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With the announcement of iOS 12, UIWebView is now officially deprecated. As of iOS 13, Apple have started rejecting apps that implement UIWebView, rendering this library completely defunct.

This library will be left up for developers who may still need to support iOS 7, but no new features will be added, nor will support be provided. Stay tuned. Plans for a WKWebView version are in the making. :D


TOWebViewController

An Inline Web Browser for iOS Apps

TOWebViewController

CI Status Version Carthage compatible GitHub license Platform Beerpay PayPal Twitch

TOWebViewController is an open-source UIViewController subclass designed to let apps quickly present web page content to its users, without needing to kick them over to Safari. TOWebViewController has been designed from the ground up to be easily integrated into existing projects, to take advantage of the latest features of iOS, and to optionally be backwards compatible with (significantly) earlier versions of iOS.

Features

  • Powered by UIWebView, backwards compatible down to iOS 5.
  • Full navigation buttons set, including back, forward, refresh and an optional share/action button.
  • Detects whether being pushed modally, or via a navigation controller and adjusts the UI accordingly.
  • A page load progress bar (using ninjinkun's amazing algorithm).
  • Plays a smooth, elegant rotation animation if/when the user rotates the device.
  • Icons are procedurally generated by CoreGraphics (ie, no unnecessary image assets at all!).
  • Compatible with iOS 8 size classes, including split-screen on iPad Air 2, iPad mini 4 and iPad Pro.
  • 1Password automatic password input extension support.

Example

TOWebViewController is smart enough to be able to tell when it's being presented as a modal popup, and when it's being pushed onto a UINavigationController and to change its button layout accordingly.

Presenting as a Modal Dialog

When presenting as a modal popup, it is still necessary to create a parent UINavigationController in order for the buttons to display properly:

TOWebViewController *webViewController = [[TOWebViewController alloc] initWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.apple.com/"]];
UINavigationController *navigationController = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:webViewController];
[self presentViewController:navigationController animated:YES completion:nil];

Pushing onto a UINavigationController

TOWebViewController *webViewController = [[TOWebViewController alloc] initWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.apple.com/"]];
[self.navigationController pushViewController:webViewController animated:YES];

System Requirements

iOS 5.0 or above

Installation

As a CocoaPods Dependency

Add the following to your Podfile:

pod 'TOWebViewController'

As a Carthage Dependency

Add the following to your Cartfile:

github "https://github.com/TimOliver/TOWebViewController"

Manual Installation

Download this project from GitHub, move the subfolder named 'TOWebViewController' over to your project folder, and drag it into your Xcode project.

After that, you'll need to link the following system frameworks to your project:

  • QuartzCore.framework
  • CoreGraphics.framework
  • MessageUI.framework
  • Twitter.framework

Why no WKWebView adoption?

This library was originally built around iOS 5, with the explicit goal of supporting as many versions of iOS as possible. While there were some experiments in trying to drop WKWebView into this controller as an option for devices running iOS 8 and above, its API is so inherantly different to UIWebView that it would be very challenging to properly support switching between the two. As a result, the best option would be to write a new web view controller from scratch, designed around WKWebView.

TOWebViewController will not be adopting WKWebView at any point in the future. If you would like an alternative view controller that does, please give DZNWebViewController a try!

What about SFSafariViewController?

Starting from iOS 9, Apple now provides a built-in web view controller of similar functionality named SFSafariViewController. If your app is only targeting iOS 9, and it completely fills your requirements, then it is absolutely recommended that you adopt SFSafariViewController instead of TOWebViewController.

That being said, if you are still targeting lower iOS versions, or require more customisability than SFSafariViewController provides, then TOWebViewController can still serve as a viable alternative.

Credits

TOWebViewController was originally created by Tim Oliver as a component for iComics, a comic reader app for iOS.

Thanks also goes to TOWebViewController's growing list of contributors!

iPad Pro and iPhone X device mockups by Pixeden. iPod touch mockup by Tim Oliver.

License

TOWebViewController is licensed under the MIT License. For more information, please see the LICENSE file. analytics