Launching phone/email/map links in WKWebView - ios

Question

KINWebBrowser is an open source web browser module for iOS apps. I recently upgraded KINWebBrowser to use WKWebView to begin phasing out UIWebView. This yields significant improvements, but:
Problem: WKWebView does not enable users to launch links containing URLs for phone numbers, email address, maps, etc.
How can I configure a WKWebView to launch the standard iOS behaviors for these alternate URLs when launched as links from the displayed page?
All of the code is available here
More info on WKWebKit
See the issue on the KINWebBrowser GitHub here

Answer 1

I was able to get it to work for the Google Maps link (which appears to be related to the target="_blank") and for the tel: scheme by adding this function to your KINWebBrowserViewController.m
- (void)webView:(WKWebView *)webView decidePolicyForNavigationAction:(WKNavigationAction *)navigationAction decisionHandler:(void (^)(WKNavigationActionPolicy))decisionHandler
{
if(webView != self.wkWebView) {
decisionHandler(WKNavigationActionPolicyAllow);
return;
}
UIApplication *app = [UIApplication sharedApplication];
NSURL *url = navigationAction.request.URL;
if (!navigationAction.targetFrame) {
if ([app canOpenURL:url]) {
[app openURL:url];
decisionHandler(WKNavigationActionPolicyCancel);
return;
}
}
if ([url.scheme isEqualToString:#"tel"])
{
if ([app canOpenURL:url])
{
[app openURL:url];
decisionHandler(WKNavigationActionPolicyCancel);
return;
}
}
decisionHandler(WKNavigationActionPolicyAllow);
}

Answer 2

Works on xcode 8.1, Swift 2.3.
For target="_blank", phone number (tel:) and email (mailto:) links.
func webView(webView: WKWebView, decidePolicyForNavigationAction navigationAction: WKNavigationAction, decisionHandler: (WKNavigationActionPolicy) -> Void) {
if webView != self.webview {
decisionHandler(.Allow)
return
}
let app = UIApplication.sharedApplication()
if let url = navigationAction.request.URL {
// Handle target="_blank"
if navigationAction.targetFrame == nil {
if app.canOpenURL(url) {
app.openURL(url)
decisionHandler(.Cancel)
return
}
}
// Handle phone and email links
if url.scheme == "tel" || url.scheme == "mailto" {
if app.canOpenURL(url) {
app.openURL(url)
decisionHandler(.Cancel)
return
}
}
decisionHandler(.Allow)
}
}
Updated for swift 4.0
func webView(_ webView: WKWebView, decidePolicyFor navigationAction: WKNavigationAction, decisionHandler: #escaping (WKNavigationActionPolicy) -> Void) {
if webView != self.webView {
decisionHandler(.allow)
return
}
let app = UIApplication.shared
if let url = navigationAction.request.url {
// Handle target="_blank"
if navigationAction.targetFrame == nil {
if app.canOpenURL(url) {
app.open(url)
decisionHandler(.cancel)
return
}
}
// Handle phone and email links
if url.scheme == "tel" || url.scheme == "mailto" {
if app.canOpenURL(url) {
app.open(url)
}
decisionHandler(.cancel)
return
}
decisionHandler(.allow)
}
}

Answer 3

You need to implemented an other callback to get this right (Swift 5.0):
// Gets called if webView cant handle URL
func webView(_ webView: WKWebView, didFailProvisionalNavigation navigation: WKNavigation!, withError error: Error) {
guard let failingUrlStr = (error as NSError).userInfo["NSErrorFailingURLStringKey"] as? String else { return }
let failingUrl = URL(string: failingUrlStr)!
switch failingUrl {
// Needed to open Facebook
case _ where failingUrlStr.hasPrefix("fb:"):
if #available(iOS 10.0, *) {
UIApplication.shared.open(failingUrl, options: [:], completionHandler: nil)
return
} // Else: Do nothing, iOS 9 and earlier will handle this
// Needed to open Mail-app
case _ where failingUrlStr.hasPrefix("mailto:"):
if UIApplication.shared.canOpenURL(failingUrl) {
UIApplication.shared.open(failingUrl, options: [:], completionHandler: nil)
return
}
// Needed to open Appstore-App
case _ where failingUrlStr.hasPrefix("itmss://itunes.apple.com/"):
if UIApplication.shared.canOpenURL(failingUrl) {
UIApplication.shared.open(failingUrl, options: [:], completionHandler: nil)
return
}
default: break
}
}
Now Facebook, Mail, Appstore,.. getting called directly from your app without the need to open Safari
Edit: replaced custom startsWith() method with standard hasPrefix() method.

Answer 4

This helps me for Xcode 8 WKWebview
func webView(_ webView: WKWebView, createWebViewWith configuration: WKWebViewConfiguration, for navigationAction: WKNavigationAction, windowFeatures: WKWindowFeatures) -> WKWebView? {
if navigationAction.targetFrame == nil {
let url = navigationAction.request.url
if url?.description.range(of: "http://") != nil || url?.description.range(of: "https://") != nil || url?.description.range(of: "mailto:") != nil || url?.description.range(of: "tel:") != nil {
UIApplication.shared.openURL(url!)
}
}
return nil
}
EDITED:
In link must be attribute target="_blank".

Answer 5

I'm landed here searching for how to open gmail attachments on wkwebview.
My solution is simple:
func webView(_ webView: WKWebView, decidePolicyFor navigationAction: WKNavigationAction, decisionHandler: #escaping (WKNavigationActionPolicy) -> Void) {
if navigationAction.targetFrame == nil, let redirect = navigationAction.request.url {
if UIApplication.shared.canOpenURL(redirect) {
self.webViewMail?.load(navigationAction.request)
decisionHandler(.cancel)
return
}
}
decisionHandler(.allow)
}

Answer 6

UPDATE FOR SWIFT 4.2
Sorry to dig up an old post, but I was having the same issues and have updated the solution for Swift 4.2. I have put my solution here so that it may help others and if not I will hopefully find it the next time I am working with WKWebView!
func webView(_ webView: WKWebView, decidePolicyFor navigationAction: WKNavigationAction, decisionHandler: #escaping (WKNavigationActionPolicy) -> Void) {
let url = navigationAction.request.url?.absoluteString
let urlElements = url?.components(separatedBy: ":") ?? []
switch urlElements[0] {
case "tel":
UIApplication.shared.openURL(navigationAction.request.url!)
decisionHandler(.cancel)
case "mailto":
UIApplication.shared.openURL(navigationAction.request.url!)
decisionHandler(.cancel)
default:
decisionHandler(.allow)
}
}
I used the following site as inspiration:
SubzDesignz iOS Swift 4 WKWebview – Detect tel, mailto, target=”_blank” and CheckConnection

Answer 7

Above answer workes for me, but I needed it to rewrite for swift 2.3
if navigationAction.targetFrame == nil {
let url = navigationAction.request.mainDocumentURL
if url?.description.rangeOfString("mailto:")?.startIndex != nil ||
url?.description.rangeOfString("tel:")?.startIndex != nil
{
if #available(iOS 10, *) {
UIApplication.sharedApplication().openURL(url!,options: [:], completionHandler: nil)
} else {
UIApplication.sharedApplication().openURL(url!) // deprecated
}
}
}