Select Edge Profile

Hello Lars,

Thank you for the request. We're not sure if it's possible to do this, we will need to investigate.

Regards,

Ok thank you for the update.

Had hoped it was just somewhere, when you launce the connection, you could add --profile-directory="Profile 2"

But no problem, take the time needed.

Regards Lars

It's possible it will end up being something similar but the WebView2 control doesn't expose its properties in the same way that the actual edge application does, so it might be more complicated than that.
Not to mention that even the command line of the external version of Edge isn't the best at switching profiles, which is why we haven't yet implemented it in RDM.

Regards,

I've spent a few hours testing.

Unless I've missed something, it is currently not possible. I even tried the v1.0.1133-prerelease build that now supports the CoreWebView2Profile object.

Well, I got profiles to work but I can't get your "real" Microsoft Edge profiles to load via the WebView2 control. See below, try #3 is the closest I can get to the real thing (in yellow). Until the controls gives us a way block it from "adding" EBWebView to the cache path there is not much we can do.

Hej

Thank you for the update!

Regards Lars

You CAN get this to work and use your edge profiles BUT the problem is of course 'embedded'.

I use "Command Line (External Application)" and then enter the following into the 'run' box;

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --profile-directory=COMPANY1

This sort of works fine BUT it does not embed, although it does record session information in the RDM logs. Furthermore this method works for 'installed' apps that may be specific to a profile. Again, nothing embeds but it is a work around. With the profiles themselves I set different colors within the browser profile to keep them readily identifiable.

For example. I have Microsoft 365 accounts with 4+ different companies. I use the command line to launch browsers using that company name as the profile. This way I can login with those company credentials and use web outlook/teams/office/etc as that user account. I can install and use "Teams" as an embedded app by grabbing that command which looks like something like this;

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge_proxy.exe" --profile-directory=COMPANY2 --app-id=asdfasdfasdfasdf --app-url=https://teams.microsoft.com/_#/calendarv2 --app-launch-source=4

I run another browser "COMPANY2" to and that caches settings for that other profile.

This way I don't clutter up my taskbar with shortcuts and links and I can keep such links tied into the specific client.

Not sure if this helps but it works for me until some way to embed is discovered.

@Bill

Thank you for the detailed post. I'm sure people will find this very useful.

Had a quick look today, it CoreWebView2Profile is still only available with the v1.0.1133-prerelease we will have another look at implementing profile support once the interface is released in the main branch. I'm sure the information you provided above will be very helpful.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.web.webview2.core.corewebview2profile?view=webview2-dotnet-1.0.1133-prerelease

Best regards,

@all,

So I had a quick look at the WebView2 interface and did some quick mockups.

I got profiles working but I can't (yet) load the Edge profiles (those located in %localappdata%\Microsoft\Edge\User Data).

What I got working is an embedded WebView2 within RDM loading a profile. (Location: %localappdata%\Devolutions\RemoteDesktopManager\WebView2.Cache\EBWebView\WV2Profile_{profilename})

I can then share this profile between multiple connections. So for example I have two web connections (https://portal.azure.com & https://www.office.com) both with the same profile name. On first start of a session I'm prompted to authenticate (to AzureAD in this example) then starting the second session it will share the profile and I will already be authenticated.

I still need to investigate how this affects "Private (Incognito)" mode, how to manage the clearing of the cache on start and via the "Clear" cache button and possibly others.

So this is very much a work in progress but progress nonetheless.

Comments? Suggestions? Does this fit your needs/requirements?

Best regards,

Hi

That sounds great.
Even though it would be easiest to reuse the profile, I feel it is to mush effort needed in relation to how little effort I get from it.
My main lack is the ability to have 2 spelling languages, and Danish localization.
I have another thread about this here: Change language in WebView2 ? (devolutions.net) - So the easiest way to achieve this :)

Regards Lars

Hi Lars,

I understand. Unfortunately I don't have much hope at the WebView2 control will ever allow us the load the "real Edge" profiles.

As for the language, I will add an option to set the Language code per connection.

Something like this (below). If set it overrides File > Options > Types > Website > Microsoft Edge > Spell check language code. Please note that there is a restriction that for a given Profile Name, the language code must be the same for all concurrent sessions. Odd restriction, but it's out of our control, if you have a profile name Test with language code DA then start a second session with profile name Test but language code EN the control will load blank (displays a black screen). To get around this we will force the same language code at runtime for every session on the same profile. So in the case above, if you want to share the profile but still use EN, you would need to first close the DA session then open the EN session and it will work.

This is as of the latest available WebView2 control, things change quickly and if they improve it we will adjust accordingly.

Now for the bad news. I was hoping to get his done and released with the v2022.2 builds but it won't be possible. It will unfortunately only be available in v2022.3 which is still a few months away.

Best regards,

Thank you for the update.

Slow and steady is also the best way forward, so no problem 👍🏻

I will set my RDM back to look for beta updates, forget about everything, and when it suddenly pops-up it will be like a present 😃

/Lars

Now for the bad news. I was hoping to get his done and released with the v2022.2 builds but it won't be possible. It will unfortunately only be available in v2022.3 which is still a few months away.

Best regards,

Hi Stéfane, do you have an update on the (Edge) profile name selection in 2022.3? We're on 2022.3.27 and I don't see the option.

Thanks for the great tool, Paul

@Molensky,

As I can see inside the ticket opened at the engineering department, this should be part of RDM 2023.1.
RDM 2023.1 release expectation is in march of 2023.

Best regards,

Thanks, I'll patiently wait for the March release