[shaiman]

We are developing an application that we intended to deliver as a web app rather than a native one. However we have run into what seems to be an insurmountable problem.

Our application is a search engine that needs to link the user to external resources as links. We need the user to be able to view the external URL without leaving our app. The problem is that when the user clicks on the external link, safari opens and loads the resource, and our app is automatically closed. The user then basically is knocked out of our site, and the user would then have to reopen our application and navigate again back to where they were when they clicked on the external link.

We’ve tried to create HTML objects and iframes, and none of those work because as soon as the user clicks on any link in the external page they break out of either the object or iframe and again our application is closed and a separate copy of safari is opened.

Therefore we have 3 questions…

1) is there some solution for a web app that would keep our app open when an external link is clicked that opens a separate copy of Safari? 3 days of research tells me no.
2) It seems like the best solution for us would be to use MobiOne to do our design, then move the solution to PhoneGap, and use the childbrowser plugin to create the functionality that we want. This seems like it would be the right answer. We’d still prefer to create a web app over a native one, but we absolutely need to have the same functionality that the childbrowser plug in provides.
3) It appears in the forum that Mobione and Phonegap do work together. If there is no web app solution for us and we have to move to a native app and phonegap, are there any caveats I should be aware of regarding this?

Thank you,

Steve Haiman

[Brandon]

There is no way in a web app to keep the links inside the iframe.
A native app will keep the links going in the web view and you can go back to your app by a single button.
For something like this I believe native app is the only way to go, but you can do it all in Mobione

[support-michael]

@steve

>1) is there some solution for a web app that would keep our app open when an external link is clicked that opens a separate copy of Safari? 3 days of research tells me no.

Brandon (cincyplanet) is correct, answer = no.

>2) It seems like the best solution for us would be to use MobiOne to do our design, then move the solution to PhoneGap, and use the childbrowser plugin to create the functionality that we want. This seems like it would be the right answer. We’d still prefer to create a web app over a native one, but we absolutely need to have the same functionality that the childbrowser plug in provides.

The phonegap childbrowser is already available to your mobione native app if you use the MobiOne visual designer. See the OnClick GotoURL action and choose 1 of the 3 Popup Window options. The popup window is implemented using the childbrowser. The phoneui.js will provide access to the childbrowser instance if needed.

> 3) It appears in the forum that Mobione and Phonegap do work together. If there is no web app solution for us and we have to move to a native app and phonegap, are there any caveats I should be aware of regarding this?

The current version of cordova/phonegap used by the MobiOne App Center Builder is 2.2. We are testing ver 2.6 for an upcoming release. One other thing to note is that you do not need to manually add cordova.js to your project. MobiOne App Center Builder will automatically inject it during the build process.

[epet]

I’m sorry to hijack this thread, but is it possible to post data (method=post) to a GoToURL that will open in a new window and then be able to close it from within the main webapp ? (on both ios/android apps)

[support-octavio]

Hi timiman,

This is not a direct use-case supported by the form processing framework. I have consulted the dev team for additional ideas.

[support-octavio]

Hi timiman,

I’ve discuss with dev team and their answer was: as I mentioned before, this is not a direct use-case supported by the form processing framework and is not possible with the Mobione widgets and API.

[MassimilianoFabbri]

@support-wayne wrote:

@steve

>1) is there some solution for a web app that would keep our app open when an external link is clicked that opens a separate copy of Safari? 3 days of research tells me no.

Brandon (cincyplanet) is correct, answer = no.

>2) It seems like the best solution for us would be to use MobiOne to do our design, then move the solution to PhoneGap, and use the childbrowser plugin to create the functionality that we want. This seems like it would be the right answer. We’d still prefer to create a web app over a native one, but we absolutely need to have the same functionality that the childbrowser plug in provides.

The phonegap childbrowser is already available to your mobione native app if you use the MobiOne visual designer. See the OnClick GotoURL action and choose 1 of the 3 Popup Window options. The popup window is implemented using the childbrowser. The phoneui.js will provide access to the childbrowser instance if needed.

> 3) It appears in the forum that Mobione and Phonegap do work together. If there is no web app solution for us and we have to move to a native app and phonegap, are there any caveats I should be aware of regarding this?

The current version of cordova/phonegap used by the MobiOne App Center Builder is 2.2. We are testing ver 2.6 for an upcoming release. One other thing to note is that you do not need to manually add cordova.js to your project. MobiOne App Center Builder will automatically inject it during the build process.

The phoneui.js will provide access to the childbrowser instance if needed

There is any sample ?

[support-octavio]

@eudosia,

Can you be more specific about the example you are asking?

[MassimilianoFabbri]

How to manage through Phoneui these:

addEventListener
removeEventListener
close

and so:
something like this

var ref = window.open(‘http://apache.org’, ‘_blank’, ‘location=yes’);
ref.addEventListener(‘loadstart’, function() { alert(‘start: ‘ + event.url); });
ref.addEventListener(‘loadstop’, function() { alert(‘stop: ‘ + event.url); });
ref.addEventListener(‘exit’, function() { alert(event.type); });

[support-michael]

Here’s the childbrowser readme with events listed near the bottom https://github.com/alunny/ChildBrowser/blob/master/README.md

Please do not confuse the more recent InAppBrowser which is not available in MobiOne yet with the Childbrowser plugin which is supported.

[Author]

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