How to detect page change in UIWebView and do something before it starts loading?

Question

I need to do something on each page change, before that page starts loading/executing.

First, I tried using -webView:shouldStartLoadWithRequest: but that won't work, because it's also called for XHR requests and iframe requests.

Second, I tried using -webViewDidStartLoad: and comparing webView.request to it's previous value, to see if it changed. This doesn't work, because webView.request is updated only some time after the call.

Any more ideas?

Answer 1

The request object in webView:shouldStartLoadWithRequest: has two properties,

BOOL iframe = ![request.URL isEqual:request.mainDocumentURL];

If the URL to load is not equal to the mainDocumentURL you are loading something other than main doc (probably an iFrame).

Answer 2

Have you tried using KVO to observe UIWebView.request?