Intercepting Links in WKWebView with SwiftUI

Описание: Learn how to intercept link clicks in `WKWebView` when using SwiftUI, enhancing your app's user experience with custom navigation actions.
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This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/64410160/ asked by the user 'redbastie' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/13367049/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/64410751/ provided by the user 'Leo Dabus' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/2303865/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

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Intercepting Links in WKWebView with SwiftUI

In the world of mobile application development, integrating a web view is a common requirement. When using SwiftUI, however, you may run into the need to customize how links within a web view are handled. For instance, you might want to intercept a link click and execute a specific action instead of simply navigating to the URL. Let’s break down how you can achieve this using WKWebView in SwiftUI.

Problem Overview

You may be using a simple web view setup in your SwiftUI application, like this:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

In this example, you’ve created a basic web view displaying a webpage. However, the challenge arises when you want to intercept click events on hyperlinks. You probably have read about using delegates, but that may seem outdated or confusing in modern Swift environments.

Solution

The solution involves creating a Coordinator to manage the WKNavigationDelegate. This allows you to intercept link clicks and define your own navigation logic. Let’s break this down into a step-by-step process.

Step 1: Update your Web View

Replace your existing Webview structure with the enhanced version below, which incorporates a Coordinator:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Step 2: Modify ContentView

In your ContentView, ensure you're initializing WebView with a URLRequest:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Key Components Explained

Coordinator Class: The Coordinator acts as an intermediary between your SwiftUI view and the WKWebView. It implements the WKNavigationDelegate, allowing you to customize the behavior of navigation actions.

decidePolicyFor Method: This method is triggered whenever a link is clicked within the web view. You can make decisions based on the type of action (like link activation) and the URL clicked.

Decision Handling: Use decisionHandler(.allow) to allow navigation to continue or decisionHandler(.cancel) to stop it. In this case, we redirect to an external browser for any link that doesn’t belong to Google.

Conclusion

By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can effectively intercept link clicks in WKWebView using SwiftUI. This customization not only enhances the user experience but also gives you control over how links are handled within your application. Now you can decide at the click of a button— or link— what the next action will be for your users!

Happy coding!