I am making a chrome app. It is for a kiosk type application. At times the computer will be offline when it starts up. So I'm looking to make an application that a user can navigate to a website and then the entire website is cached. Then when they turn on the Chromebox/Chromebook the website will come up as it was. Including JS/CSS/dynamically loaded content.
Overall I'm looking to save the state of the entire webview and have it keep going after the machine reboots. I looked into saving the JS/CSS/HTML but then the dynamically loaded content (ajax calls) is not available. Is there a higher level function for saving the ENTIRE state of the webview in a google chrome app?
Zebradog's Kiosk Chrome App recently added "Serve local content" support. It works by using Web Server for Chrome in the background. It loads the content in a webview. You may not want a whole kiosk app, but this could at least be a starting point for you to use as reference.
One way of actually getting all the files, if you don't have them already, would be to use wget -r -k
Related
I am building an iPad app to be used in a public multi-user scenario and want to allow temporary web browsing sessions. However, when the session is finished, I want the app to clear all private browsing data including cache, cookies and history.
I have figured out how to clear the cache and the cookies, but the history is eluding me.
Just to be clear, I'm not looking to clear the back/forward history of the UIWebView (I am creating a new instance of UIWebView each time so that isn't an issue). I am looking to clear the entire application's browsing history, so that links do not appear visited.
For example, if I search for something on Google and visit one of the hits, the link turns purple the next time I Google it. I want all history and past web pages to be erased so that no links stay purple after the browsing session is reset.
Alternatively, if I could just entirely disable history tracking (like a "private browsing mode" à la Chrome or Firefox) that would also be acceptable.
Update: Interestingly, I noticed that quitting and restarting the app implicitly clears the browsing history, and links once again appear blue upon startup. However, this unfortunately doesn't help me at all because the app is designed and intended to be run for long periods of time across many users. We can't quit the app after each session.
Update 2: Further experimentation shows that the web history is definitely maintained on a per-application basis. I googled the same thing in Safari and the links that show purple each time in my app appear blue in Safari. There has to be a way to access this local storage from within the app.
If you are willing to use private frameworks, there is a discussion about this here: How to clear back forward list in UIWebview on iPhone?
If thats not an option for you, then the only other option I can think of would be deleting the webview and then recreating it.
I have an application built using XPages' mobile controls. On an ipHone the application behaves as I would like in the standard Safari browser. When I take the url and add it to the Home Page as an icon and use the application from there every time an action I take invokes a native application (Maps, Contacts, Phone, attachment viewers etc.) when I switch back to my application I am immediately asked for my userid and password again. Is there a way to control the behavior to not lose the login credentials the same way that the standard Safari application seems to.
This is a limitation in iOS. If you save it to the home page like that it works, but it will NOT multi-task. That's the problem. So it doesn't remember where you were or anything like that.
As David mentions it starts all over again when you switch back.... The problem is not only the credentials - it is also all the information you may have entered or where you have navigated to in the "app".
This is why I am changing to another approach. I am starting to write apps as web-apps that run locally (i.e. cache the ressources and run on the cached versions of the JS-files, CSS and images). Then I implement a localstorage where you can track where in the app you are - and return to that place again. This way you do not need the authentication for running the app - only for synchronizing the information with the server. My approach is to save data locally and sync them to the server (as a sort of replication). This obviously gives more work - but it also gives a better user experience since you can run the "app" without being connected.
I have tried to control the caching locally using a cache.manifest file. This can be done, however, it is a pain. Therefore, I am now using Sencha Touch which really does this nicely.
/John
PS. I think you may be able to handle the login issue by using the XPage Dojo login custom control (http://www.openntf.org/internal/home.nsf/project.xsp?action=openDocument&name=Xpages%20Dojo%20Login%20Custom%20Control) - however, it does not solve the issue with reloading the page...
It seems the secret to success here is NOT to tell Safari the XPage is capable of acting as a mobile web app. Add the following code inside for the XPage to ensure this is the case.
<xp:metaData
name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable"
content="no">
</xp:metaData>
Note: You can still provide an icon for the home screen, its just that icon will now act more like a bookmark with the Safari controls and (more importantly) you can switch between applications and when you return to Safari it will display your Xpages app just as you left it.
my site is responsive, and it's looking good on Safari on iPhone. But when I browse to my website from my Twitter app on my iPhone, it seems to ignore most of my mobile styling and looks very bad. Is there something I can do to detect if the browser is some kind of mobile app (such as Twitter) and cause the page to load in the default mobile browser instead (Safari, Browser, etc.)?
Edit: I strictly used CSS' max-width media query and targeted HTML5 block elements to change widths into percents. On two navs, I changed the display attribute as necessary.
Turns out it was a caching issue. It loads fine in the Twitter app. Oddly, it didn't before, even after several tries.
To the best of my knowledge, you can't force the site to open in the default mobile browser. The decision whether to open your site in the app's UIWebView or the default Safari browser is made by the Twitter app alone. If the Twitter app was gracious enough to provides any interface for you to choose, it might be possible, but they probably don't. Most app publishers try to keep users inside the app for as long as possible, and throwing them outside to a different app usually goes against this.
Your best bet is probably to try to improve your site's responsiveness to also work inside the Twitter app UIWebView as well (or inside other apps for that matter). If you base your responsiveness on screen width for example (CSS max-width and friends), I assume it should also work inside the Twitter app UIWebView.
The problem you are describing is indeed a very serious and annoying one. UIWebViews inside apps don't implement by default all of Apple's special handlers (that work inside the original Safari). The app maker is expected to implement these manually, and 99% of all apps simply don't do this. It's true for many other apps as well, the Google native search app also opens URLs inside a UIWebView - and sites tend to look lousy there too.
You should also consider filing a bug with Twitter and urge them to improve website compatibility when opened inside their app.
You can't force the user to open the link from a browser from your website. Android WebView is restricted and by default does not allow javascript and other extensions.
You can find more information here: Android WebView VS Phone Browser
I have a simple web app that I want to use locally (i.e. I don't want it to ever access the network). All the code is packaged according to the Safari Web Content Guide. I was successful in downloading my web app to my iPhone. I noticed, though, that even though my web app doesn't connect to anything remotely, there will be a network access (the network access indicator fires).
I suspect that iOS is checking to see if the web app is fresh (i.e. checking the cache manifest to see if it needs to update any files). Is there a way to prevent this? It really screws up the user experience.
The never-ending network spinner is a bug in iOS; you won't be able to get around it with a web app:
http://www.devthought.com/2012/09/22/understanding-the-ios6-ajax-bugs/
I'm developing a small HTML5 web application for iPad that is intended to work in fullscreen mode (ie. it has the proprietary Apple meta tag, it is added to Home Screen):
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes" />
The application basically fetches some data via AJAX and presents it to the user. The AJAX data are external (from a different domain, different server). I have the system setup for cross-origin requests, they work in online mode. In other words: the static data lie on server A, the dynamic data - on server B.
I created a proper cache manifest file, listing all static content of the site (HTML, CSS, images, JS) and then having the NETWORK: * section at the end - this way all the dynamic content (AJAX) is always retrieved from the network. The application fails "gracefully" if the requests fail, by displaying some fake content.
With the above setup, the following happens:
If I run the application while online, everything works ;)
If I disable the WiFi on iPad (pure offline mode), everything works as expected - the application falls back to the offline content
If I connect to the network again, but take the static-content server offline (the one that has everything cached), the application won't start; after spending a while in splash-screen, it shows me the a popup with <app> could not be opened because it could not connect to the server.; I can either choose Close or Retry.
The point 3 of the above is the one that drives me crazy because it was the only reason I started fiddling with application cache. Why doesn't the iPad web app fall back to cached content if the manifest file is not reachable? (not 404, the server is offline)
Is the answer to HTML5 iphone offline webapp completely incorrect? If not, how can I achieve this behavior on iPad?
Point 2 and 3 are completely different scenarios, so we cannot expect the same behavior.
In point 3, the device cannot fall back to the cached content when in online mode because if it do so, there will be no way to know for the user whether he is connected to the server or not.
I mean, in offline mode, the user knows it, and knows that he is with cached data. But in online mode, he expects to get the stuff from the server. If the server is not available, the user should be aware of this. If the server is not available and he is sent directly to cached data, the server error will be hidden to him, thinking that he is connected when he is actually not.
For example, web browsers can cache pages to be seen in offline mode. But if we are in online mode and try to open an unavailable page, we expect to see the error message, not a cached version of the page without any warning. We can go to offline mode to see the cached page if we want, but the correct behavior is to show the error to the user.