New Web Browser Control released
Updated: 3 days ago
The long announced new web browser control based on Chromium/Edge is now available in the Current Channel build 16.0.16327.20214. It allows the display of modern web pages full of Javascript etc. which often throw errors in the old Internet Explorer control.
Some key points:
The new control is only available in Access 365, NOT in any existing perpetual version. The old web browser control remains in parallel in 365.
According to the Access Team the control will also be available in the Access 365 Runtime version starting in early June 2023.
If the new control is contained in a database that is opened with other Access versions than 365, the new control will simply not be visible, i.e. the same behaviour concering backwards compatibility as with Modern Charts.
Unlike the old control, the new one also works in continuous forms and reports and can be printed out.
Due to security restrictions, a prefix must be used to display local files: https://msaccess/YourFullPathHere and for redirects the trusted domains must be entered in a table.
In programming, the new control means a big change. There is no longer an Object property and HTML library. Instead, the Access team has built in a few methods like ExecuteJavascript to send Javascript commands with VBA.
Further teething problems are to be expected. For example, I have seen that files containing non-ANSI characters in their name are not displayed. This concerns, e.g. German or Scandinavian umlaute and all kinds of French/Spanish/Italian etc. accents.
Let us know in comments here if you notice any other problems or bugs. We can pass this on to the Access team.
Further information: