cs193p – Project #4 Assignment #4 Extra Task #4

Please note, this blog entry is from a previous course. You might want to check out the current one.

Instead of opening urls in Safari, display them in your application by segueing to a controller with a UIWebView. You’ll have to provide at least a little bit of “browser control” UI to go along with it (e.g. a “back button”).

Add a new view controller to the storyboard. Add a egue from the mentions table view controller to the new controller (be careful, not from a cell, but from the controller itself!). Add a web view, an activity indicator and a back button (don’t forget constraints for autolayout):

Create a new class for the new controller and connect them. Add outlets for the web view and the activity indicator. Add an action for the back button:

    @IBOutlet weak var webView: UIWebView!   
    @IBOutlet weak var spinner: UIActivityIndicatorView!
    @IBAction func back(sender: UIBarButtonItem) {
    }

Add a public property to hold the URL. When it gets set and it has a chance to appear on screen, start loading the URL, or at least when the view did load:

    var url: NSURL? {
        didSet {
            if view.window != nil {
                loadURL()
            }
        }
    }
    private func loadURL() {
        if url != nil {
            webView.loadRequest(NSURLRequest(URL: url!))
        }
    }
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        webView.scalesPageToFit = true
        loadURL()
    }

Make the the controller the delegate of the web view and use its delegate method to start and stop the activity indicator depending on the status of the downloads:

class WebViewController: UIViewController, UIWebViewDelegate {
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        ...
        webView.delegate = self
        ...
    }

    var activeDownloads = 0

    func webViewDidStartLoad(webView: UIWebView) {
        activeDownloads++
        spinner.startAnimating()
    }    

    func webViewDidFinishLoad(webView: UIWebView) {
        activeDownloads--
        if activeDownloads < 1 {
            spinner.stopAnimating()
        }
    }
}

… and an actual activity to the action when the back button gets pressed:

    @IBAction func back(sender: UIBarButtonItem) {
        webView.goBack()
    }

In the mentions table view controller – where up to now the safari was called – perform the new segue and set the URL of the web view controller:

    private struct Storyboard {
        ...
        static let WebSegueIdentifier = "Show URL"
    }

    override func shouldPerformSegueWithIdentifier(identifier: String?, sender: AnyObject?) -> Bool {
        ...
                    if url.hasPrefix("http") {
                        performSegueWithIdentifier(Storyboard.WebSegueIdentifier, sender: sender)
                        return false
                    }
                ...
    }

    override func prepareForSegue(segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: AnyObject?) {
        ...
            } else if identifier == Storyboard.WebSegueIdentifier {
                if let wvc = segue.destinationViewController as? WebViewController {
                    if let cell = sender as? UITableViewCell {
                        if let url = cell.textLabel?.text {
                            wvc.url = NSURL(string: url)
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        ...
    }

The complete code for extra task #4 is available on GitHub.