How to open link in Safari from an HTML hosted in a web browser control?

Question

We have an iphone app that hosts a web browser control which points to a website whose sole purpose is to display information for the application. I would like to know if it is possible to have an anchor/button open Safari using HTML/JavaScript. If it is possible, how so?

Thanks...

Answer 1

You can setup a delegate for the UIWebview you are using. In this delegate, write something like this:

-(bool) webView:(UIWebView *)webView shouldStartLoadWithRequest:(NSURLRequest *)request navigationType:(UIWebViewNavigationType)navigationType
{
    //You might need to set up an "interceptLinks"-Bool since you don't want to intercept the initial loading of the content
    if (self.interceptLinks) {
        NSURL *url = request.URL;
        //This launches Safari with your URL
        [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:url];   
        return NO;
    }
    //No need to intercept the initial request to fill the WebView
    else {
        self.interceptLinks = TRUE;
        return YES;
    }
}

If you only want to intercept some links, you can parse the url and only open Safari if necessary.

Answer 2

Set the delegate property of your UIWebView object (what you call the 'web browser control') to an object of your own that implements the method "webView:shouldStartLoadWithRequest:navigationType:" of the UIWebViewDelegate protocol:

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/uikit/reference/UIWebViewDelegate_Protocol/Reference/Reference.html%23//apple_ref/occ/intf/UIWebViewDelegate

You can then detect if you desired URL is being requested and in that case open it on an external Safari instance using UIApplication's openURL method.