cordova-plugin-crosswalk-webview
Makes your Cordova application use the Crosswalk WebView
instead of the System WebView. Requires cordova-android 4.0 or greater.
Benefits
- WebView doesn't change depending on Android version
- Capabilities: such as WebRTC, WebAudio, Web Components
- Performance improvements (compared to older system webviews)
Drawbacks
- Increased memory footprint
- An overhead of ~30MB (as reported by the RSS column of ps)
- Increased APK size (about 17MB)
- Increased size on disk when installed (about 50MB)
- Crosswalk WebView stores data (IndexedDB, LocalStorage, etc) separately from System WebView
- You'll need to manually migrate local data when switching between the two (note: this is fixed in Crosswalk 15)
Install
The following directions are for cordova-cli (most people). Alternatively you can use the Android platform scripts workflow.
- Open an existing cordova project, with cordova-android 4.0.0+, and using the latest CLI. Crosswalk variables can be configured as an option when installing the plugin
- Add this plugin
$ cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-crosswalk-webview
$ cordova build android
The build script will automatically fetch the Crosswalk WebView libraries from Crosswalk project download site (https://download.01.org/crosswalk/releases/crosswalk/android/maven2/) and build for both X86 and ARM architectures.
For example, building android with Crosswalk generates:
/path/to/hello/platforms/android/build/outputs/apk/hello-x86-debug.apk
/path/to/hello/platforms/android/build/outputs/apk/hello-armv7-debug.apk
Note that it is also possible to publish a multi-APK application on the Play Store that uses Crosswalk for Pre-L devices, and the (updatable) system webview for L+:
To build Crosswalk-enabled apks, add this plugin and run:
$ cordova build --release
To build System-webview apk, remove this plugin and run:
$ cordova build --release -- --minSdkVersion=21
Configure
You can try out a different Crosswalk version by specifying certain variables while installing the plugin, or by changing the value of xwalkVersion
in your config.xml
after installing the plugin. Some examples:
<!-- These are all equivalent -->
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-crosswalk-webview --variable XWALK_VERSION="org.xwalk:xwalk_core_library:14+"
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-crosswalk-webview --variable XWALK_VERSION="xwalk_core_library:14+"
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-crosswalk-webview --variable XWALK_VERSION="14+"
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-crosswalk-webview --variable XWALK_VERSION="14"
<preference name="xwalkVersion" value="org.xwalk:xwalk_core_library:14+" />
<preference name="xwalkVersion" value="xwalk_core_library:14+" />
<preference name="xwalkVersion" value="14+" />
<preference name="xwalkVersion" value="14" />
You can also use a Crosswalk beta version. Some examples:
<!-- These are all equivalent -->
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-crosswalk-webview --variable XWALK_VERSION="org.xwalk:xwalk_core_library_beta:14+"
<preference name="xwalkVersion" value="org.xwalk:xwalk_core_library_beta:14+" />
You can set command-line flags as well:
<!-- This is the default -->
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-crosswalk-webview --variable XWALK_COMMANDLINE="--disable-pull-to-refresh-effect"
<preference name="xwalkCommandLine" value="--disable-pull-to-refresh-effect" />
You can use the Crosswalk shared mode which allows multiple Crosswalk applications to share one Crosswalk runtime downloaded from the Play Store.
<!-- These are all equivalent -->
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-crosswalk-webview --variable XWALK_MODE="shared"
<preference name="xwalkMode" value="shared" />
Note that if you want to specify the Crosswalk version when using shared mode, you need to use the shared version of the library, e.g.:
<!-- Using a Crosswalk shared mode beta version -->
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-crosswalk-webview --variable XWALK_VERSION="org.xwalk:xwalk_shared_library_beta:14+"
PGB Instructions
Add this line to your config.xml file:
<gap:plugin name="cordova-plugin-crosswalk-webview-pgb-adapt" source="npm" version="1.4.0-dev-5"/>
Release Notes
1.4.0-dev-10 (fork from cordova-plugin-crosswalk-webview 1.4.0-dev)
- PhoneGap Build compatible (tested with PGB v5.2.0)
- Based on Crosswalk v15.44.384
- Pull-down-to-refresh is now REALLY disabled by default for PhoneGap Build
- Removed ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE and ACCESS_WIFI_STATE permissions
1.3.0 (August 28, 2015)
- Crosswalk variables can be configured as an option via CLI
- Support for Crosswalk's shared mode via the XWALK_MODE install variable or xwalkMode preference
- Uses the latest Crosswalk 14 stable version by default
- The ANIMATABLE_XWALK_VIEW preference is false by default
- Doesn't work with Crosswalk 14.43.343.17 and earlier
1.2.0 (April 22, 2015)
- Made Crosswalk command-line configurable via
<preference name="xwalkCommandLine" value="..." />
- Disabled pull-down-to-refresh by default
1.1.0 (April 21, 2015)
- Based on Crosswalk v13
- Made Crosswalk version configurable via
<preference name="xwalkVersion" value="..." />
1.0.0 (Mar 25, 2015)
- Initial release
- Based on Crosswalk v11