Disable the automatic Linkify of Webview

Question

I have a webview that I am creating. It seems to automatically be linkifying numbers into tel: urls. I didn't see a way to remove this ability (at least nothing similar to the way to enable it on a textview).

The code is pretty simple:

// populate the web view
WebView webView = (WebView) findViewById(R.id.app_info_webview);
webView.getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
webView.setScrollBarStyle(WebView.SCROLLBARS_INSIDE_OVERLAY);

webView.setBackgroundColor(0);
String url = APP_INFO_BODY_HTML + "?versionName=" + versionName;

webView.loadUrl(url);

I have a copyright notice at the bottom of the page, android is changing the 2011 into a clickable link that opens the dialer. Also, the App version 1.0.0 opens in the dialer.

Is there a way to disable this functionality?

Update: I just discovered that this seems device dependent...happens on the Droid X, but not a Samsung Captivate, not on Nexus S, and not the emulator.

you mentioned that using a textview would be fine too. here you find a link on how to add links to a textview http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2008/03/linkify-your-text.html — Fender, Mar 29 '11 at 12:37

score 7 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 14 '11 at 12:02

There is a way to do that - rather ugly, two layered, but still a workaround.

You should

modify how the webview will handle the auto-linkifiable items

explicitly tell the loaded page not to apply styles and haptic feedback.

mWebView.setWebViewClient( new WebViewClient() {

@Override
public boolean shouldOverrideUrlLoading(WebView view, final String url) {
    Uri uri = Uri.parse(url);

    //TODO analyse the uri here 
    //and exclude phone and email from triggering any action

    return false;
}

public void onReceivedError(WebView view, int errorCode, 
                                        String description, String failingUrl) {}

public void onPageFinished (WebView view, String url) {...}

public void onPageStarted(WebView view, String url, Bitmap favicon) {...}

public void onLoadResource(WebView view, String url) {...}
});

In the html specify the following meta tags inside the tag:

<meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no" />
<meta name="format-detection" content="email=no" />

Hope this helps.

I think there is a third format-detection type: . Telephone-no stops automatic tel: links, email stops automatic mailto: links, and address stops geo: links. I can't find any official documentation on email or address. http://developer.apple.com/library/safari/#documentation/appleapplications/reference/SafariHTMLRef/Articles/MetaTags.html only mentions telephone. — Michael Levy, Mar 22 '12 at 19:50

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 29 '11 at 13:24

I'm surprised to see it is launching Dialer on selecting a number from your own WebView.

Unless, you override WebViewClient::shouldOverrideUrlLoading() and detect the url scheme has "tel" and start Dialer activity, it will never launch a Dialer from your WebView. Are you sure you are not handling tel: scheme in shouldOverrideUrlLoading()?

score -2 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 14 '12 at 09:51

-2

You can find the code that do the real detection in external/webkit/WebKit/android/nav/CacheBuilder.cpp : FindPartialNumber() and so on.

You can disable it or change the logic as you like.

edited Nov 14 '12 at 09:51

SchmitzIT

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answered Aug 17 '11 at 02:59

shaowei_zhang

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Disable the automatic Linkify of Webview

3 Answers3

Linked