Android WebView URL intercept , i want to load only one website and it's pages , and nothing else

Question

I have a problem , i'm trying to create an app for my website and i'm using android webview to do that, but since there's external links (ads, backlinks.. etc) in my website , when the user clicks these links , the webview opens the links and my app acts like a browser , i know that's what webview is but i want it to open only links of my website

i ovverided the shouldOverrideUrlLoading method and i intercepted the urls and i returned true if the urls are diffrent than my website prefix , but the webview goes all white when i click and external link , and want for the webview is stay the same when i click the external links

here's my code

      public boolean shouldOverrideUrlLoading(WebView view, String url) {
        String host = Uri.parse(url).getHost();
        urlData = url;

        if (target_url_prefix.equals(host)) {
            if (mWebviewPop != null) {
                mWebviewPop.setVisibility(View.GONE);
                mContainer.removeView(mWebviewPop);
                mWebviewPop = null;
            }
            return false;
        }

    if(!url.contains(getString(R.string.target_url))) {
                Log.d("intercept External URL", "true");

                return true; 
        }

    }

Answer 1

You do not have to write shouldOverrideUrlLoading method. Only load the url in onCreate() method.

Check this code.

MainActivity.this.

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity
{

private static final String PAGE_URL = "http://madarabia.com";
private NoInternetDialog noInternetDialog;
private WebView mWebView;


@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    getWindow().addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

    noInternetDialog = new NoInternetDialog.Builder(getApplicationContext()).build();

    mWebView =  findViewById(R.id.webview);

    // Force links and redirects to open in the WebView instead of in a browser
    mWebView.setWebChromeClient(new WebChromeClient());
    mWebView.getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
    mWebView.getSettings().setDomStorageEnabled(true);

    mWebView.setWebViewClient(new WebViewClient());

    mWebView.getSettings().setSaveFormData(true);
    mWebView.getSettings().setAllowContentAccess(true);
    mWebView.getSettings().setAllowFileAccess(true);
    mWebView.getSettings().setAllowFileAccessFromFileURLs(true);
    mWebView.getSettings().setAllowUniversalAccessFromFileURLs(true);
    mWebView.getSettings().setSupportZoom(false);
    mWebView.setClickable(true);

    // Use remote resource
    mWebView.postDelayed(new Runnable() {

        @Override
        public void run() {
            mWebView.loadUrl(PAGE_URL);
        }
    }, 500);


    mWebView.onCheckIsTextEditor();

    mWebView.requestFocus(View.FOCUS_DOWN);
    mWebView.setOnTouchListener(new View.OnTouchListener() {
        @Override
        public boolean onTouch(View v, MotionEvent event) {

            switch (event.getAction())
            {

                case MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN:
                case MotionEvent.ACTION_UP:
                    if (!v.hasFocus())
                    {
                        v.requestFocus();
                    }
                    break;
            }
            return false;
        }
    });

}





@Override
protected void onDestroy() {
    super.onDestroy();

    noInternetDialog.onDestroy();

}

// Prevent the back-button from closing the app
@Override
public void onBackPressed() {
    if(mWebView.canGoBack()) {
        mWebView.goBack();
    } else {
        super.onBackPressed();
    }
}



@Override
public boolean onKeyDown(int keyCode, KeyEvent event) {

    if ((keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_BACK) && mWebView.canGoBack()) {
        mWebView.goBack();
        //If there is history, then the canGoBack method will return ‘true’//
        return true;
    }

    //If the button that’s been pressed wasn’t the ‘Back’ button, or there’s currently no
    //WebView history, then the system should resort to its default behavior and return
    //the user to the previous Activity//
    return super.onKeyDown(keyCode, event);


}

}

Answer 2

In both cases you have consumed the event. try something like below .

 webView.setWebViewClient(new WebViewClient(){
        @Override
        public boolean shouldOverrideUrlLoading(WebView view, WebResourceRequest request) {
            if (request.getUrl().equals(host)) {
               // Intercept URL Load url here return true if url is consumed  
                return true;
            }
            return super.shouldOverrideUrlLoading(view, request);
        }
    });

Or if you want to block all other links then you can use it like below .

 webView.setWebViewClient(new WebViewClient(){
        @Override
        public boolean shouldOverrideUrlLoading(WebView view, WebResourceRequest request) {
            if (request.getUrl().equals(yourwebsite)) {

                return super.shouldOverrideUrlLoading(view, request);
            }
            return true;
        }
    });

Keep that in mind that all other links will not work so this can be a bad impression on your app . So i suggest that you should open other links with a browser intent . Like below.

 webView.setWebViewClient(new WebViewClient(){
        @Override
        public boolean shouldOverrideUrlLoading(WebView view, WebResourceRequest request) {
            if (request.getUrl().equals(yourwebsite)) {

                return super.shouldOverrideUrlLoading(view, request);
            }else{
                try {
                    Intent browserIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse(request.getUrl()));
                    startActivity(browserIntent);
                }catch (Exception e){
                    e.printStackTrace();
                }
            }
            return true;
        }
    });

NOTE:- This is implementation for shouldOverrideUrlLoading(WebView view, WebResourceRequest request) which is applicable above API 21 . So you should also override shouldOverrideUrlLoading(WebView view, String url) for previous version in same way .