Host RadControls for WinForms in Internet Explorer

 
HOW-TO
Host RadControls for WinForms in Internet Explorer

SOLUTION
It is easy to host RadControls for WinForms in Internet Explorer.

Please follow the steps below to set up control hosting:

1. First, create a Virtual Directory and name it, for example VirtualDir . In order to do this, you should:
   1. Create a directory on your hard drive.

   2. Right-click it and select Properties , then the Web Sharing tab. Choose the Share This Folder radio button and a Edit Alias window will appear. Then click OK and then OK once again to save the Virtual Directory properties.

2. Create a new Windows Control Library project in Visual Studio and name it, for example IEHostUIControl

3. Right-click on the project file in the Solution Explorer and choose Properties. Select the Build tab and change the Output path to the virtual directory path.

4. Add a new item to the project: right-click the project file, then select Add -> New Item... .Choose User Control item, name it, for example UserControl1.cs and click Add .

5. Double-click UserControl1.cs in the Solution Explorer and now you can add RadControls by dragging them from the toolbox to the UserControl1 Design View .

6. Build the project. A IEHostUIControl.dll file should appear in the VirtualDir .

7. Now that you have the assembly containing the controls, you should create a html page, that will host this assembly. Create a simple html page in the VirtualDir, name it index.htm , then in the body tag add a tag of type object, which references the assembly and the type in its classid property in the way shown below.
   
   In the example below, IEHostControl.dll is the assembly, that we have just created in the VirtualDir directory. As for " IEHostUIControl.UserControl1 ", IEHostControl is the namespace, and the UserControl1 is the user control item created. You have to reference the type in the classid property the type as follows:
   
   <the name of the DLL>#<namespace name>.<type name>
   
   This is illustrated in the example below:
   
   <object id="simpleControl1" classid="http:IEHostUIControl.dll#IEHostUIControl.UserControl1" height="300" width="300">
   </object>  

8. In order to be able to view the hosted controls in the web page, you have to set the necessary permissions. Start Internet Explorer , choose Tools , Internet Options , then open the Security tab. Click on Trusted Sites and then the Sites button. In our case, the site is located on the local hard drive, so add " http://localhost " to the trusted sites, and uncheck Require server verification (https:) for all sites in the zone .

9. Depending on your server configuration you should use one of the following approaches:

   • Using  Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Configuration
     There is one final thing that you have to change with the permissions. Go to the Control Panel >> Administrative Tools >> Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Configuration . From the tree on the left navigate to Runtime Security Policy >> Machine >> Code Groups >> Trusted Zone . From the panel on the right, open Edit Code Groups Properties and then, the Permission Set tab. Set Permissions to FullTrust and click OK . 

   • Using  Code Access Security Policy Tool
     If you are working on a non-developer workstation,  Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Configuration will not be available . In this case you should use the Code Access Security Policy Tool (caspol.exe) instead. You can find it in the " C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework2.0.50727\ " directory. The directory name varies, depending on the drive that has Windows installed, and the specific version of .NET Framework that you have.
     To use the Caspol utility, open the command line, navigate to the directory mentioned above and then type " caspol -machine -chggroup 1.5. FullTrust ", where "1.5." stands for the Trusted Zone . However, Trusted Zone could be under different number in your case, so you should first check this by typing the command " caspol -m -lg ". It will list all the zones with their corresponding numbers and security levels.
     NOTE: You also can set the security level just for one assembly by using the command " caspol -addfulltrust C:\VirtualDir\IEHostUIControl.dll ". Note, that this command will work only if the IEHostUIContro.dll is strongly named. To give the assembly a strong name, please refer to the following MSDN article.

10. Start Internet Explorer and type the URL of your virtual directory: http://localhost/VirtualDir . You should get the page you created with the hosted RadControls .

1. Setting the permissions to the ones shown above (FullTrust) is for demonstration purposes only. To learn more about setting the right permissions for you, please refer to MSDN.  
2. To achieve the best user experience, please use Internet Explorer 7 to open the web page that hosts the controls.