Open links in external browser in WebView (WinRT)

Question

I have a WebView component that I use to display HTML Ads in my app. When user clicks an Ad in the WebView I want to open the Ad link in an external browser. How do I do that?

I need something like OnNavigating from the WP7 browser. I tried the Tapped event of the WebView but it never gets called even when I set IsTapEnabled=true. I need something like

Answer 1

You will need to use the ScriptNotify event for this. Here's how I handled the scenario (using NavigateToString). If you're retrieving the web view content from a URL, you will need be able to modify the HTML for this to work.

1. Add the following Javascript code to your HTML

   <script type="text/javascript">for (var i = 0; i < document.links.length; i++) { document.links[i].onclick = function() { window.external.notify('LaunchLink:' + this.href); return false; } }</script>
   

   This adds an onclick handler to every link (<a href="..."></a>) on the page. window.external.notify is a Javascript method that works in the Webview.

2. Add the ScriptNotify event handler to the webview.

   WebView.ScriptNotify += WebView_ScriptNotify;
   

3. Declare the event handler

   async private void WebView_ScriptNotify(object sender, NotifyEventArgs e)
   {
       try
       {
           string data = e.Value;
           if (data.ToLower().StartsWith("launchlink:"))
           {
               await Launcher.LaunchUriAsync(new Uri(data.Substring("launchlink:".Length), UriKind.Absolute));
           }
       }
       catch (Exception)
       {
           // Could not build a proper Uri. Abandon.
       }
   }
   

Note that you if you're using an external URL, this has to be added to the webview's allowed Uris whitelist (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/windows.ui.xaml.controls.webview.scriptnotify for reference).