iOSWKWebViewAppTemplatePersistentCookiesWorkLikeACharm

iOS WKWebView webview App Template with fully working persistent cookies functionality (httpcookie, web cookie, browser cookie), custom status bar background color, option for white/black status bar text color, option to disable pinch to zoom and double tap to zoom in webview

You have probably noticed that by default iOS WKWebView resets all cookies if you swipe app off memory or every time app is reloaded and new app session started

This WKWebView app template has a solution and a fix to preserve and save cookies to provide expected functionality from web apps

Supported iOS 13.0 – 14.7.1 Succesfully tested and working on physical iOS 14.7.1 device and physical iPadOS 14.7.1 device

A very well-commented webview app template (probably even too much commented, probably I’ve failed all and every KISS principle while commenting this app template, but I wanted this app template to be easily understandable for absolute iOS beginners who had little or no previous iOS experience)

There are 5 ATTENTION: ACTION REQUIRED marks in the code
You can Cmd+F to quickly find them in code
Those steps are:

  1. Choose Status Bar background color
  2. Put your remote website URL here
  3. Choose if you want to allow users to use pinch to zoom gesture and double tap to zoom in webview
  4. Choose if you want Status Bar Text Color to be white or black
  5. Put your remote website URL here (one more time)

Currently, this iOS WKWebView App Template works by opening and browsing remote website by its URL

If you want to hide visibility of scroll bar you should do that in your remote website/webapp CSS code by adding:

*::-webkit-scrollbar {
   display: none;
}

If you want to enable iOS smooth scrolling everywhere or on specific elements, you also do it in remote website/webapp CSS code

Apply to whole website/webapp (CSS)

* {
   -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch;
}

or apply to specific elements, for example: (CSS)

.someclass {
   overflow-y: scroll;
   -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch;
}

More on smooth scrolling here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37313872/vertical-scrolling-in-ios-not-smooth https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/momentum-scrolling-on-ios-overflow-elements/

Planned features and TO-DO’s (feel free to pull request or fork):

  1. Option to browse local website (web app) shipped within iOS app bundle content (not only remote website by URL)
  2. Option to open external links (not your web app’s URLs, other domains, website, external URLs, “You’re leaving our website/app feature”) in a visible mini-browser in app or even open some links or domains in Safari (or preferred default iOS web browsing app)
  3. Option to display “no internet connection” if there is no internet connection currently or browsing remote website fails by some other reason, or even “our servers currently down” if the internet connection is OK, but your remote web app fails by certain HTTP status codes. With button “Try to connect again”
  4. Add russian translation to README.md and even probably all the code comments (when I realize how, also feel free to pull request your translation to your native language or other you know well or fork!)

If you’re looking for Android WebView App Template, my best recommendation would be https://github.com/slymax/webview – also works like a charm! (other author, not me)

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Email ilya.minichev [at] gmail [dot] com
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GitHub

https://github.com/ilyaminichev/iOSWKWebViewAppTemplatePersistentCookiesWorkLikeACharm