How to Use Google Geolocation API in JxBrowser 4.x

Together with one of the most powerful browser engines, JxBrowser now carries into your Java application the cool features available via Google API, in particular, the Google Geolocation API. In case you would like to utilize this functionality in your Java app, here is a brief insight into how to enable this feature.

First of all you must enable billing in the Google APIs Console and activate Google Maps Geolocation API, otherwise the API will not work.

You will need a valid API Key as well. The instructions on how to acquire the API Key can be found at http://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/api-keys#TOC-Acquiring-Keys

Once Google Maps Geolocation API and billing are enabled, you can provide the keys to JxBrowser Chromium engine via environment variables. Set the environment variables GOOGLE_API_KEY, GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_ID and GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_SECRET to your "API key", "Client ID" and "Client secret" values respectively. To find out where to get "API key", "Client ID" and "Client secret" see the video instruction at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o425vQXpigw

IE11 Issues Impacting JExplorer Customers

MS IE 11 support had been added in JExplorer 2.7 right after MS IE 11 release (April–May 2014). Several months later a few of our customers informed us that they have issues such as native crashes, freezing and fail fast exceptions in Java and JExplorer32 processes with MS IE 11.

We figured out that these issues are reproducible only with the latest MS IE 11 updates starting from 11.0.10. We analysed crash dump files and function call stacks and figured out that problems were caused by regression issues in MS IE 11 updates. Microsoft confirmed that their latest updates are causing similar issues and they started working on fixing these problems. Microsoft engineers do not give exact estimates on the expected fix time, but we anticipate that it may take months before a new update of IE 11 goes public.

While working with Microsoft on the issues, we figured out that latter can be avoided by re-designing and re-implementing the way JExplorer integrates with IE. We created a prototype with the new design and got a confirmation that all issues introduced in the latest MS IE 11 updates can be worked around on our end.

So, right now we are working on the next JExplorer version that would be compatible with the latest MS IE 11 updates. It will be a major rework with a much more reliable implementation of our library, which will include several necessary changes in the public API. We will do our best to make the new API compatible with JExplorer 2.7 version as much as possible, but we cannot make it 100% compatible.

The version which addresses IE11 issues will be a major version update, 3.0. We are planning to release public 3.0 Beta, which would cover most used features in the middle of November. The complete version release is planned to mid-December.

While we are working on the new version of JExplorer, to avoid the issues with the latest MS IE 11 updates, we recommend that end users downgrade their MS IE 11 version to 11.0.9.

JxBrowser 4.6 Released

JxBrowser has been updated to version 4.6.

In this update we implemented printing and cookies filter API, added touch screen and OpenGL support, improved DnD and Silverlight plugin integration, fixed reported issues and more.

See the full list of changes in 4.6 on the JxBrowser 4.6 Release Notes page.
The update is available for download. Please find online samples for JxBrowser on our support site.

We would be glad to hear your feedback or provide help with use of our product on JxBrowser support forum.