Disable the automatic Linkify of Webview

Question

I have a webview that I am creating. It seems to automatically be linkifying numbers into tel: urls. I didn't see a way to remove this ability (at least nothing similar to the way to enable it on a textview).

The code is pretty simple:

// populate the web view
WebView webView = (WebView) findViewById(R.id.app_info_webview);
webView.getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
webView.setScrollBarStyle(WebView.SCROLLBARS_INSIDE_OVERLAY);

webView.setBackgroundColor(0);
String url = APP_INFO_BODY_HTML + "?versionName=" + versionName;

webView.loadUrl(url);

I have a copyright notice at the bottom of the page, android is changing the 2011 into a clickable link that opens the dialer. Also, the App version 1.0.0 opens in the dialer.

Is there a way to disable this functionality?

Update: I just discovered that this seems device dependent...happens on the Droid X, but not a Samsung Captivate, not on Nexus S, and not the emulator.

Answer 1

There is a way to do that - rather ugly, two layered, but still a workaround.

You should

1. modify how the webview will handle the auto-linkifiable items

2. explicitly tell the loaded page not to apply styles and haptic feedback.

   mWebView.setWebViewClient( new WebViewClient() {
   
   @Override
   public boolean shouldOverrideUrlLoading(WebView view, final String url) {
       Uri uri = Uri.parse(url);
   
       //TODO analyse the uri here 
       //and exclude phone and email from triggering any action
   
       return false;
   }
   
   public void onReceivedError(WebView view, int errorCode, 
                                           String description, String failingUrl) {}
   
   public void onPageFinished (WebView view, String url) {...}
   
   public void onPageStarted(WebView view, String url, Bitmap favicon) {...}
   
   public void onLoadResource(WebView view, String url) {...}
   }); 
   

   In the html specify the following meta tags inside the tag:

   <meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no" />
   <meta name="format-detection" content="email=no" />
   

Hope this helps.