How can I open new pages in new UIWebViews? - ios

Question

I'd like to open new web pages in new UIWebViews. For example, when you go to Google that would count as one web page, but when you click on Google Images within Google it would count as a new web page.
All new web pages will be loaded in new UIWebViews and will be put in a History array that contains all the UIWebViews.
- (BOOL)webView:(UIWebView *)webView shouldStartLoadWithRequest:(NSURLRequest *)request navigationType:(UIWebViewNavigationType)navigationType
{
if (navigationType == UIWebViewNavigationTypeBackForward) {
// The UIWebView already exists for that page in the history array, call it and display it.
}
else if (navigationType == UIWebViewNavigationTypeFormResubmitted) {
// No problem, load it in the current UIWebView.
}
else if (navigationType == UIWebViewNavigationTypeFormSubmitted) {
// It's a new page, load it in a new UIWebView.
}
else if (navigationType == UIWebViewNavigationTypeLinkClicked) {
// It's a new page, load it in a new UIWebView
}
else if (navigationType == UIWebViewNavigationTypeReload) {
// Just reload the current UIWebView.
}
else if (navigationType == UIWebViewNavigationTypeOther) {
// There's no way this is a new page. Do nothing.
}
}
As you probably have guessed, it didn't work. All you have to do is follow this path:
Go to http://www.9gag.com
Click the share on twitter icon under any post.
The link to share on twitter will look something like this:
https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?original_referer=http%3A%2F%2F9gag.com%2Fgag%2FaRQpqj2%3Fref%3Dt.mw&source=tweetbutton&text=I%20don%27t%20throw%20the%20word%20%27genius%27%20around%20loosely%2C%20but...&url=http%3A%2F%2F9gag.com%2Fgag%2FaRQpqj2%3Fref%3Dt.mw&via=9GAG
Although, someone would expect this link to be of type LinkClicked because you clicked the twitter icon to go there, it's actually of type Other, any desktop web browser will consider this link to be a pop up and would have opened it in a new window. Safari on iOS opens this link in a new tab. I would like to open it in a new UIWebView but the problem is that there's nothing differentiating an ad request from a pop up request in the UIWebView's delegate.
How is Safari doing it?
EDIT: The answer bellow is exactly the problem with UIWebView. It fools everyone into thinking that the delegate is the answer, when in fact you can do nothing without hacking your way through, even the simplest stuff.
EDIT 2: I have checked with other browsers as well like Mercury and they get this right. They understand that Twitter is a pop up and they open it in a new tab. So, this is not Apple's fault.

Answer 1

Set the delegate of your first web view to your view controller.
After that, add the following code to your view controller.
- (BOOL)webView:(UIWebView *)webView shouldStartLoadWithRequest:(NSURLRequest *)request navigationType:(UIWebViewNavigationType)navigationType
{
NSLog(#"%#", request.URL);
NSLog(#"%#", [request.URL scheme]);
if ([[request.URL scheme] isEqualToString:#"http"])
{
// Create web view here, because you're catching all requests
// Don't forget to set the delegate.
NSLog(#"Create new web view with %#", request.URL);
return NO;
}
return YES;
}
As you can see, you should replace the part where I added the NSLog. You're probably going to want to create a new web view at that point, and add it to the current view as a subview.
Why would you want to check on LinkClicked and not catch all requests?