Using a Video Device with getUserMedia in WebView2 in a Kiosk Scenario (Update)
Back in July I wrote about my experiments with using a video capture device on a web page loaded into the WebView2 component. Since then, WebView2 has received a few updates. I am not sure when or how things have changed (or which version exactly I was using back then), but the workaround I described for using getUserMedia() without HTTPS no longer worked when I revisited this topic recently.
While switching to HTTPS is my goal in the long run, I encountered problems with certificates that look like they could be solved by WebView2 feedback item #624, so I shelved the work on this for my application for now. Fortunately, there is a way to “fake” HTTPS in WebView2 that is good enough to meet the requirements for getUserMedia().
The CoreWebView2.SetVirtualHostNameToFolderMapping() function allows you to map a server name to a local folder. This way navigating to e.g. https://someServer/somePage.html will load the local file somePage.html contained in that folder. If the server part and the display part of your application run on different computers, you will obviously have transfer the files e.g. to a temporary folder.
The Microsoft documentation contains everything you need to know, so I will not go into further detail here. As usual, when working with WebView2, make sure yourWebView.EnsureCoreWebView2Async() has been executed before calling yourWebView.CoreWebView2.SetVirtualHostNameToFolderMapping().
See also
- ”Get started with WebView2 in WPF” – step by step tutorial in the Microsoft documentation.
- Web search for “webcam video getUserMedia” – useful resources for using video devices in JavaScript.
- Using a Video Device with getUserMedia in WebView2 in a Kiosk Scenario – my previous blog post on this topic, containing information on how to handle the request for permission to use the camera.