MediaExplorer is a hobby browser for Windows 10 Mobile (W10M, build 15063+) built without the system WebView or Chakra engine. It uses a custom HTML parser, CSS engine with selectors/cascade/flexbox, a JavaScript runtime powered by NiL.JS, and a XAML-based renderer.
v1.5 features an AI Hub overlay — a scrollable menu with 10 tools (Favorites, History, AI Summary, Screenshot, Copy Text, E-book Mode, DevTools, Settings, Home, Engine). When a website can't be rendered by NiL.JS, the Smart Fallback Renderer automatically fetches the page, sends it to an AI connector (OpenRouter API), and displays a summary in the Hub AI panel.
~50 files, ~30k+ lines of code. Early v2.0-alpha stage built on top of the completed v1.5 architecture.
- AppBar Situational Size, Hybrid Search, Multi-Engine Architecture, Advanced AI Connector, Remote Rendering [Playwright], DzenRu Auth2 Tweak
- Custom rendering engine — HTML parser, CSS cascade, flexbox, XAML renderer
- JavaScript — NiL.JS runtime with ES Modules support (Vite bundles parse; D3v4/v5 support)
- AI Hub — Scrollable overlay with Favorites, History, AI Summary, Screenshot, Copy Text, E-book Mode, DevTools, Settings, Home, Engine, Remote Session
- Remote Rendering [Playwright] — Configurable server URL, viewport, load delay, PIN / token field, connect/reconnect/disconnect controls, remote text fetch, and AI summary over remote page text
- AI Connector Presets — Rich (GPT-4o), Poor (Ministral-8B), Asceti (Gemma-4 free), Smart (auto-chain cheapest first). Per-connector API keys.
- Start Dashboard — Speed dial grid (6 pinned sites) + recent history list
- History system — Auto-records navigation, grouped by date (Today/Yesterday/This Week/Older), clear all
- Favorites — Add current page, remove per entry, stored in LocalSettings
- DevTools — Console, DOM inspector, Network tab, Debug log
- 3 UI modes — Hided (strip), Semi (expandable), Full (standard app bar)
- 3 e-book modes — Rich (full graphics, CSS + JS), Poor (card/index style, minimal CSS), Asceti (pure text, no CSS/images)
- Disk cache — Resource caching with priority queue
- MutationObserver — Incremental re-render on DOM changes
- Snapshot — Screenshot (single or full-page) saved to Pictures/MediaExplorer
- Keyboard shortcuts — Ctrl+L (focus URL), Ctrl+B (toggle bar), Ctrl+Home (Dashboard)
- Smartphone card mode — Auto-detects narrow viewport, swipeable cards with detail views
- Nokia Design Archive integration — Extracts entries/collections/stories from JS globals
- v2.0-alpha in progress. Plan 8 is complete; Plan 09 is underway with Hub polish, Dashboard polish, RemoteRender settings/session UX, and Automatic Rescue Path.
- v1.5 architecture completed earlier. AI Hub, Start Dashboard, History/Favorites, AI Connector presets, Smart Fallback Renderer.
- Data extraction intact —
__graphData(755 nodes, 1647 links),__entries(722),__stories(230),__collections(33) available for future SkiaSharp renderer.
- AI Hub — Single scrollable overlay replaces cluttered 8-element AppBar with 4 elements (← → Omnibox ≡)
- Smart Fallback — When NiL.JS can't render a site, auto-fetch via HTTP → send to AI connector → show summary in the Hub AI panel
- AI Connector Presets — Rich/Poor/Asceti/Smart tiers with per-connector API keys (OpenRouter)
- Poor mode = AI-first — In Poor render mode, ALL sites trigger AI fallback automatically
- E-book modes evolved — Now serve as AI connector tier selector
- Reddit — old.reddit.com → card mode (JSON API); reddit.com → JSON API fallback
MainPage.xaml.cs — AI Hub, Dashboard, History/Favorites, Smart Fallback, card mode
Engine/AiConnectorPreset.cs — ConnectorType enum, config, storage
Engine/SmartFallbackRenderer.cs — Empty/code-junk/ISP detection, AI chain
Engine/ApiClient.cs — OpenRouter API with configurable model
Engine/Core/RenderTreeBuilder.cs — HTML→RenderObject tree, UA styles
Engine/Core/RenderBox.cs — Flex/block/inline layout engine
Engine/Core/VirtualizingRenderer.cs — Canvas-based virtualizing renderer
SettingsPage.xaml — AI Connectors tab with per-connector config
AGENTS.md — automation loop commands
This is a homemade browser engine — not production-ready, not intended to replace Edge or Chrome. It exists to prove that you don't need Chromium to render a webpage.
- 2026.06.20 — v2.0.0 Plan 09 Phase 1 cleanup + RemoteRender settings/session UX: Reader Mode traces removed, Hub transitions polished, Dashboard improved, Remote Render settings UI added, Remote Session panel added.
- 2026.06.14 — v1.1.0 E-book modes (Rich/Poor/Asceti), markdown-to-html, charset detection (windows-1251 etc.), table improvements (border-spacing, CAPTION), CSS edge cases (display:none, overflow-x/y, text-overflow:clip). JS always enabled.
- 2026.06.13 — v1.0.10 General web rendering. Hacker News fully renders: orange header, 30 news items, vote arrows, clickable navigation, footer. CSS pseudo-classes (
:link/:visited), HTML presentation attributes (bgcolor,width), SVG logo support. - 2026.06.12 — v1.0.0 Phases R+S+T complete. Card-based smartphone layout, entry detail views, category index, link routing. SVG→XAML bridge abandoned.
- 2026.06.07 — v0.55.0 D3.js force-directed graph (Nokia Design Archive) renders as live XAML shapes.
- 2026.06.05 — v0.50.0 First successful d3.js evaluation on UWP via NiL.JS.
- 2026.05.xx — v0.42.8 NiL.JS runtime ported to .NET Native 1.4 (W10M 15063-compatible).
MediaExplorer works best with the Nokia Design Archive. For general web testing, these sites are recommended (ordered by compatibility):
| Site | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| hackaday.com | Blog/ESP | Text + images, light JS |
| arstechnica.com | News | Heavy React, but has content |
| wikipedia.org | Wiki | Complex HTML/CSS, good load test |
| archive.org | Archive | Similar spirit to Nokia Design Archive |
| musicbrainz.org | Database | Text data, SPA |
| openlibrary.org | Books | Images + text, moderate JS |
| librivox.org | Audiobooks | Simple HTML, good stability test |
| indiehackers.com | Community | React SPA, content-heavy |
| producthunt.com | Startups | Heavy SPA, good stress test |
| news.ycombinator.com | Minimalism | Fully renders — orange header, 30 items, vote arrows, clickable links |
Tip: Start with lightweight sites (Hackaday, Wikipedia, LibriVox) on Lumia 950. Heavy SPA sites (Reddit, Product Hunt) are useful as stress tests but may break on NiL.JS.
- Source is AI-generated ("neuro-slop"), except the original UDAIE-A WebView code
- Not tested on any W10M device
- White screen on some sites (dzen.ru, ya.ru) — Smart Fallback handles most cases
- ES Modules runtime errors still being fixed
- Private fields (
#name) not supported - SVG→XAML rendering abandoned — complex graph/timeline deferred to SkiaSharp (v1.1+)
- OpenRouter model IDs change frequently — verify via API before use
- Some sites (Reddit, Medium) blocked by Cloudflare/captcha — cannot be fetched by Smart Fallback
- UDAIE-A/WEBVIEW — Original WebView for Windows Phone 8.1
- NiL.JS — JavaScript engine
See /Doc folder for development plans and session summaries.
Calling all retro-computing enthusiasts! If you still have a Lumia 950/1020 gathering dust, or you just love the idea of a browser that doesn't need 2 GB of Chromium to open a webpage — this project needs you.
- Developers: Fork, fix, PR. The codebase is messy but honest. Every line was fought for.
- W10M testers: Try it on your device, report what breaks. Your hardware is the real test bench.
- CSS/JS nerds: If you know why
calc(100% - 16px)doesn't work here — you already know what to do.
Found a site that renders wrong? Crashed on your phone? Have a feature request?
Include: URL, what you expected, what you got. Screenshots help.
As is. No support. RnD only. DIY.
[m][e] June 20, 2026
