10/25/2009
10
Android
The WebKit Browser
Victor Matos
Cleveland State University
Notes are based on:
The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development
Th B C d ' G id t A d id D l t
by Mark L. Murphy
Copyright © 2008‐2009 CommonsWare, LLC.
ISBN: 978‐0‐9816780‐0‐9
&
Android Developers
http://developer.android.com/index.html
10. Android – UI – The WebKit Browser
WebKit Browser
• In Android you can embed the built‐in Web browser as a widget
in your own activities, for displaying HTML material or perform
g
Internet browsing.
• The Android browser is based on WebKit, the same engine that
powers Apple's Safari Web browser.
• Android uses the WebView widget to host the browser’s pages
• Applications using the WebView component must request
INTERNET permission.
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10. Android – UI – The WebKit Browser
WebKit Browser
Browsing Power
The browser will access the Internet through whatever means
are available to that specific device at the present time (WiFi
are available to that specific device at the present time (WiFi,
cellular network, Bluetooth‐tethered phone, etc.).
The WebKit rendering engine used to display web pages includes
methods to
1. navigate forward and backward through a history,
g g y,
2. zoom in and out,
3. perform text searches,
4. load data
5. stop loading and
6. more.
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10. Android – UI – The WebKit Browser
WebKit Browser
Warning
In order for your Activity to access the Internet and load web pages
in a WebView, you must add the INTERNET permissions to your
Android Manifest file:
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
Thi
This must be a child of the <manifest> element.
tb hild f th < if t> l t
(see next example)
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10. Android – UI – The WebKit Browser
WebKit Browser
Example: A simple browsing experience
Let’s go e‐shopping
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
>
<WebView
android:id="@+id/webkit"
android:layout
y _width="fill_p
parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
/>
</LinearLayout>
10. Android – UI – The WebKit Browser
WebKit Browser
Example: A simple browsing experience
Let’s go e‐shopping
package cis493.demoui;
cis493 demoui;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.webkit.WebView;
public class AndDemoUI extends Activity {
WebView browser;
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) { This app is
super.onCreate(icicle); hard‐wired to
setContentView(R.layout.main); eBay
browser=(WebView)findViewById(R.id.webkit);
browser.loadUrl("http://eBay.com");
browser.getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
}
} 6
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10. Android – UI – The WebKit Browser
WebKit Browser
Example: A simple browsing experience
Let’s go e‐shopping ‐ Manifest
<?xml version=
version="1
1.0
0" encoding=
encoding="utf-8"?>
utf-8 ?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="cis493.demoui" android:versionCode="1" android:versionName="1.0">
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<application android:icon="@drawable/icon" android:label="@string/app_name">
<activity android:name=".AndDemoUI" android:label="@string/app_name">
<intent-filter>
<action
i android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"
i i i i /
/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
</application>
<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="3" />
</manifest>
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10. Android – UI – The WebKit Browser
WebKit Browser
Warning
If you set the URL to a site whose pages depend on Javascript
If you set the URL to a site whose pages depend on Javascript you
you
may see an empty, white screen.
By default Javascript is turned off in WebView widgets.
If you want to enable Javascript, call :
myWebView.setSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
on the WebView instance.
To be discussed later in this chapter.
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10. Android – UI – The WebKit Browser
WebKit Browser
Warning
Under SDK 1.6 a WebView has a built‐in Option Menu
Using Go option Using More option 9
10. Android – UI – The WebKit Browser
WebKit Browser
Loading Data .loadData(…)
You may directly provide the HTML to be displayed by the browser
(a user manual for instance, or the actual app interface created as HTML instead
a user manual for instance or the actual app interface created as HTML instead
of using the native Android UI framework).
package cis493.demoui;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.webkit.WebView;
public class AndDemoUI extends Activity {
WebView browser;
@Override
@O id
Use same layout and manifest
public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) {
of previous example
super.onCreate(icicle);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
browser=(WebView)findViewById(R.id.webkit);
browser.loadData("<html><body>Hello, world!</body></html>",
"text/html",
"UTF-8");
}
}
10
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10. Android – UI – The WebKit Browser
WebKit Browser
Browser Commands
There is no navigation toolbar with the WebView widget (saving space).
You could supply the UI –such as a Menu– to execute the following operations:
• reload() to refresh the currently‐viewed Web page
• goBack() to go back one step in the browser history, and canGoBack() to
determine if there is any history to trace back
• goForward() to go forward one step in the browser history, and
canGoForward() to determine if there is any history to go forward to
• goBackOrForward() to go backwards or forwards in the browser history,
where negative/positive numbers represent a count of steps to go
where negative/positive numbers represent a count of steps to go
• canGoBackOrForward() to see if the browser can go backwards or forwards
the stated number of steps (following the same positive/negative
convention as goBackOrForward())
• clearCache() to clear the browser resource cache and clearHistory() to clear
the browsing history
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10. Android – UI – The WebKit Browser
WebKit Browser
Using our running example:
browser.goBack();
g ();
browser.goForward();
browser.goBackOrForward(-2);
browser.goBackOrForward(+2);
browser.canGoBack();
browser.canGoForward();
browser.canGoBackOrForward(-2);
browser.canGoBackOrForward(+2);
browser.clearCache(true);
browser.clearHistory();
browser.stopLoading();
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10. Android – UI – The WebKit Browser
WebKit Browser
Questions ?
13
