just stopped development, so it's good to see some other folks coming in to the fold.
What platforms will this support?
Do you need beta testers?

One feature I'd really love to see is the ability to completely mimic a mobile browser. Not just request a smaller dimensioned site and hope that it is responsive, but actually send proper headers and have it work.uWebKit had the ability to modify headers, but it didn't seem to work for sites like Youtube. Oftentimes mobile interface is much more friendly for inside of a game (especially VR).

 

uWebKit really is the biggest reason we started developing INBrowser. We were using it for our main menu, but with it being discontinued, it made more sense to have an in-house project that we could maintain ourselves. With the lack of browser plugins for Unity, it also made sense once its fully functional to offer it to the community.

Initial launch will be Windows only. There are no real hurdles to support Mac and Linux, but we do not want to have a separate development path for INBrowser. If we keep it in line with the development of Imagine Nations (which will itself add support for Mac and Linux in the future), then we can ensure that both projects get the same level of focus with our smaller team.

We definitely need beta testers. INBrowser is currently feature complete, but we are getting inconsistency in the performance running it. Sometimes we get everything perfectly responsive (input, movies playing, etc.), and sometimes there's a definite lag in everything. We're not launching this until it functions identically to a standard browser you'd run on your system, so the focus is cleaning up performance to ensure a consistent output.

Ideally mobile headers falls into the same category as Mac and Linux support. Once we have launches on Mac and Linux for Imagine Nations, we will then expand into the mobile front and extend support to those as well. More or less, the end goal of INBrowser is that it just plain works on any platform that Unity supports as we extend support through Imagine Nations.

 

Performance issues and the last few major bugs have been resolved. We have a Slack room setup for anyone that wishes to test out the release candidate and stay up to date with the team. Please email me with the address you want invited and I'll get you setup asap. We will continue to use the Slack room in the future for any quick support needed for INBrowser along with a separate forum.

It is looking like a possible release next week assuming no more issues crop up.

 

Interested in this, when will it be available, and what is the cost? Been looking all over for solution for this.

 

We are looking to submit to the Asset Store shortly. We are prepping the documentation and a tutorial video, and we'll go from there. The aimed cost will be $40, but it is not set in stone.

 

INBrowser is now live on the Asset Store at http://u3d.as/xqJ. We will be handling any posts for it in the new Asset Store thread at http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/inbrowser-the-no-frills-web-view.419019/.