WKWebview: Disable interaction and clicks on links

Question

Is there a way to disable interactions on a webview? So that the user can not go any further than the webview that is loaded?

EDIT: Disabling UserInteractions is not a solution because the website still has to be scrollable.

Possible duplicate of [Restricting user interaction in UIWebView](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/452961/restricting-user-interaction-in-uiwebview) — Anand Suthar, Apr 12 '17 at 10:36

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 12 '17 at 10:39

Implement the WKNavigationDelegate protocol:

@interface ViewController () <WKNavigationDelegate>

Set your WKWebView's navigationDelegate property:

self.wkWebView.navigationDelegate = self;

Then implement the policy for the URL(s) that you want to restrict:

- (void)webView:(WKWebView *)webView decidePolicyForNavigationAction:(WKNavigationAction *)navigationAction decisionHandler:(void (^)(WKNavigationActionPolicy))decisionHandler {

    if ([navigationAction.request.URL.absoluteString containsString:@"somedomain.com/url/here"]) {
        decisionHandler(WKNavigationActionPolicyAllow);
    }
    else {
        decisionHandler(WKNavigationActionPolicyCancel);
    }
}

The problem here is when i got a url like google.com i.e and it should not open google.com/"something" it does not work with containsString but i can not diasable userInteractions because of scrolling. — Secondwave, Apr 12 '17 at 11:30
You can use isEqualToString or some other comparison in that case. — Vinny Coyne, Apr 12 '17 at 11:45

score 8 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 29 '19 at 20:26

8

The WKNavigationDelegate solution only prevents the user from following links. I also have form controls that I want to prevent interaction with, while still allowing the page to be scrolled. Eventually I figured out that this could be achieved by disabling the subviews of the web view's scroll view:

Swift

self.webView.scrollView.subviews.forEach { $0.isUserInteractionEnabled = false }

Objective-C

for (UIView *subview in self.webView.scrollView.subviews)
{
    subview.userInteractionEnabled = NO;
}

answered Jun 29 '19 at 20:26

Dan Dyer

53,737
19
129
165

VinneyCoyne's answer still allows the display of menu.. but prevents interaction with it. But this answer is perfect. No interaction except scrolling of the webview, which is what i want. Thanks! – anoo_radha Nov 26 '19 at 21:19
I'm facing this error `Value of type 'WKWebView' has no member 'scrollView'` – Krunal Nagvadia Dec 28 '20 at 05:52
@KrunalNagvadia That's odd, it's a publicly accessible field of that class (see https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/wkwebview/1614784-scrollview). I assume you haven't inadvertently defined another type called `WKWebView`? Maybe it's some Xcode problem that can be fixed with a restart? – Dan Dyer Dec 29 '20 at 14:58

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 17 '21 at 04:56

First, you have to give the delegate to your webkit then add below code. Swift 5.0

func webView(_ webView: WKWebView, didFinish navigation: WKNavigation!) {
    Activity.stopAnimating()
    let javascriptStyle = "var css = '*{-webkit-touch-callout:none;-webkit-user-select:none}'; var head = document.head || document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0]; var style = document.createElement('style'); style.type = 'text/css'; style.appendChild(document.createTextNode(css)); head.appendChild(style);"
    webView.evaluateJavaScript(javascriptStyle, completionHandler: nil)
}

What this code will do, we add programmatically css that will disable interaction in webview

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 30 '17 at 21:50

These javascript lines will disable long presses and link touches by overriding the HTML. Frame based things like embedded youtube videos will still work.

func webView(_ webView: WKWebView, didFinish navigation: WKNavigation!) {
    webView.evaluateJavaScript("document.documentElement.style.webkitUserSelect='none'")
    webView.evaluateJavaScript("document.documentElement.style.webkitTouchCallout='none'")
    webView.evaluateJavaScript("var elems = document.getElementsByTagName('a'); for (var i = 0; i < elems.length; i++) { elems[i]['href'] = 'javascript:(void)'; }")
}

score -3 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 12 '17 at 10:32

You can do it as follow.

//-----------------------------------------------------------------------

#pragma mark - UIWebView Methods

//-----------------------------------------------------------------------

- (BOOL)webView:(UIWebView *)webView shouldStartLoadWithRequest:(NSURLRequest *)request navigationType:(UIWebViewNavigationType)navigationType {



    return YES;
}

//----------------------------------------------------------------

- (void)webViewDidStartLoad:(UIWebView *)webView {
//disable user interaction 
}

//----------------------------------------------------------------

- (void)webViewDidFinishLoad:(UIWebView *)webView{
//enable user interaction
}

//----------------------------------------------------------------

- (void)webView:(UIWebView *)webView didFailLoadWithError:(NSError *)error{
    //enable user interaction
}

WKWebview: Disable interaction and clicks on links

5 Answers5

Linked