Cocoa WebKit/WebView delegate for location change? (User clicked link, javascript action, etc)

Question

I have added a WebView to a Cocoa application and I'm trying to figure out which delegate I can use to detect when navigation changes (user clicks a link, or javascript fires to change the location, etc).

The WebView class reference contains four delegates (WebFrameLoadDelegate Protocol Reference, WebPolicyDelegate Protocol Reference, WebResourceLoadDelegate Protocol Reference and WebUIDelegate Protocol Reference) and I have looked at each of these, but I cannot seem to find how to detect this. Am I missing something blatantly obvious or is there no way to get this?

tldr - Trying to figure out how I can set a delegate to get an event when the WebView is changing URL. (Specifically I need to know what the new URL is).

Answer 1

Using WebKit (i.e. MacOS X) then probably the best place to track requests is in webView:identifierForInitialRequest:fromDataSource:, although webView:resource:willSendRequest:redirectResponse:fromDataSource: is also good, and has the advantage of allowing you to modify the request.

As with iOS, you can use [request URL].

Set this via [webView setResourceLoadDelegate:self];.

The resource load delegate (as above) gives better options to handle the request, in my opinion, than the policy delegate methods.

Answer 2

I recommend you implement these two WebPolicyDelegate methods:

-webView:decidePolicyForNavigationAction:request:frame:decisionListener:
-webView:decidePolicyForNewWindowAction:request:newFrameName:decisionListener:

That will tell you the new URL being navigated to, but also give you a chance to change the default behaviour. e.g. you may not WebKit attempting to open new windows.