InAppBrowser not working in Android Phone

Ionic Framework ionic-v3
1

Hi:

I have the cordova in-app-browser installed in mi app and it is not working in Android. It works fine in iOS though.

The following screenshot shows the in app browser when it is executed. I am trying to open a PDF file to show it to the user.

image
38a795a5-baaf-47dc-94ea-0bc334577385.png370×658 5.31 KB

The code I am using to open the in app browser is as follows:

this.platform.ready().then(()=>{
cordova.InAppBrowser.open(file.ref, ‘_blank’);
});

Maybe I’m missing something.

I’m using Ionic beta.8 and I’m testing in Android M.

Thanks in advanced.

2

As said here it seems that in Android (unlike iOS) the in app browser can not process pdf files.

1 Like
3

Hello, did you settle on a solution for viewing (remote) PDF files for Android?
Please let us know. Thank you.

4

Hi AlGantori:

The solution I am using is to open the pdf using google viewer inside the inappbrowser.

Hope this helps.

5

More info on how to use google docs viewer here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9193144/how-to-open-specific-page-on-googles-docs-viewer

6

Thanks for the link, here is what is working on my side

    openPDFviaGoogleDocs(URL) {
        window.open("https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=" + URL, '_blank');
    }

I am getting a separate window with “< >” “url” and X on its header. it seems to work on windows browser and Android. It’s modal I close with the X.
I don’t know how to hook a close event from typescript, yet…

I tried installing the latest 1.7.0 inappbrowser but it’s documented syntax did not work
// https://github.com/apache/cordova-plugin-inappbrowser

    openPDFcordova(URL) {
        var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open(URL, '_blank', 'location=yes');
        // says undefined ???
    }

I did use declare var cordova: any; but I always get an undefined.

the ionic version of inappbrowser works according to its docs with the following:

   import { InAppBrowser } from 'ionic-native';
....
    openPDFionicnative(URL) {
        let browser = new InAppBrowser(URL, '_blank', 'location=yes');
        // browser.show() ;               
    }

$ ionic plugins ls
cordova-plugin-console 1.0.5 "Console"
cordova-plugin-device 1.1.4 "Device"
cordova-plugin-inappbrowser 1.7.1-dev "InAppBrowser"
cordova-plugin-splashscreen 4.0.1 "Splashscreen"
cordova-plugin-statusbar 2.2.1 "StatusBar"
cordova-plugin-whitelist 1.3.1 "Whitelist"
ionic-plugin-keyboard 2.2.1 "Keyboard"

However, I don’t understand what you mean with "google viewer inside the inappbrowser"
Did you ended using the iframe thing suggested in the link?
If you have designed a page/component to host your PDF viewer please share the general concept and code behind.
I am new to JS/TS.
Thank you.