Hi, I am about to build an app using Ionic. I wonder how to make sure that URLs when clicked gets opened within the app ?
Also, is there any method to use the back button so that after opening the URL, I can go back to the app. Thanks.
You’re going to have to define some terms more precisely here. How are these URLs being presented to the user? To what do they refer? What does it mean to you to “open” something “within the app”? (that one might be easier if you define what you don’t want to happen)
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Hi, I am trying to create an Android app for a forum like this. I am listing the home / default view as a list. When someone touch say " Peer to Peer support " it will direct the user to that particular page. There will be more categories in the list. I have like 8-10 as list items. Say one is Ionic, one is Stencil, one is Enterprise and so on.
So now a user clicks on one of the list items, it is supposed to open an URL right ? I would like to have the URL open within the app itself.
Hope I explained it properly. Please let me know if you need any other info.
Also, now the user goes on browsing, I would like to have the user come back to basic default view through the back button press on Android. Thanks
That is going to be a relatively rough road. The first thing you have to decide is whether you want to be presenting all the content from within your app or not. If so, you need to decide on a proper transfer language for your “posts” (and I would strongly recommend not choosing HTML here, because it is hard to parse, having tons of edge cases). You will be tempted to use innerHTML, which simultaneously opens a bunch of security concerns and will frustrate you by not doing anything beyond very vanilla text formatting.
If you decide “no” on presenting directly in the app, then the InAppBrowser documentation that @mikrochipkid posted should be your next stop.
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I do not know JS. So I have no choice. The best I could do is use a list of categories and then let the user browse using in-app browser or external browser.
I tried using native app building method using Android Studio. Everything worked and build was successful. But the app is crashing while trying to start. So I thought of taking refuge in Ionic.
Perhaps I should go back and take some Java help.
I really thought this would be easy to do. Thanks for the help.
The reason it’s harder than you think is that web application frameworks are designed to do things that are outside of what one would ordinarily do with a web browser. The project you’re describing is squarely in the wheelhouse of “things web browsers are good at”, so typically it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to “app-ify” it, unless your goal is to get your website publicity by leveraging app stores. And therefore app stores tend to frown on “apps” that are really just veneers over websites.
Users wanted to have an app instead of typing the URL all the time in their browser. I have a Webview app which is working. But no JS, no cache remember or pull to refresh. Those are minor things I am missing. But if Ionic is not an option to me, I will have to try my luck with someone who can help me with Android Studio based project.
I thought it will be easy to pull alerts if we use Ionic. It is ok. I think going back to native is better for simpler apps. Thanks.
PS : I will not be putting them on Play Store.
This sounds like precisely the sort of thing that the concept of PWA was intended to address. You should be able to make your “Webview app” installable and seem to users like an app, but it will act like a bookmark to your “Webview app”.
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There is a PWA plugin. Can PWA send forum notifications too ? I will check.
I am know that Stencil can build PWA. But I am not skilled enough to do it.