I've experienced a LOT of strange behaviours with using WebView in Android and I'm wondering why there are so many diffrences between the WebView and the Browserinstalled on each phone?
As an example, I've developed some applications that had to display HTML content, which contained either jquery-mobile, flash,javascript, YouTube embedded and so on. So I had a lot of problems with displaying this pages inside WebViews. Either they wouldn't get displayed at all, just blank, either the videos won't play and so on. And the strange thing is that they work properly if opened in the Browser installed on the phone. I had JavaScript enabled, I tried diffrent WebSettings, I had set the WebChromeClient and WebViewClient looking for javascript errors... but nothing worked.
So I got to the conclusion that the WebView component is completely different from the Browser application installed on the phones. I'm thinking that every manufacturer makes their own Browser to support as many as possible pages, and the WebView remains the standard one, included in the Android SDK.
Am I right? Or there is another reasons/explanation for this?
Thanks.
EDIT: Everything that #ondoteam has suggested was enabled and set at the time being. I no longer have the references to that websites, which anyway were internal.
This article outlines your speculation about stock browser differences between manufacturers, that absolutely is true: 5 reality checks every team needs before working on Android webkit
...which does cause trouble and mysterious/difficult to diagnose/solve problems.
As far as your issues with your WebView implementation:
Version of jquery-mobile may be an issue jquery-mobile loaded into an android WebView if you are using jquery.mobile-1.0.1.min.js you may want to try the uncompressed jquery.mobile-1.0.1.js
And Flash :-/ Good luck:
Screen blinking when using a webview with flash
Flash in WebView not working on Android 3.2
Flash video not displaying in WebView for Android 3.0.1
For loading SWF:
Load an SWF into a WebView
loading flash files (.swf) webview in android
Good luck with that, seems like a lot of variables with devices, Android versions, etc. And will take persistence with trial/error.
The stock browser and WebView differs .Using all the tweaks like
WebView browser;
browser.clearFormData();
browser.clearHistory();
browser.clearCache(true);
browser.getSettings().setAppCacheEnabled(true);
browser.getSettings().setDatabaseEnabled(true);
browser.getSettings().setDomStorageEnabled(true);
browser.setWebChromeClient(new WebChromeClient());
still it does not load high resolution images properly which is being loaded perfectly well by the android browser.
Only part of the image can be visible on the webview screen which appears fully on normal android browser.
This behavior is observed with latest Android 4X SDK as well.
Which means android default browser significantly tweaks the webkit/webview code to show any url
WebView by default is restricted. You should call setWebChromeClient and family to have a decent browsing experience. In addition, don't forget setJavaScriptEnabled() and other similar stuff. Sorry for my brevity... I think that you don't need examples.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/webkit/WebView.html
have you checked this question : jquery-mobile loaded into an android WebView
it might be that you're using the wrong libraries. Just check in any case.
Related
I have developed an application in unity then I export it to WebGl then I have created a web page. When I preview the page on Android's Chrome browser there is no any problem, It shows the page in high quality however when I open the page in android WebView quality of graphics dramatically decreases. I have tested the same application on Android 7,8 and 9 but there is no difference between versions. I have tried hardwareAccelerated but the problem is already present. Is it possible to get same quality in WebView like it is in Chrome?
You can give a try to Chrome custom tabs. They are far more performant than a webview and they give to users a seamless in-app user experience.
Unfortunately webview lacks a lot of features of the common browsers and it's not the best choice to display complex web pages.
I know this has been asked before but those questions are pretty old now.
I have a "game" that I developed some time ago with WebGL and I want to bring it to Android with a simple WebView.
The problem now is, that it won't really respond to the user input in the WebView (Chrome works just fine. Android 7.1.1) . I guess that's because of WebGL.
So now, as the crosswalk-project has ended a while ago I am searching for an alternative to run WebGL in my application. Or somehow just run my "game" in an Android App.
Do you have any idea of how I could bring it to work?
From 5.0 Android comes with Android System WebView which is being updated and we might call it the Native WebView. WebGL should work there although some of WebGL extensions and WebGL 2 (stats) might not.
The key to make your game work as an application is following.
First you must identify what WebGL version, WebGL extensions, WebGL or Shader capabilities and other HTML5 functionality your game (and the game engine you use) requires.
Then you must find a WebView that supports that functionality. You can simply do that by opening webpages https://html5test.com/ and http://webglreport.com/ with the WebView you want on your Android device. IMPORTANT! If you for example open the webpage with installed Chrome browser, it doesn't guarantee the Native WebView is used! So it is better to write a small custom application to make sure you are testing the WebView you want to use for the game.
In the end you will probably end up with compiling your game in application with custom WebView which will add an additional size to your game.
Other useful informations
Android versions < 5.0 has a Native WebView that doesn't come with updates so it doesn't support WebGL and this will not change. But the Chrome browser (or other installed browsers) is likely to support WebGL there, because it comes with custom WebView.
Samsung really messed up. I mean it, they are customizing Android OS a lot including some black magic with WebViews => Native WebView doesn't work there properly, so custom WebView in your application is must.
We (GAMEE) are using the Native WebView and XWalkView for Samsung and Android < 5.0 and WebGL games are working just fine right now.
I need to create a simple app that acts like a launcher and keeps the chrome browser (must be chrome due to heavy HTML5) as main app with a certain url with a device that runs Android 4.2 and cannot be upgraded neither rooted. Best would be if I could embed the chrome browser frame and hide all controls.
I already managed to write launcher apps with XE6 which minimize the risk of accidently leaving the app by interception "back" and being the default home app.
I know of the CEF in Windows, is there something similar under android?
The FMX mobile browser component TWebBrowser is a wrapper around the native platform browser. On Android that means it wraps WebView which is a modern WebKit browser with HTML 5 support.
So, it seems to me that the obvious way forward is to use TWebBrowser. From what you've described of your app, however, it might be simpler to code it in Java. It would certainly be more lightweight and you'd be sure to have easy access to all WebView functionality.
WebView wraps Android WebKit before Android 4.4. With Android 4.4 and newer WebKit wraps Chromium. For your 4.2 device limited HTML5 support is already available in WebKit.
Some advices are collected on http://blog.guya.net/2013/10/24/the-pains-and-remedies-of-android-html5/
If I skip all advices which are for pre 4.2 devices, the remaining list of issues and remedies is quite short.
None of the parents HTML elements to the canvas should have overflow: hidden or overflow:scroll
Wait a few (~100 millisecond) after the DOM is ready to ask it what’s the window size is.
Styling text-inputs that has focus: https://stackoverflow.com/a/9464837
I am testing on a Xoom device, running OS 3.2. The project is built (in Eclipse) using the 3.1 library.
I have the latest version of flash installed, and embedded flash plays fine in my tablet's browser.
If I create an activity like this:
WebView browser = (WebView) findViewById(R.id.browserView);
browser .getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
browser .getSettings().setPluginsEnabled(true);
browser .loadUrl("http://m.kongregate.com/games/Jiggmin/the-game-of-disorientation-mobile");
Then I hear the sound playing for the flash, but it shows up as a white box.
Similarly, any other page with embedded flash has the same problem. I've also tried making a string containing static HTML content, and loading that into the browser... but it has the same problem.
I've read every solution I could find online, from setting the view to invisible until the onPageFinish event is called, to extending the WebView class, and paining over it. I've tried reflection, to call hidden properties on the WebView's settings for enabling flash, etc. Nothing works.
Please help!
Thanks,
Mat
You can find my answer here :
Try to build your application with the latest android Api ( http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/optimizing-for-3.0.html#Upgrading ),
and activate hardware acceleration (same link, just a little below) on
your activity that need to display flash.
There is a web page that contains Flash content that I need to load into a WebView. I have tried with these settings:
mWebView.getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
mWebView.getSettings().setPluginState(WebSettings.PluginState.ON);
mWebView.loadUrl(URL);
However the flash portion of the site never loads, it just stays a big white space. The same exact site Flash content and all loads perfectly in the stock browser. Is there something I am missing to get WebView to show Flash content?
Edit: Does WebView.refreshPlugins(boolean reloadPages) have anything to do with it? I have tried putting this in various spots but still no luck.
If you are using Android 3.0 or greater you may need to add android:hardwareAccelerated="true" to the application (or activity depending on where you might have WebViews) attributes in the manifest, I was caught out by this recently.