I took a look at the app plugin for Android to see if it makes sense to
implement this for iOS as well. Below is a review of the apis and the iOS
ability to implement:
clearCache() - This seems do-able with iOS NSURLCache object.
loadURL()
/**
* Load the url into the webview or into new browser instance.
*
* @param url The URL to load
* @param props Properties that can be passed in to the activity:
* wait: int => wait msec before loading URL
* loadingDialog: "Title,Message" => display a native loading dialog
* loadUrlTimeoutValue: int => time in msec to wait before
triggering a timeout error
* clearHistory: boolean => clear webview history
(default=false)
* openExternal: boolean => open in a new browser
(default=false)
*
* Example:
* navigator.app.loadUrl("http://server/myapp/index.html";, {wait:2000,
loadingDialog:"Wait,Loading App", loadUrlTimeoutValue: 60000});
*/
We can implement all of these parameters in iOS. Although, I'm not sure what
is meant by a "native loading dialog" as iOS generally just uses a spinner with
this. We could create and display a standard dialog until the load request is
complete. This is an example of where only supporting iOS 4 or greater would
make this easier since we could use a block to potentially simplify the code.
Open in a new browser would launch is a standard Safari window - there would be
no mechanism for returning to the app since iOS devices have no back button
like Android. I think we would have to maintain the history ourselves in order
to implement clearHistory as I can't find any "easy" api to do this.
cancelLoadURL() - this is do-able in iOS.
clearHistory()
/**
* Clear web history in this web view.
* Instead of BACK button loading the previous web page, it will exit the app.
*/
Given the description I'm not sure this makes sense for iOS since there is no
back button and no way to programmatically exit an app - the app should be put
into the background. We would have to maintain our own history list in order
to clear it.
backHistory() - this can be implemented using UIWebView goBack api.
overrideBackbutton()
**
* Override the default behavior of the Android back button.
* If overridden, when the back button is pressed, the "backKeyDown" JavaScript
event will be fired.
*
* Note: The user should not have to call this method. Instead, when the user
* registers for the "backbutton" event, this is automatically done.
*
* @param override T=override, F=cancel override
*/
This doesn't make sense for iOS since there is no back button.
exitApp()
/**
* Exit and terminate the application.
*/
This is not allowed on iOS. There is an option to not put apps into the
background but I think Apple would frown on an exitApp() api.
addWhiteListEntry()
/**
* Add entry to approved list of URLs (whitelist) that will be loaded into
PhoneGap container instead of default browser.
*
* @param origin URL regular expression to allow
* @param subdomains T=include all subdomains under origin
*/
This is do-able but I question the security of adding an api to allow bypassing
the hardcoded whitelist entry. I do believe that the current iOS command
polling mechanism to invoke gap commands is fairly secure but I need people
with better security skills than mine to confirm.
Thus, other than offering a loadURL() command with more options, I'm not sure I
see the benefit of implenting this plugin for iOS. Do people have examples of
use cases where the achievable apis are needed?
thanks,
-becky
