cordova-plugin-ionic-webview

Ionic Web View for Cordova

A Web View plugin for Cordova, focused on providing the highest performance experience for Ionic apps (but can be used with any Cordova app).

This plugin defaults to using WKWebView on iOS and the latest evergreen webview on Android. Additionally, this plugin makes it easy to use HTML5 style routing that web developers expect for building single-page apps.

Note: This repo and its documentation are for cordova-plugin-ionic-webview @ 2.x, which uses the new features that may not work with all apps. See Requirements and Migrating to 2.x.

:book: Documentation: https://beta.ionicframework.com/docs/building/webview

:mega: Support/Questions? Please see our Support Page for general support questions. The issues on GitHub should be reserved for bug reports and feature requests.

:sparkling_heart: Want to contribute? Please see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Configuration

This plugin has several configuration options that can be set in config.xml. Important: some configuration options should be adjusted for production apps, especially WKPort:

iOS and Android Preferences

Preferences available for both iOS and Android platforms

WKPort

<preference name="WKPort" value="8080" />

The default port the server will listen on. You should change this to a random port number!

iOS Preferences

Preferences only available for iOS platform

UseScheme

<preference name="UseScheme" value="true" />

Default value is false.

On iOS 11 and newer it will use a WKURLSchemeHandler that loads the app from ionic:// scheme instead of using the local web server and https:// scheme.

On iOS 10 and older will continue using the local web server even if the preference is set to true.

HostName

<preference name="HostName" value="myHostName" />

Default value is app.

If UseScheme is set to yes, it will use the HostName value as the host of the starting url.

Example ionic://app

WKSuspendInBackground (Removed in 2.4.0)

This preference has been removed in 2.4.0 version of the plugin as it relied on a private API. Apps relying on this preference will not work as intended after the update. It will act as the previous default value, which was true.

<preference name="WKSuspendInBackground" value="true" />

Whether to try to keep the server running when the app is backgrounded. Note: the server will likely be suspended by the OS after a few minutes. In particular, long-lived background tasks are not allowed on iOS outside of select audio and geolocation tasks.

WKBind

<preference name="WKBind" value="localhost" />

The hostname the server will bind to. There aren't a lot of other valid options, but some prefer binding to "127.0.0.1"

WKInternalConnectionsOnly (New in 2.2.0)

<preference name="WKInternalConnectionsOnly" value="true" />

Whether to restrict access to this server to the app itself. Previous versions of this plugin did not restrict access to the app itself. In 2.2.0 and above, the plugin now restricts access to only the app itself.

KeyboardAppearanceDark

<preference name="KeyboardAppearanceDark" value="false" />

Whether to use a dark styled keyboard on iOS

Plugin Requirements

• iOS: iOS 10+ and cordova-ios 4+
• Android: Android 4.4+ and cordova-android 6.4+

Migrating to 2.x

1. Remove and re-add the Web View plugin:

   cordova plugin rm cordova-plugin-ionic-webview
   cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-ionic-webview@latest
   

2. Apps are now served from HTTP on Android.

   • The origin for requests from the Web View is http://localhost:8080.

3. Replace any usages of window.Ionic.normalizeURL() with window.Ionic.WebView.convertFileSrc().

   • For Ionic Angular projects, there is an Ionic Native wrapper:

     npm install @ionic-native/ionic-webview@beta