Actually you can do what you want ( more or less ) with VB.NET, or C#, or even J#. You can download any of these from MSDN, in fact, you can get a
free, but somewhat limited version of the programming tools.
I think Chris's point is that it would benefit you to understand the concepts in programming before trying to do something that would be a bit complex. Writing software is a bit like trying to teach something to a child with very little imagination. I'm going to give you some advice, but it might not make a lot of sense.
There's a WebBrowser control you can drop onto a form, and simply not put an address bar at the top. In code ( like on the form load event ) you can send it to a particular URL, and the user can click links, view source from the context menu, and all of that. You'll have to build the back / forward / stop buttons, and wire them up to the control, but you won't have to write much logic. You'll have to distribute two dlls with your exe.
The link above goes to C#; VB might be an easier language to learn, I don't really know. I've used both of them for years, and really they're about the same. The
languages themselves are different, but the object libraries are the same. C# is a little more terse, which translates to less typing, and less reading when you need to go back and change your code later.
Now ... why would anybody want to use a browser like this? One where you can't tell it what URL to go to? (
A person could still make a text file, type <a href="the url I want to go to">click here</a> and drag it onto the browser to load it, then click their link to navigate; you'll need to hook into the drag and drop stuff to fix that. ) Unless this is for your employees and you plan to disable IE somehow, I don't think this is going to be a very popular app...?
