Background and "features"

LiteHtmlSharp is a C# cross-platform library for HTML/CSS(2/3) visualization - self contained, fast and small.
The HTML parser/renderer is based on the fantastic litehtml C++ library, and the drawing is done with platform-native controls (currently WPF and Cocoa).

litehtml is the lightweight HTML rendering engine with CSS2/CSS3 support. Note, litehtml itself does not draw any text, pictures or other graphics and litehtml does not depend of any image/draw/font library. You are free to use any library to draw images, fonts and any other graphics. litehtml just parses HTML/CSS and places the HTML elements into right position (renders HTML).

HTML Visualization? What does that mean?

We wanted to use HTML/css to do splash screen, about-box design, new version availability messaging, new user "greeting", getting started documentation, etc. We wanted to have this tightly integrated, completely in our control (no platform right-click menus, no Windows Internet Explorer compatibility problems) and appropriately sized (no 50mb distributions that require a chrome browser process running).

We couldn't find anything for .NET / C# that met our needs, but litehtml sparked our imagination, and it's a stable, awesome library that knows how to do layout (but not draw) for just about everything we needed.

So we wrapped litehtml to make it work for C#, then built a drawing abstraction layer and OSX and WPF implementations. Cool. It could work for Android, iOS, Linx, too - we've just not done the visualization part for that yet. Several other parts are not yet fully flushed out, too.

LiteHtmlLib (C++)

The first layer of this library is a C++ project (see the LiteHtmlLib directory) that wraps the litehtml document_container abstract class in a way that the C# PInvoke system can interact with. This code along with the litehtml C++ is compiled into a native binary that our C# wrapper consumes with DLLImports. We've provided precompiled win32/64 DLLs and a OSX 32/64 dylib.

Compiling DLL on Windows

Use the LiteHtmlLib/LiteHtmlLib.vcxproj project in Visual Studio 2015.

Compiling on OSX

Install CMake. Open LiteHtmlLib/LiteHtml.dyblib.mdproj in Xamarin Studio and run build.

Or just call the build script from terminal:

cd LiteHtmlLib
sh build.sh

Compiling on Linux

The above build script should work but hasn't been tested.

LiteHtmlSharp

Second layer is a C# shared project that provides a C# abstract class equivalent of the C++ document_container. Most of the of the structs and class methods have been ported.

Usage Documentation

If you are wanting to just display HTML in a WPF or Xamarin.Mac/MonoMac app, then use our platform implementations (see below). Otherwise you will have to derive the base C# container and implement the drawing API for your platform. The Container class definition more-or-less mirrors the original C++ one but with C#-style syntax. The API should be close enough to be able to use the original litehtml usage documentation: document_container and how to use litehtml

Our WPF & Mac implementations can be used as examples when implementing a new platform. Some cool, unimplemented ideas:

• An OpenTK implementation (provides html -> OpenGL rendering on most platforms)
• A Mono.Cairo implementation
• A Winforms GTK+ (System.Drawing) implementation

Platform Implementations

Core Graphics (Apple platforms)

The LiteHtmlSharp.CoreGraphics shared project contains CGContainer (derived from litehtml container) which draws to a CoreGraphics.CGContext instance. Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Mac Unified projects can use this project.

Xamarin.Mac

The LiteHtmlSharp.Mac library contains a litehtml-NSView and a litehtml-NSWindow. Usage examples:

LiteHtmlNSView

var myView = new LiteHtmlNSView(new CGRect(0, 0, 400, 500), File.ReadAllText("master.css"));
myView.LiteHtmlContainer.ImportCssCallback = (url, baseUrl) => File.ReadAllText(url);
myView.LiteHtmlContainer.LoadImageCallback = (url) => File.ReadAllBytes(url);
myView.LoadHtml(File.ReadAllText("index.html"));
windowContentView.AddSubview(myView);

LiteHtmlNSWindow

var htmlWindow = new LiteHtmlNSWindow(
                    new CGRect(0, 0, 400, 400), 
                    NSWindowStyle.Closable | NSWindowStyle.Titled | NSWindowStyle.Resizable, 
                    File.ReadAllText("master.css")
                );
htmlWindow.LiteHtmlContainer.ImportCssCallback = (url, baseUrl) => File.ReadAllText(url);
htmlWindow.LiteHtmlContainer.LoadImageCallback = (url) => File.ReadAllBytes(url);
htmlWindow.LiteHtmlView.LoadHtml(File.ReadAllText("index.html"));
htmlWindow.MakeKeyAndOrderFront(this);

WPF

// code