How to have the minimum size possible Chromium Embedded Framework dlls

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Solution 1

Depending on the needed features you can just leave out some of the files/DLLs. I tried and could leave out these:

  • avcodec-53.dll
  • avcodec-54.dll
  • avformat-53.dll
  • avformat-54.dll
  • avutil-51.dll
  • ffmpegsumo.dll
  • libEGL.dll
  • libGLESv2.dll
  • cef.pak
  • chrome.pak
  • devtools_resources.pak

I think you'll loose video playback capability and some UI which is not shown if you simple use it to display a website embedded in your application.

Solution 2

About reducing the CEF library size itself, it will need a full rebuilt, and some debugging phase. A lot of time spent, perhaps not worth it - 40 MB is small, according to today's computer power and network bandwidth. I would rather rely on the "official" release of CEF to stay tuned with the latest versions of the browser.

If your issue is about deployment package size and single executable/no install feature, you may consider embedd the dlls inside the exe.

The trick I've used is that the .dll files are stored as zip inside the main .exe, then uncompressed on a private temporary folder on the hard drive (you may want to use the same folder, but it won't work in C:\Program Files due to the Vista/Seven UAC, and your user may wonder where all those files comes frome - that is the reason why I use a private folder).

From the user point of view, there is just one executable file to run. All .dll files are compressed within, and you can also add some non-binary resources to the files (which is not possible with exe/dll compactors). An hidden folder is created and used to load the libraries (which must be loaded with LoadLibrary(), not statically linked), and decompression will be done only once (therefore it will be faster than using an exe/dll compressor).

I've used it for instance to embedded the hunspell.dll library and the English dictionary to our SynProject tool. Code looks like the following:

constructor THunSpell.Create(DictionaryName: string='');
var Temp, HunSpell, Aff, Dic: TFileName;
    i: integer;
begin
  if DictionaryName='' then
    DictionaryName := 'en_US';
  Temp := GetSynopseCommonAppDataPath;
  HunSpell := Temp+'hunspell.dll';
  with TZipRead.Create(HInstance,'Zip','ZIP') do
  try
    Aff := DictionaryName+'.aff';
    if not FileExists(Temp+Aff) then
      StringToFile(Temp+Aff,UnZip(NameToIndex(Aff)));
    Dic := DictionaryName+'.dic';
    if not FileExists(Temp+Dic) then
      StringToFile(Temp+Dic,UnZip(NameToIndex(Dic)));
    if not FileExists(HunSpell) then
      StringToFile(HunSpell,UnZip(NameToIndex('hunspell.dll')));
  finally
    Free;
  end;
  fHunLib := SafeLoadLibrary(HunSpell);
  if fHunLib=0 then
    exit;
  if not LoadEntryPoints then begin
    FreeLibrary(fHunLib);
    fHunLib := 0;
    exit;
  end;
  fDictionaryName := DictionaryName;
  fHunHandle := Hunspell_create(pointer(Temp+Aff),pointer(Temp+Dic));
  if fHunHandle=nil then
    exit;
   (....)
end;

See this link about details and source code.

You may consider using some low-level hack like BTMemoryModule, but you won't have any possible compression.

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Gad D Lord
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Gad D Lord

I am a software developer coding in: Dart, Flutter, JavaScript, Delphi, PowerShell, C#, Python. I run a microISV company mtg.studio Ltd. which is focused on Magic: the Gathering card game tools. https://www.mtgstudio.com http://www.makedeck.com

Updated on June 04, 2022

Comments

  • Gad D Lord
    Gad D Lord over 1 year

    Chromium Embedded Framework (http://code.google.com/p/delphichromiumembedded/) is good. I use it to display static HTML, JS and CSS generated from Delphi code only.

    But I find it too big.

    I need:

    • I need HTML support
    • I need JavaScript support.
    • I need CSS support.
    • I need Unicode support.
    • I need OnNavigate event.

    Don't need:

    • I don't need D3D, GDI+, GLES support.
    • I don't need ability to load a web page. LoadString is enough for me.
    • I don't need Locales
    • I don't need Caching
    • I don't need Developer Tools

    How I can achieve to have the needed features by having the minimum possible deployment package?

    Currently CEF has 40 MB of dlls.

  • Maestro
    Maestro over 9 years
    How much space did you gain without these libraries?
  • Steffen Binas
    Steffen Binas over 9 years
    @Muis These files are uncompressed about 11.9 MB, but ZIP compressed only 4 MB...so that is what you gain when distributing your application with an installer.
  • Gad D Lord
    Gad D Lord over 8 years
    Eventually I followed your approach and managed to remove avcodec-53.dll, avformat-53.dll, avutil-51.dll, chrome.pak, libEGL.dll, libGLESv2.dll - 4.4 MB saved. That is like 14% of my installer. Great stuff.
  • Gad D Lord
    Gad D Lord over 8 years
    Removed also d3dcompiler_43.dll, d3dx9_43.dll - 8.32 MB saved in total. Turned out that the minimum installation with Unicode support is libbcef.dll, icudt.dll and Localed folder - 29.4 MB.