How to create a simple local web page using C# windows forms

Question 1

🛑 2020 Update:

Original answer at the bottom.

Kestrel and Katana are now a thing and I would strongly recommend you look into those things as well as OWIN

Original Answer:

You will want to look into creating an HttpListener, you can add prefixes to the listener such as Listener.Prefixes.Add("http://+:3070/") which will bind it to the port your wanting.

A simple console app: Counting the requests made

using System;
using System.Net;
using System.Text;

namespace TestServer
{
    class ServerMain
    {
        // To enable this so that it can be run in a non-administrator account:
        // Open an Administrator command prompt.
        // netsh http add urlacl http://+:8008/ user=Everyone listen=true
        
        const string Prefix = "http://+:3070/";
        static HttpListener Listener = null;
        static int RequestNumber = 0;
        static readonly DateTime StartupDate = DateTime.UtcNow;

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            if (!HttpListener.IsSupported)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("HttpListener is not supported on this platform.");
                return;
            }
            using (Listener = new HttpListener())
            {
                Listener.Prefixes.Add(Prefix);
                Listener.Start();
                // Begin waiting for requests.
                Listener.BeginGetContext(GetContextCallback, null);
                Console.WriteLine("Listening. Press Enter to stop.");
                Console.ReadLine();
                Listener.Stop();
            }
        }

        static void GetContextCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
        {
            int req = ++RequestNumber;

            // Get the context
            var context = Listener.EndGetContext(ar);

            // listen for the next request
            Listener.BeginGetContext(GetContextCallback, null);

            // get the request
            var NowTime = DateTime.UtcNow;

            Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", NowTime.ToString("R"), context.Request.RawUrl);

            var responseString = string.Format("<html><body>Your request, \"{0}\", was received at {1}.<br/>It is request #{2:N0} since {3}.",
                context.Request.RawUrl, NowTime.ToString("R"), req, StartupDate.ToString("R"));

            byte[] buffer = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(responseString);
            // and send it
            var response = context.Response;
            response.ContentType = "text/html";
            response.ContentLength64 = buffer.Length;
            response.StatusCode = 200;
            response.OutputStream.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
            response.OutputStream.Close();
        }
    }
}

And for extra credit, try adding it to the services on your computer!

Question 2

Microsoft Relased an Open Source Project called OWIN it is simlar to Node but bottom line it allows you to host web applications in a console application:

You can find more information here:

But if you insist in creating your personal listener you can find some help here: