I use the childbrowser in my jqtouch - phonegap iPhone app and have now created it in Eclipse aswell, I have got the childbrowser to work in Android.
In the iPhone the childbrowser has a Done button and in the Android it opens a window with a address field at the top, is this how it suppose to look like - work?
When I open a .pdf or .doc document in the iPhone it opens in the childbrowser so I can read it, but in the Android it downloads the document, is this what it suppose to do?
If so, is there a way to open .pdfs so you can read it without downloading it first?
3. Is the childbrowser suppose to work in the emulator?
Thanks.
Yes, that's how it's supposed to work. The child browser is a bit non-idiomatic on the Android platform, since the Android way is generally more to open content that isn't native to the app on another app where it is (see question 2). The typical way in Android when you encounter a link is rather to open the web browser with that link, but in iOS the Child Brower UI pattern is very common. The Child Browser Android plugin also have a way of sending links to the web browser, I'd recommend you try it and consider using that instead of the Child Browser for your Android app version.
Also yes, that's also how Android generally works. Creating in-app viewers for .doc of .pdf -files would be too difficult if that's not the app's primary task.
Related
I have a mobile website, users user smart phone browser to access my site.
Now some users would like to have an Android App.
So is there any easy and fast way to create an Android App which will access the existing mobile website so that I can have an Android App without developing Android app?
You would have to create a "wrapper" Android App. That is a native Android App with a Main Activity that contains a WebView with JavaScript enabled and some sort of navigation controls either on the mobile website or the native app (buttons or menu) but you could bump into problems such as:
Users being stuck in a particular page with no way to navigating back or forward.
Google is now more picky with the apps and they have policies to reject or ban apps that are only wrappers or point to external websites (kind of what Apple did for iOS)
Any case, you would have to create a mobile layout for your website or a make it responsive (special CSS and JS UI/UX that fits better on mobile devices).
Another alternative is to make your website compatible with PROGRESSIVE WEB APPS (https://developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-apps/) which is basically a Web app with some special elements that allow it to receive push notifications, put a shortcut or app icon on the device's home screen, etc.
Good luck! Hope this helped!
You can use android WebView. For more details you go through the link Android Webview
the only way to do that, using WebView on your apps or you need to create manually
You can put your code into Cordova and convert it into other IDE like android studio or eclipse .
reference:
Import Cordova project in Android Studio
I have built a chrome extension that works fine. I know I can't deploy it to android. So I would have to build an app. The app may or may not have anything to do with chrome; I don't know. This isn't a chrome extension question.
But as to the integration between the app and the on-board browser, I see the android api doesn't have any functionality for browser or web integration? Is that correct?
I'm just making sure because building an app that is essentially it's own proprietary browser, just to get my functionality onto android, is not really something I think a lot of people would download. I'm looking for a more integrated way than that. Is there one?
For those who say impossible, I know for a fact there is an app which added a context menu inside chrome on android but I have no idea how they did that or what other integration is possible. It was a webpage pdf converter. Upon clicking that menu it converted the webpage to pdf, and opened the pdf in the app.
Intending to view a PDF File from the Hybrid Mobile App , created using HTML5 Jquery and Packaged with Phonegap.
But unable to achieve it ,
Things i tried
<object src="xyz.pdf" type="application/pdf"></object>
also,
window.open('xyz.pdf'); //through javascript
and
$(document).load('xyz.pdf');
Can anyone suggest the best way for viewing the PDF in a Hybrid Android Mobile App.
with cordova you must think about these:
HTML 5 object tag: not working
If you try with:
window.open('http://www.???.com/my.pdf', '_blank', 'location=yes');
The InAppViewer can´t open this kind of files.
I think that there aren't an hybrid solution for this problem.
You must start to search or write about a plugin that use a native pdf's opening and then use it.
An example:
cordova-plugin-file-opener
The latest solution, a little more simple but include to open google docs is:
window.open('https://docs.google.com/viewer? url=http://www.example.com/test.pdf&embedded=true', '_blank', 'location=yes');
ref = window.open('index.html', '_self');
Go look at the Mozilla pdfJS project.
This project allows you to open a pdf (embedded in app or remote) in your app. No break-out links that relies on native viewers.
They also give you a very full featured sample viewer, that you can use as is, but much of functionality in that does not apply to mobile applications.
I have had success with this on Android 4.3 Devices.
Try installing the InAppBrowser plugin to do so. I have use it to open PDF files right inside the app on both iOS and Android.
Check the official InAppBrowser doc with full doc and examples, it has several options you can enable/disable (be sure to point to your current cordova version documentation):
My solution for connected apps with offline availability...
window.open('http://www.someserver.com/doc.pdf', '_system')
...this will open in default pdf viewer. I have my clients use adobe reader for obvious reasons. And also because once it is downloaded the first time, adobe app manages and edits the documents well, and the documents are also available offline from within adobe reader thereafter. Even pdf forms.
Have cordova.js linked on the page.
Have inAppBrowser added.
For full offline you may try FileOpener plugin. I have not needed to do that on android, but I have used that way in iOS.
Hope any of this may help.
Though am late here, still want to share what I know. You can use this plugin to view PDFs in the app (without inappbrowser). Supports only Android and iOS.
I know about phonegap but here i am want to know if it
is possible to have an android application which is not
really an application but merely a browser that opens only
a particular webpage, that is only the mobile site i already
designed, am not sure but i have seen some android apps and i know
they do something similar , below are the things i want :
The app should be installable.
Just opens a link to an existing webpage online.i.e its more like a browser
only it just opens only a specified web page
is this possible with Phonegap for Android ?
You can do that. You would want to use the inappbrowser plugin to open an external page when ondeviceready is fired. Take a look at my SO answer here for a guide on how to use the inappbrowser, and you can take a look here for the docs about ondeviceready.
is it possible to programmatically access the website that is currently displayed within the Android browser?
As far as I know the native Browser doesn't handle plugins (please correct me if I'm wrong), so I thought that reading the browser cache would be an option.
Is there a more sophisticated way to get the currently displayed HTML?
Thanks in advance!
S.
is it possible to programmatically access the website that is currently displayed within the Android browser?
That would be a security violation, so, no. Also bear in mind that there are several Web browsers for Android.
As far as I know the native Browser doesn't handle plugins (please correct me if I'm wrong)
The standard browser app supports plugins, but not ones downloaded on the fly. So, for example, it supports the Flash plugin (on Android 2.2+), but you have to install Flash separately first.