How do i build an internet browser?

Question

i want to build an internet browser, with the following options...
- the only graphics it displays are those on the google (or other specified search engine) page
- all other pages, it returns only text, and the html used to build that page
can anyone point me in the right direction? i cant find anything specific in the help docs, so a rtfm wont help me here =P

Answer 1

Look at this URL : http://archive.corewebprogramming.com/ . What you wantis under chapter 14. Here is the Browser.java courtesy of Core Web Programming by Hall & Brown. I own this book, may be you might be interested in dog eared 2nd copy for a reasonable price!
Hopefully, this'll make short work of your exercise.
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.event.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
/** Very simplistic "Web browser" using Swing. Supply a URL on
* the command line to see it initially and to set the
* destination of the "home" button.
* Taken from Core Web Programming from
* Prentice Hall and Sun Microsystems Press,
* http://www.corewebprogramming.com/.
* © 2001 Marty Hall and Larry Brown;
* may be freely used or adapted.
public class Browser extends JFrame implements HyperlinkListener,
ActionListener {
public static void main(String[] args) {
if (args.length == 0)
new Browser("http://www.corewebprogramming.com/");
else
new Browser(args[0]);
private JIconButton homeButton;
private JTextField urlField;
private JEditorPane htmlPane;
private String initialURL;
public Browser(String initialURL) {
super("Simple Swing Browser");
this.initialURL = initialURL;
addWindowListener(new ExitListener());
WindowUtilities.setNativeLookAndFeel();
JPanel topPanel = new JPanel();
topPanel.setBackground(Color.lightGray);
homeButton = new JIconButton("home.gif");
homeButton.addActionListener(this);
JLabel urlLabel = new JLabel("URL:");
urlField = new JTextField(30);
urlField.setText(initialURL);
urlField.addActionListener(this);
topPanel.add(homeButton);
topPanel.add(urlLabel);
topPanel.add(urlField);
getContentPane().add(topPanel, BorderLayout.NORTH);
try {
htmlPane = new JEditorPane(initialURL);
htmlPane.setEditable(false);
htmlPane.addHyperlinkListener(this);
JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane(htmlPane);
getContentPane().add(scrollPane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
} catch(IOException ioe) {
warnUser("Can't build HTML pane for " + initialURL
+ ": " + ioe);
Dimension screenSize = getToolkit().getScreenSize();
int width = screenSize.width * 8 / 10;
int height = screenSize.height * 8 / 10;
setBounds(width/8, height/8, width, height);
setVisible(true);
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event) {
String url;
if (event.getSource() == urlField) {
url = urlField.getText();
} else { // Clicked "home" button instead of entering URL.
url = initialURL;
try {
htmlPane.setPage(new URL(url));
urlField.setText(url);
} catch(IOException ioe) {
warnUser("Can't follow link to " + url + ": " + ioe);
public void hyperlinkUpdate(HyperlinkEvent event) {
if (event.getEventType() ==
HyperlinkEvent.EventType.ACTIVATED) {
try {
htmlPane.setPage(event.getURL());
urlField.setText(event.getURL().toExternalForm());
} catch(IOException ioe) {
warnUser("Can't follow link to "
+ event.getURL().toExternalForm() + ": " + ioe);
private void warnUser(String message) {
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(this, message, "Error",
JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
}