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.
Related
I am working on a web page, which I want to test on my iPhone. However, when I visit the website from my phone in either Firefox or Safari it is an old version of the website that opens. I have tried to clear cache and history as described here, but it is still the old website that appears. I have also tried to de-connect my Firefox account and restart both the app and the phone. I have checked in a browser on my computer and here I see the new website and any changes implemented instantaneously.
Do anyone have similar experiences with such an issue and how to solve it?
Edit 1: After a while (couple of hours) I tried again and it was indeed the new page in the mobile browser. I still don't however understand why there is latency in a mobile browser and not elsewhere, i.e. where and why is the old page cached on a mobile device even though history and cache has been cleared?
Edit 2: I have now also discovered that the same issue applies to all other non-mobile browsers than FirefoxDeveloperEdition, so this browser must be doing something the others don't.
I faced similar issues in past. It depends upon your hosting provider. Usually it takes no time to update web pages but sometimes average hosting sucks.
Try opening webpages in incognito mode/private mode.
My problem was solved by running cache-purge from my provider's SSH service.
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
I have a mobile web app designed as a single place for employees of our company to help them locate various online resources. The app has a lot of in-app content, but also provides links to external partner websites. My issue is a common one with a bit of a twist. I like the way the app looks in standalone mode on an iphone, but am struggling to figure out a solution for keeping the app in stand-alone mode, while also providing the ability to open external links in safari. I know how to keep the app in standalone mode when links are clicked, but when an external link is clicked, one of two problems occurs:
1) If I code the external link to keep it in standalone mode, there is no way to navigate back to my app from the external site as the back button is obviously no longer available.
2) If I code the external link to open in safari, when the user is done with the external link, the session for my app is closed and the user has to go back to their homescreen and re-open it again. (I know I can code it so that they will return to where they were in the session, but this is not the solution I want).
My question is this, is there a way to open external links ON TOP OF a standalone web app session? So that when the external link is closed, the standalone web app session appears?
I've read that I can use AJAX to open external links within the active session, but I don't know how to do this and can't find anything online that explains it well. Any help would be MUCH appreciated.
My app functions fine in safari, but looks SO much better in standalone mode; I would be SO appreciative if anyone can provide a solution. I am also willing to discuss paying someone to help with this as well.
Cheers,
SC
Turn your app into an actual app, not just a web site. You should implement your own web browser in your app using UIWebView. It's very simple. You probably only need a back button and a close button, you don't need a full search/address bar, bookmarks, etc. UIWebView and two buttons will do it.
As soon as you switch apps to Safari you will see the behavior you have described - there's no getting around it. Your only choice is not to exit.
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/uikit/reference/UIWebView_Class/Reference/Reference.html
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.
2nd update, March 2014: Apple closed the bug saying they don't have enough information, but my project is a big PHP application that I can't (and won't) fully send to Apple for them to reproduce this problem. If anyone has a shareable, simple, pure HTML app that exhibits this problem as well, please let me know and I'll submit it to re-open the bug hoping they'll look into it.
1st update: as more users are reporting this issue and nobody has a clue, I have filed a bug report at Apple. If anything useful comes out of that which is not under NDA, I will post it here.
After installing a (jQuery Mobile) web app I am developing to the home screen of my iOS 6 device (iPhone 5), the network activity indicator in the status bar at the top of the screen keeps spinning even after the page is loaded completely. The behavior shows only when the page is opened through the web app; surfing to the same page in Safari on the same device doesn't show the infinitely spinning activity indicator.
Removing all AJAX calls and page content doesn't make a difference; the problem persists even when the web app consists only of an empty page like this:
<html>
<head></head>
<body><br/></body>
</html>
The issue was solved by deleting the web app from the home screen, surfing to the page in Safari and re-adding it to the home screen as a new web app.
My guess is that the problem lies in the meta data that iOS stores at the moment a web app is added to the home screen (such as the values in the apple-mobile-web-app-capable and apple-touch-startup-image meta tags).
At least some of that information does not seem to get refreshed when accessing the page as a web app, even when it starts serving completely different content (such as the empty page shown in the question). I know this is true for the apple-mobile-web-app-capable meta tag; adding that tag to a site that has already been installed to the home screen does not suddenly make it a native-looking web app; the tag has to be present at the moment of adding the web app to the home screen.
I think I must have installed the initial web app at a stage of development where the page referred to a non-existent resource (such as an image, CSS or JS file), resulting in a web app that keeps looking for non-existent content even though the current web page is no longer referring to it, possibly explaining the infinite activity indicator behavior.
I am not certain that that is the cause, but it does seem the most likely explanation for this issue.
If you encounter this; check that all resources your page refers to exist, then delete and re-add the web app to the screen to see if it fixes the issue.
I have the exact same issue, and it goes away when I remove the bookmark from the homescreen. But the activity indicator starts spinning again after the webapp has been used for some time.
I don't see any failed requests in Apaches access log during initial load, and no requests appears when the activity indicator starts spinning, so I don't think the problem is about a non-existent resource.
However, I see in the access log that iOS Safari insists on requesting a whole batch of Apple-specific files such as apple-startup-image and apple-startup-icon when in full screen mode. This is just like how Google Chrome insists on requesting favicon.ico (sigh!). Sadly, when I satisfy Safaris thirst for apple-files it doesn't stop the spinning disc :-(
I have had the Mac OSX web inspector enabled for my webapp and it registers no network activity or other issues whatsoever.
In the Apple manual (http://support.apple.com/manuals/) page 12 for the iPad it states that the activity indicator is for "network and other activity". It doesn't say that Safari uses the indicator for anything else but network activity, but maybe it's a hint.
For the time being, I have come the temporary and unsatisfying conclusion that it's an iOS issue that's beyond web developer control. I'll keep hacking at it and post any new findings here. Perhaps together we can uncover the mystery :-)