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apache / cordova-plugin-inappbrowser

Apache Cordova InAppBrowser Plugin
https://cordova.apache.org/
Apache License 2.0
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android cordova hacktoberfest ios java javascript library mobile nodejs objective-c

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title: Inappbrowser description: Open an in-app browser window.

cordova-plugin-inappbrowser

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You can show helpful articles, videos, and web resources inside of your app. Users can view web pages without leaving your app.

To get a few ideas, check out the sample at the bottom of this page or go straight to the reference content.

This plugin provides a web browser view that displays when calling cordova.InAppBrowser.open().

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank', 'location=yes');

window.open

The cordova.InAppBrowser.open() function is defined to be a drop-in replacement for the window.open() function. Existing window.open() calls can use the InAppBrowser window, by replacing window.open:

window.open = cordova.InAppBrowser.open;

If you change the browsers window.open function this way, it can have unintended side effects (especially if this plugin is included only as a dependency of another plugin).

The InAppBrowser window behaves like a standard web browser, and can't access Cordova APIs. For this reason, the InAppBrowser is recommended if you need to load third-party (untrusted) content, instead of loading that into the main Cordova webview. The InAppBrowser is not subject to the whitelist, nor is opening links in the system browser.

The InAppBrowser provides by default its own GUI controls for the user (back, forward, done).

Installation

cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-inappbrowser

If you want all page loads in your app to go through the InAppBrowser, you can simply hook window.open during initialization. For example:

document.addEventListener("deviceready", onDeviceReady, false);
function onDeviceReady() {
    window.open = cordova.InAppBrowser.open;
}

Preferences

config.xml

cordova.InAppBrowser.open

Opens a URL in a new InAppBrowser instance, the current browser instance, or the system browser.

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open(url, target, options);

Supported Platforms

Example

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank', 'location=yes');
var ref2 = cordova.InAppBrowser.open(encodeURI('http://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ハングル'), '_blank', 'location=yes');

OSX Quirks

At the moment the only supported target in OSX is _system.

_blank and _self targets are not yet implemented and are ignored silently. Pull requests and patches to get these to work are greatly appreciated.

iOS Quirks

Since the introduction of iPadOS 13, iPads try to adapt their content mode / user agent for the optimal browsing experience. This may result in iPads having their user agent set to Macintosh, making it hard to detect them as mobile devices using user agent string sniffing. You can change this with the PreferredContentMode preference in config.xml.

<preference name="PreferredContentMode" value="mobile" />

The example above forces the user agent to contain iPad. The other option is to use the value desktop to turn the user agent to Macintosh.

Browser Quirks

InAppBrowser

The object returned from a call to cordova.InAppBrowser.open when the target is set to '_blank'.

Methods

InAppBrowser.addEventListener

Adds a listener for an event from the InAppBrowser. (Only available when the target is set to '_blank')

ref.addEventListener(eventname, callback);

Example


var inAppBrowserRef;

function showHelp(url) {

    var target = "_blank";

    var options = "location=yes,hidden=yes,beforeload=yes";

    inAppBrowserRef = cordova.InAppBrowser.open(url, target, options);

    inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('loadstart', loadStartCallBack);

    inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('loadstop', loadStopCallBack);

    inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('loaderror', loadErrorCallBack);

    inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('beforeload', beforeloadCallBack);

    inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('message', messageCallBack);
}

function loadStartCallBack() {

    $('#status-message').text("loading please wait ...");

}

function loadStopCallBack() {

    if (inAppBrowserRef != undefined) {

        inAppBrowserRef.insertCSS({ code: "body{font-size: 25px;}" });

        inAppBrowserRef.executeScript({ code: "\
            var message = 'this is the message';\
            var messageObj = {my_message: message};\
            var stringifiedMessageObj = JSON.stringify(messageObj);\
            webkit.messageHandlers.cordova_iab.postMessage(stringifiedMessageObj);"
        });

        $('#status-message').text("");

        inAppBrowserRef.show();
    }

}

function loadErrorCallBack(params) {

    $('#status-message').text("");

    var scriptErrorMesssage =
       "alert('Sorry we cannot open that page. Message from the server is : "
       + params.message + "');"

    inAppBrowserRef.executeScript({ code: scriptErrorMesssage }, executeScriptCallBack);

    inAppBrowserRef.close();

    inAppBrowserRef = undefined;

}

function executeScriptCallBack(params) {

    if (params[0] == null) {

        $('#status-message').text(
           "Sorry we couldn't open that page. Message from the server is : '"
           + params.message + "'");
    }

}

function beforeloadCallBack(params, callback) {

    if (params.url.startsWith("http://www.example.com/")) {

        // Load this URL in the inAppBrowser.
        callback(params.url);
    } else {

        // The callback is not invoked, so the page will not be loaded.
        $('#status-message').text("This browser only opens pages on http://www.example.com/");
    }

}

function messageCallBack(params){
    $('#status-message').text("message received: "+params.data.my_message);
}

Download event Example

Whenever the InAppBrowser receives or locates to a url which leads in downloading a file, the callback assigned to the "download" event is called. The parameter passed to this callback is an object with the the following properties


function downloadListener(params){
    var url = params.url;
    var mimetype = params.mimetype;

    var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
    xhr.open("GET", params.url);
    xhr.onload = function() {
        var content = xhr.responseText;
    };
    xhr.send();

}

InAppBrowserEvent Properties

Supported Platforms

Browser Quirks

loadstart, loaderror, message events are not fired.

Quick Example

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank', 'location=yes');
ref.addEventListener('loadstart', function(event) { alert(event.url); });

InAppBrowser.removeEventListener

Removes a listener for an event from the InAppBrowser. (Only available when the target is set to '_blank')

ref.removeEventListener(eventname, callback);

Supported Platforms

Quick Example

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank', 'location=yes');
var myCallback = function(event) { alert(event.url); }
ref.addEventListener('loadstart', myCallback);
ref.removeEventListener('loadstart', myCallback);

InAppBrowser.close

Closes the InAppBrowser window.

ref.close();

Supported Platforms

Quick Example

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank', 'location=yes');
ref.close();

InAppBrowser.show

Displays an InAppBrowser window that was opened hidden. Calling this has no effect if the InAppBrowser was already visible.

ref.show();

Supported Platforms

Quick Example

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank', 'hidden=yes');
// some time later...
ref.show();

InAppBrowser.hide

Hides the InAppBrowser window. Calling this has no effect if the InAppBrowser was already hidden.

ref.hide();

Supported Platforms

Quick Example

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank');
// some time later...
ref.hide();

InAppBrowser.executeScript

Injects JavaScript code into the InAppBrowser window. (Only available when the target is set to '_blank')

ref.executeScript(details, callback);

Supported Platforms

Quick Example

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank', 'location=yes');
ref.addEventListener('loadstop', function() {
    ref.executeScript({file: "myscript.js"});
});

Browser Quirks

InAppBrowser.insertCSS

Injects CSS into the InAppBrowser window. (Only available when the target is set to '_blank')

ref.insertCSS(details, callback);

Supported Platforms

Quick Example

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank', 'location=yes');
ref.addEventListener('loadstop', function() {
    ref.insertCSS({file: "mystyles.css"});
});

__

Sample: Show help pages with an InAppBrowser

You can use this plugin to show helpful documentation pages within your app. Users can view online help documents and then close them without leaving the app.

Here's a few snippets that show how you do this.

Give users a way to ask for help

There's lots of ways to do this in your app. A drop down list is a simple way to do that.


<select id="help-select">
    <option value="default">Need help?</option>
    <option value="article">Show me a helpful article</option>
    <option value="video">Show me a helpful video</option>
    <option value="search">Search for other topics</option>
</select>

Gather the users choice in the onDeviceReady function of the page and then send an appropriate URL to a helper function in some shared library file. Our helper function is named showHelp() and we'll write that function next.


$('#help-select').on('change', function (e) {

    var url;

    switch (this.value) {

        case "article":
            url = "https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/"
                        + "reference/cordova-plugin-inappbrowser/index.html";
            break;

        case "video":
            url = "https://youtu.be/F-GlVrTaeH0";
            break;

        case "search":
            url = "https://www.google.com/#q=inAppBrowser+plugin";
            break;
    }

    showHelp(url);

});

Load a help page

We'll use the open function to load the help page. We're setting the hidden property to yes so that we can show the browser only after the page content has loaded. That way, users don't see a blank browser while they wait for content to appear. When the loadstop event is raised, we'll know when the content has loaded. We'll handle that event shortly.


function showHelp(url) {

    var target = "_blank";

    var options = "location=yes,hidden=yes";

    inAppBrowserRef = cordova.InAppBrowser.open(url, target, options);

    inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('loadstart', loadStartCallBack);

    inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('loadstop', loadStopCallBack);

    inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('loaderror', loadErrorCallBack);

}

Let users know that you're getting their page ready

Because the browser doesn't immediately appear, we can use the loadstart event to show a status message, progress bar, or other indicator. This assures users that content is on the way.


function loadStartCallBack() {

    $('#status-message').text("loading please wait ...");

}

Show the help page

When the loadstopcallback event is raised, we know that the content has loaded and we can make the browser visible. This sort of trick can create the impression of better performance. The truth is that whether you show the browser before content loads or not, the load times are exactly the same.


function loadStopCallBack() {

    if (inAppBrowserRef != undefined) {

        inAppBrowserRef.insertCSS({ code: "body{font-size: 25px;}" });

        $('#status-message').text("");

        inAppBrowserRef.show();
    }

}

You might have noticed the call to the insertCSS function. This serves no particular purpose in our scenario. But it gives you an idea of why you might use it. In this case, we're just making sure that the font size of your pages have a certain size. You can use this function to insert any CSS style elements. You can even point to a CSS file in your project.

Handle page errors

Sometimes a page no longer exists, a script error occurs, or a user lacks permission to view the resource. How or if you handle that situation is completely up to you and your design. You can let the browser show that message or you can present it in another way.

We'll try to show that error in a message box. We can do that by injecting a script that calls the alert function. That said, this won't work in browsers on Windows devices so we'll have to look at the parameter of the executeScript callback function to see if our attempt worked. If it didn't work out for us, we'll just show the error message in a <div> on the page.


function loadErrorCallBack(params) {

    $('#status-message').text("");

    var scriptErrorMesssage =
       "alert('Sorry we cannot open that page. Message from the server is : "
       + params.message + "');"

    inAppBrowserRef.executeScript({ code: scriptErrorMesssage }, executeScriptCallBack);

    inAppBrowserRef.close();

    inAppBrowserRef = undefined;

}

function executeScriptCallBack(params) {

    if (params[0] == null) {

        $('#status-message').text(
           "Sorry we couldn't open that page. Message from the server is : '"
           + params.message + "'");
    }

}

More Usage Info

Local Urls ( source is in the app package )

var iab = cordova.InAppBrowser;

iab.open('local-url.html');                  // loads in the Cordova WebView
iab.open('local-url.html', '_self');         // loads in the Cordova WebView
iab.open('local-url.html', '_system');       // Security error: system browser, but url will not load (iOS)
iab.open('local-url.html', '_blank');        // loads in the InAppBrowser
iab.open('local-url.html', 'random_string'); // loads in the InAppBrowser
iab.open('local-url.html', 'random_string', 'location=no'); // loads in the InAppBrowser, no location bar

Whitelisted Content

var iab = cordova.InAppBrowser;

iab.open('https://whitelisted-url.com');                  // loads in the Cordova WebView
iab.open('https://whitelisted-url.com', '_self');         // loads in the Cordova WebView
iab.open('https://whitelisted-url.com', '_system');       // loads in the system browser
iab.open('https://whitelisted-url.com', '_blank');        // loads in the InAppBrowser
iab.open('https://whitelisted-url.com', 'random_string'); // loads in the InAppBrowser

iab.open('https://whitelisted-url.com', 'random_string', 'location=no'); // loads in the InAppBrowser, no location bar

Urls that are not white-listed

var iab = cordova.InAppBrowser;

iab.open('https://url-that-fails-whitelist.com');                  // loads in the InAppBrowser
iab.open('https://url-that-fails-whitelist.com', '_self');         // loads in the InAppBrowser
iab.open('https://url-that-fails-whitelist.com', '_system');       // loads in the system browser
iab.open('https://url-that-fails-whitelist.com', '_blank');        // loads in the InAppBrowser
iab.open('https://url-that-fails-whitelist.com', 'random_string'); // loads in the InAppBrowser
iab.open('https://url-that-fails-whitelist.com', 'random_string', 'location=no'); // loads in the InAppBrowser, no location bar