Engine

This guide describes how to create, use, and close Engine.

Please consider reading the Architecture guide to better understand how JxBrowser architecture is designed, how it works and what main components it provides.

Creating Engine

To create a new Engine instance use the Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions) static method. This method initializes and runs the Chromium engine with the passed options.

Engine engine = Engine.newInstance(engineOptions);

val engine = Engine.newInstance(engineOptions)

Depending on the hardware performance, the initialization process might take several seconds. We recommend that you do not call this method in the application UI thread because it might freeze the whole application for a while. Please use the approach described in the example.

When you create a new Engine instance, JxBrowser performs the following actions:

1. Checks the environment and makes sure that it is supported.
2. Finds the Chromium binaries and extracts them to the required directory if necessary.
3. Runs the main process of the Chromium engine.
4. Sets up the IPC connection between Java and the Chromium main process.

Engine options

Rendering mode

This option indicates how the content of a web page will be rendered. JxBrowser supports the following rendering modes:

Hardware accelerated

In this rendering mode Chromium renders content using GPU and displays it directly on a surface. The following example demonstrates how to enable the hardware accelerated rendering mode:

Engine engine = Engine.newInstance(RenderingMode.HARDWARE_ACCELERATED);

val engine = Engine.newInstance(RenderingMode.HARDWARE_ACCELERATED)

Read more about the hardware accelerated rendering mode, its performance, and limitations.

Off-screen

In this mode Chromium renders the content using GPU and copies the pixels to RAM. The following example demonstrates how to enable the off-screen rendering mode:

Engine engine = Engine.newInstance(RenderingMode.OFF_SCREEN);

val engine = Engine.newInstance(RenderingMode.OFF_SCREEN)

Read more about the off-screen rendering mode, its performance, and limitations.

Language

This option configures the language used on the default error pages and the message dialogs. By default, the language is dynamically configured according to the default locale of your Java application. If the language obtained from the Java application locale is not supported, the US English language is used.

Current option allows you to override the default behavior and configure the Chromium engine with the given language. For example:

Engine engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .language(Language.GERMAN)
        .build());

val engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .language(Language.GERMAN)
        .build())

In the code above we configure the Engine with the German language. If JxBrowser fails to load a web page, the error page in German will be displayed:

I18N internationalization

Starting with 7.1 version, the library supports I18N internationalization when browsing local file system:

User data directory

Represents an absolute path to the directory where the profiles, and their data such as cache, cookies, history, GPU cache, local storage, visited links, web data, spell checking dictionary files, etc. are stored. For example:

Engine engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .userDataDir(Paths.get("/Users/Me/.jxbrowser"))
        .build());

val engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .userDataDir(Path("/Users/Me/.jxbrowser"))
        .build())

The same user data directory cannot be used at the same time by multiple Engine instances running in a single or different Java applications. The Engine creation will fail if the directory is already used by another Engine.

The directory cannot be located on a network drive.

If you do not provide the user data directory path during Engine creation, the Engine instance will create a directory in the user’s temp folder and use it. The temp directory will be automatically deleted during closing Engine.

Incognito

This option indicates whether the Incognito mode for the default profile is enabled. In this mode the user data such as browsing history, cookies, site data is stored in the memory. It will be released once you delete Profile or close the Engine.

By default the Incognito mode is disabled.

The following example demonstrates how to enable the Incognito mode:

Engine engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .enableIncognito()
        .build());

val engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .enableIncognito()
        .build())

User agent

Using this option you can configure the default user agent string. For example:

Engine engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .userAgent("<user-agent>")
        .build());

val engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .userAgent("<user-agent>")
        .build())

You can override the default user agent string in each Browser instance.

Remote debugging port

This option sets the remote debugging port. One may need it to integrate with software like Selenium that relies on Chrome DevTools Protocol.

The following example demonstrates how to set the port number:

Engine engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .addSwitch("--remote-allow-origins=http://localhost:9222")
        .remoteDebuggingPort(9222)
        .build());

val engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .addSwitch("--remote-allow-origins=http://localhost:9222")
        .remoteDebuggingPort(9222)
        .build())

To inspect the web pages loaded in JxBrowser you can use the following ways.

Chrome Inspect
Open Google Chrome and load chrome://inspect to inspect the web pages.

Remote Debugging URL
Get the remote debugging URL of a Browser instance where the required web page is loaded and load it in another Browser instance.

You can always inspect the web page using the built-in DevTools.

Disabling touch menu

Long press on the Windows 10 touch devices may cause the following touch menu to be shown:

The following code snipped demonstrates how to disable this touch menu:

Engine engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .disableTouchMenu()
        .build());

val engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .disableTouchMenu()
        .build())

Chromium binaries directory

Use this option to define an absolute or relative path to the directory where the Chromium binaries are located or should be extracted to. For example:

Engine engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .chromiumDir(Paths.get("/Users/Me/.jxbrowser/chromium"))
        .build());

val engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .chromiumDir(Paths.get("/Users/Me/.jxbrowser/chromium"))
        .build())

See also Chromium Binaries Location.

Chromium switches

Chromium accepts the command line switches that change its behavior, allow to debug, or turn the experimental features on.

For the list of switches and their description you can find in the documentation provided by Peter Beverloo.

To configure Chromium with the required switches use the following API:

Engine engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .addSwitch("--<switch-name>")
        .addSwitch("--<switch-name>=<switch-value>")
        .build());

val engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .addSwitch("--<switch-name>")
        .addSwitch("--<switch-name>=<switch-value>")
        .build())

Not all the Chromium switches are supported by JxBrowser, so there is no guarantee that the passed switches will work and will not cause any errors. We recommend configuring Chromium through the Engine Options instead of switches.

Google APIs

Some Chromium features such as Geolocation, Spelling, Speech, etc. use Google APIs, and to access those APIs, an API Key, OAuth 2.0 client ID, and client secret are required. To acquire the API Key follow this instruction.

To provide the API Key, client ID, and client secret use the following code:

Engine engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .googleApiKey("<api-key>")
        .googleDefaultClientId("<client-id>")
        .googleDefaultClientSecret("<client-secret>")
        .build());

val engine = Engine.newInstance(EngineOptions.newBuilder(...)
        .googleApiKey("<api-key>")
        .googleDefaultClientId("<client-id>")
        .googleDefaultClientSecret("<client-secret>")
        .build())

Setting up API keys is optional. If you do not do it, some APIs using Google services will not work.

Proprietary features

Starting from 7.4 the library allows enabling the proprietary features such as proprietary H.264/AAC codecs and Widevine through the following options:

Engine engine = Engine.newInstance(
        EngineOptions.newBuilder(renderingMode)
                .enableProprietaryFeature(proprietaryFeature)
                .build());

val engine = Engine.newInstance(
        EngineOptions.newBuilder(renderingMode)
                .enableProprietaryFeature(proprietaryFeature)
                .build())

Closing Engine

The Engine allocates memory and system resources that must be released. So, when the Engine is no longer needed, it must be closed through the Engine.close() method to shut down the native Chromium process and free all the allocated memory and system resources. For example:

Engine engine = Engine.newInstance(engineOptions);
...
engine.close();

val engine = Engine.newInstance(engineOptions)
...
engine.close()

Any attempt to use an already closed Engine will lead to the IllegalStateException.

To check whether the Engine is closed use the following method:

boolean closed = engine.isClosed();

val closed = engine.isClosed()

Engine events

Engine closed

To get notifications when the Engine has been closed use the EngineClosed event:

engine.on(EngineClosed.class, event -> {});

engine.on(EngineClosed::class.java) { event -> }

Engine crashed

To get notifications when the Engine has been unexpectedly crashed due to an error inside the Chromium engine use the EngineCrashed event:

engine.on(EngineCrashed.class, event -> {
    int exitCode = event.exitCode();
});

engine.on(EngineCrashed::class.java) { event -> 
    val exitCode = event.exitCode()
}