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You can show helpful articles, videos, and web resources inside of your app. Users can view web pages without leaving your app.

To get a few ideas, check out thesample at the bottom of this page or go straight to thereference content.

This plugin provides a web browser view that displays when callingcordova.InAppBrowser.open().

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank', 'location=yes');

Thecordova.InAppBrowser.open() function is defined to be a drop-in replacementfor thewindow.open() function. Existingwindow.open() calls can use theInAppBrowser window, by replacing window.open:

window.open = cordova.InAppBrowser.open;

If you change the browserswindow.open function this way, it can have unintended sideeffects (especially if this plugin is included only as a dependency of anotherplugin).

The InAppBrowser window behaves like a standard web browser,and can't access Cordova APIs. For this reason, the InAppBrowser is recommendedif you need to load third-party (untrusted) content, instead of loading thatinto the main Cordova webview. The InAppBrowser is not subject to thewhitelist, nor is opening links in the system browser.

The InAppBrowser provides by default its own GUI controls for the user (back,forward, done).

cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-inappbrowser

If you want all page loads in your app to go through the InAppBrowser, you cansimply hookwindow.open during initialization. For example:

document.addEventListener("deviceready", onDeviceReady, false);function onDeviceReady() {    window.open = cordova.InAppBrowser.open;}

• InAppBrowserStatusBarStyle [iOS only]: (string, options 'lightcontent', 'darkcontent' or 'default'. Defaults to 'default') set text color style for iOS. 'lightcontent' is intended for use on dark backgrounds. 'darkcontent' is only available since iOS 13 and intended for use on light backgrounds.

<preferencename="InAppBrowserStatusBarStyle"value="lightcontent" />

Opens a URL in a newInAppBrowser instance, the current browserinstance, or the system browser.

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open(url, target, options);

• ref: Reference to theInAppBrowser window when the target is set to'_blank'.(InAppBrowser)

• url: The URL to load(String). CallencodeURI() on this if the URL contains Unicode characters.

• target: The target in which to load the URL, an optional parameter that defaults to_self.(String)

  • _self: Opens in the Cordova WebView if the URL is in the white list, otherwise it opens in theInAppBrowser.
  • _blank: Opens in theInAppBrowser.
  • _system: Opens in the system's web browser.

• options: Options for theInAppBrowser. Optional, defaulting to:location=yes.(String)

  Theoptions string must not contain any blank space, and each feature's name/value pairs must be separated by a comma. Feature names are case insensitive.

  All platforms support:

  • location: Set toyes orno to turn theInAppBrowser's location bar on or off.

  Android supports these additional options:

  • hidden: set toyes to create the browser and load the page, but not show it. The loadstop event fires when loading is complete. Omit or set tono (default) to have the browser open and load normally.
  • beforeload: set to enable thebeforeload event to modify which pages are actually loaded in the browser. Accepted values areget to intercept only GET requests,post to intercept on POST requests oryes to intercept both GET & POST requests. Note that POST requests are not currently supported and will be ignored (if you setbeforeload=post it will raise an error).
  • clearcache: set toyes to have the browser's cookie cache cleared before the new window is opened
  • clearsessioncache: set toyes to have the session cookie cache cleared before the new window is opened
  • closebuttoncaption: set to a string to use as the close button's caption instead of a X. Note that you need to localize this value yourself.
  • closebuttoncolor: set to a valid hex color string, for example:#00ff00, and it will change theclose button color from default, regardless of being a text or default X. Only has effect if user has location set toyes.
  • footer: set toyes to show a close button in the footer similar to the iOSDone button.The close button will appear the same as for the header hence useclosebuttoncaption andclosebuttoncolor to set its properties.
  • footercolor: set to a valid hex color string, for example#00ff00 or#CC00ff00 (#aarrggbb) , and it will change the footer color from default.Only has effect if user hasfooter set toyes.
  • hardwareback: set toyes to use the hardware back button to navigate backwards through theInAppBrowser's history. If there is no previous page, theInAppBrowser will close. The default value isyes, so you must set it tono if you want the back button to simply close the InAppBrowser.
  • hidenavigationbuttons: set toyes to hide the navigation buttons on the location toolbar, only has effect if user has location set toyes. The default value isno.
  • hideurlbar: set toyes to hide the url bar on the location toolbar, only has effect if user has location set toyes. The default value isno.
  • navigationbuttoncolor: set to a valid hex color string, for example:#00ff00, and it will change the color of both navigation buttons from default. Only has effect if user has location set toyes and not hidenavigationbuttons set toyes.
  • toolbarcolor: set to a valid hex color string, for example:#00ff00, and it will change the color the toolbar from default. Only has effect if user has location set toyes.
  • lefttoright: Set toyes to swap positions of the navigation buttons and the close button. Specifically, navigation buttons go to the right and close button to the left. Default value isno.
  • zoom: set toyes to show Android browser's zoom controls, set tono to hide them. Default value isyes.
  • mediaPlaybackRequiresUserAction: Set toyes to prevent HTML5 audio or video from autoplaying (defaults tono).
  • shouldPauseOnSuspend: Set toyes to make InAppBrowser WebView to pause/resume with the app to stop background audio (this may be required to avoid Google Play issues like described inCB-11013).
  • useWideViewPort: Sets whether the WebView should enable support for the "viewport" HTML meta tag or should use a wide viewport. When the value of the setting isno, the layout width is always set to the width of the WebView control in device-independent (CSS) pixels. When the value isyes and the page contains the viewport meta tag, the value of the width specified in the tag is used. If the page does not contain the tag or does not provide a width, then a wide viewport will be used. (defaults toyes).
  • fullscreen: Sets whether the InappBrowser WebView is displayed fullscreen or not. In fullscreen mode, the status bar is hidden. Default value isyes.

  iOS supports these additional options:

  • hidden: set toyes to create the browser and load the page, but not show it. The loadstop event fires when loading is complete. Omit or set tono (default) to have the browser open and load normally.
  • beforeload: set to enable thebeforeload event to modify which pages are actually loaded in the browser. Accepted values areget to intercept only GET requests,post to intercept on POST requests oryes to intercept both GET & POST requests. Note that POST requests are not currently supported and will be ignored (if you setbeforeload=post it will raise an error).
  • clearcache: set toyes to have the browser's cookie cache cleared before the new window is opened
  • clearsessioncache: set toyes to have the session cookie cache cleared before the new window is opened. For WKWebView, requires iOS 11+ on target device.
  • cleardata: set toyes to have the browser's entire local storage cleared (cookies, HTML5 local storage, IndexedDB, etc.) before the new window is opened
  • closebuttoncolor: set as a valid hex color string, for example:#00ff00, to change from the defaultDone button's color. Only applicable if toolbar is not disabled.
  • closebuttoncaption: set to a string to use as theDone button's caption. Note that you need to localize this value yourself.
  • disallowoverscroll: Set toyes orno (default isno). Turns on/off the the bounce of the WKWebView's UIScrollView.
  • hidenavigationbuttons: set toyes orno to turn the toolbar navigation buttons on or off (defaults tono). Only applicable if toolbar is not disabled.
  • navigationbuttoncolor: set as a valid hex color string, for example:#00ff00, to change from the default color. Only applicable if navigation buttons are visible.
  • toolbar: set toyes orno to turn the toolbar on or off for the InAppBrowser (defaults toyes)
  • toolbarcolor: set as a valid hex color string, for example:#00ff00, to change from the default color of the toolbar. Only applicable if toolbar is not disabled.
  • toolbartranslucent: set toyes orno to make the toolbar translucent(semi-transparent) (defaults toyes). Only applicable if toolbar is not disabled.
  • lefttoright: Set toyes to swap positions of the navigation buttons and the close button. Specifically, close button goes to the right and navigation buttons to the left.
  • enableViewportScale: Set toyes orno to prevent viewport scaling through a meta tag (defaults tono).
  • mediaPlaybackRequiresUserAction: Set toyes to prevent HTML5 audio or video from autoplaying (defaults tono).
  • allowInlineMediaPlayback: Set toyes orno to allow in-line HTML5 media playback, displaying within the browser window rather than a device-specific playback interface. The HTML'svideo element must also include thewebkit-playsinline attribute (defaults tono).
  • presentationstyle: Set topagesheet,formsheet orfullscreen to set thepresentation style (defaults tofullscreen).
  • transitionstyle: Set tofliphorizontal,crossdissolve orcoververtical to set thetransition style (defaults tocoververtical).
  • toolbarposition: Set totop orbottom (default isbottom). Causes the toolbar to be at the top or bottom of the window.
  • hidespinner: Set toyes orno to change the visibility of the loading indicator (defaults tono).

• Android
• Browser
• iOS

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank', 'location=yes');var ref2 = cordova.InAppBrowser.open(encodeURI('http://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ハングル'), '_blank', 'location=yes');

At the moment the only supported target in OSX is_system.

_blank and_self targets are not yet implemented and are ignored silently. Pull requests and patches to get these to work are greatly appreciated.

Since the introduction of iPadOS 13, iPads try to adapt their content mode / user agent for the optimal browsing experience. This may result in iPads having their user agent set to Macintosh, making it hard to detect them as mobile devices using user agent string sniffing. You can change this with thePreferredContentMode preference inconfig.xml.

<preferencename="PreferredContentMode"value="mobile" />

The example above forces the user agent to containiPad. The other option is to use the valuedesktop to turn the user agent toMacintosh.

• Plugin is implemented via iframe,

• Navigation history (back andforward buttons in LocationBar) is not implemented.

The object returned from a call tocordova.InAppBrowser.open when the target is set to'_blank'.

• addEventListener
• removeEventListener
• close
• show
• hide
• executeScript
• insertCSS

Adds a listener for an event from theInAppBrowser. (Only available when the target is set to'_blank')

ref.addEventListener(eventname, callback);

• ref: reference to theInAppBrowser window(InAppBrowser)

• eventname: the event to listen for(String)

  • loadstart: event fires when theInAppBrowser starts to load a URL.
  • loadstop: event fires when theInAppBrowser finishes loading a URL.
  • loaderror: event fires when theInAppBrowser encounters an error when loading a URL.
  • exit: event fires when theInAppBrowser window is closed.
  • beforeload: event fires when theInAppBrowser decides whether to load an URL or not (only with optionbeforeload set).
  • message: event fires when theInAppBrowser receives a message posted from the page loaded inside theInAppBrowser Webview.
  • download:(Android Only) event fires when theInAppBrowser loads a URL that leads in downloading of a file.

• callback: the function that executes when the event fires. The function is passed anInAppBrowserEvent object as a parameter.

varinAppBrowserRef;functionshowHelp(url){vartarget="_blank";varoptions="location=yes,hidden=yes,beforeload=yes";inAppBrowserRef=cordova.InAppBrowser.open(url,target,options);inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('loadstart',loadStartCallBack);inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('loadstop',loadStopCallBack);inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('loaderror',loadErrorCallBack);inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('beforeload',beforeloadCallBack);inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('message',messageCallBack);}functionloadStartCallBack(){$('#status-message').text("loading please wait ...");}functionloadStopCallBack(){if(inAppBrowserRef!=undefined){inAppBrowserRef.insertCSS({code:"body{font-size: 25px;}"});inAppBrowserRef.executeScript({code:"\            var message = 'this is the message';\            var messageObj = {my_message: message};\            var stringifiedMessageObj = JSON.stringify(messageObj);\            webkit.messageHandlers.cordova_iab.postMessage(stringifiedMessageObj);"});$('#status-message').text("");inAppBrowserRef.show();}}functionloadErrorCallBack(params){$('#status-message').text("");varscriptErrorMesssage="alert('Sorry we cannot open that page. Message from the server is : "+params.message+"');"inAppBrowserRef.executeScript({code:scriptErrorMesssage},executeScriptCallBack);inAppBrowserRef.close();inAppBrowserRef=undefined;}functionexecuteScriptCallBack(params){if(params[0]==null){$('#status-message').text("Sorry we couldn't open that page. Message from the server is : '"+params.message+"'");}}functionbeforeloadCallBack(params,callback){if(params.url.startsWith("http://www.example.com/")){// Load this URL in the inAppBrowser.callback(params.url);}else{// The callback is not invoked, so the page will not be loaded.$('#status-message').text("This browser only opens pages on http://www.example.com/");}}functionmessageCallBack(params){$('#status-message').text("message received: "+params.data.my_message);}

Whenever the InAppBrowser receives or locates to a url which leads in downloading a file, the callback assigned to the "download" event is called. The parameter passed to this callback is an object with the the following properties

• typeit contains the String value "download" always
• urlThe url that leaded to the downloading of file. Basically, the download link of file
• userAgentUser Agent of the webview
• contentDispositionIf the url contains "content-disposition" header, then this property holds the value of that field else this field is empty
• contentLengthIf the link of the file allows to obtain file size then this property holds the file size else it contains int value 0
• mimetypeThe MIME type of the file

function downloadListener(params){    var url = params.url;    var mimetype = params.mimetype;    var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();    xhr.open("GET", params.url);    xhr.onload = function() {        var content = xhr.responseText;    };    xhr.send();}

• type: the eventname, eitherloadstart,loadstop,loaderror,message orexit.(String)
• url: the URL that was loaded.(String)
• code: the error code, only in the case ofloaderror.(Number)
• message: the error message, only in the case ofloaderror.(String)
• data: the message contents , only in the case ofmessage. A stringified JSON object.(String)

• Android
• Browser
• iOS

loadstart,loaderror,message events are not fired.

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank', 'location=yes');ref.addEventListener('loadstart', function(event) { alert(event.url); });

Removes a listener for an event from theInAppBrowser. (Only available when the target is set to'_blank')

ref.removeEventListener(eventname, callback);

• ref: reference to theInAppBrowser window.(InAppBrowser)

• eventname: the event to stop listening for.(String)

  • loadstart: event fires when theInAppBrowser starts to load a URL.
  • loadstop: event fires when theInAppBrowser finishes loading a URL.
  • loaderror: event fires when theInAppBrowser encounters an error loading a URL.
  • exit: event fires when theInAppBrowser window is closed.
  • message: event fires when theInAppBrowser receives a message posted from the page loaded inside theInAppBrowser Webview.
  • download:(Android only) event fires when theInAppBrowser loads a URL that leads in downloading of a file.

• callback: the function to execute when the event fires.The function is passed anInAppBrowserEvent object.

• Android
• Browser
• iOS

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank', 'location=yes');var myCallback = function(event) { alert(event.url); }ref.addEventListener('loadstart', myCallback);ref.removeEventListener('loadstart', myCallback);

Closes theInAppBrowser window.

ref.close();

• ref: reference to theInAppBrowser window(InAppBrowser)

• Android
• Browser
• iOS

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank', 'location=yes');ref.close();

Displays an InAppBrowser window that was opened hidden. Calling this has no effect if the InAppBrowser was already visible.

ref.show();

• ref: reference to the InAppBrowser window (InAppBrowser)

• Android
• Browser
• iOS

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank', 'hidden=yes');// some time later...ref.show();

Hides the InAppBrowser window. Calling this has no effect if the InAppBrowser was already hidden.

ref.hide();

• ref: reference to the InAppBrowser window (InAppBrowser)

• Android
• iOS

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank');// some time later...ref.hide();

Injects JavaScript code into theInAppBrowser window. (Only available when the target is set to'_blank')

ref.executeScript(details, callback);

• ref: reference to theInAppBrowser window.(InAppBrowser)

• injectDetails: details of the script to run, specifying either afile orcode key.(Object)

  • file: URL of the script to inject.
  • code: Text of the script to inject.

• callback: the function that executes after the JavaScript code is injected.

  • If the injected script is of typecode, the callback executeswith a single parameter, which is the return value of thescript, wrapped in anArray. For multi-line scripts, this isthe return value of the last statement, or the last expressionevaluated.

• Android
• Browser
• iOS

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank', 'location=yes');ref.addEventListener('loadstop', function() {    ref.executeScript({file: "myscript.js"});});

• onlycode key is supported.

Injects CSS into theInAppBrowser window. (Only available when the target is set to'_blank')

ref.insertCSS(details, callback);

• ref: reference to theInAppBrowser window(InAppBrowser)

• injectDetails: details of the script to run, specifying either afile orcode key.(Object)

  • file: URL of the stylesheet to inject.
  • code: Text of the stylesheet to inject.

• callback: the function that executes after the CSS is injected.

• Android
• iOS

var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://apache.org', '_blank', 'location=yes');ref.addEventListener('loadstop', function() {    ref.insertCSS({file: "mystyles.css"});});

__

You can use this plugin to show helpful documentation pages within your app. Users can view online help documents and then close them without leaving the app.

Here's a few snippets that show how you do this.

• Give users a way to ask for help.
• Load a help page.
• Let users know that you're getting their page ready.
• Show the help page.
• Handle page errors.

There's lots of ways to do this in your app. A drop down list is a simple way to do that.

<selectid="help-select"><optionvalue="default">Need help?</option><optionvalue="article">Show me a helpful article</option><optionvalue="video">Show me a helpful video</option><optionvalue="search">Search for other topics</option></select>

Gather the users choice in theonDeviceReady function of the page and then send an appropriate URL to a helper function in some shared library file. Our helper function is namedshowHelp() and we'll write that function next.

$('#help-select').on('change',function(e){varurl;switch(this.value){case"article":url="https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/"+"reference/cordova-plugin-inappbrowser/index.html";break;case"video":url="https://youtu.be/F-GlVrTaeH0";break;case"search":url="https://www.google.com/#q=inAppBrowser+plugin";break;}showHelp(url);});

We'll use theopen function to load the help page. We're setting thehidden property toyes so that we can show the browser only after the page content has loaded. That way, users don't see a blank browser while they wait for content to appear. When theloadstop event is raised, we'll know when the content has loaded. We'll handle that event shortly.

functionshowHelp(url){vartarget="_blank";varoptions="location=yes,hidden=yes";inAppBrowserRef=cordova.InAppBrowser.open(url,target,options);inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('loadstart',loadStartCallBack);inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('loadstop',loadStopCallBack);inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('loaderror',loadErrorCallBack);}

Because the browser doesn't immediately appear, we can use theloadstart event to show a status message, progress bar, or other indicator. This assures users that content is on the way.

functionloadStartCallBack(){$('#status-message').text("loading please wait ...");}

When theloadstopcallback event is raised, we know that the content has loaded and we can make the browser visible. This sort of trick can create the impression of better performance. The truth is that whether you show the browser before content loads or not, the load times are exactly the same.

functionloadStopCallBack(){if(inAppBrowserRef!=undefined){inAppBrowserRef.insertCSS({code:"body{font-size: 25px;}"});$('#status-message').text("");inAppBrowserRef.show();}}

You might have noticed the call to theinsertCSS function. This serves no particular purpose in our scenario. But it gives you an idea of why you might use it. In this case, we're just making sure that the font size of your pages have a certain size. You can use this function to insert any CSS style elements. You can even point to a CSS file in your project.

Sometimes a page no longer exists, a script error occurs, or a user lacks permission to view the resource. How or if you handle that situation is completely up to you and your design. You can let the browser show that message or you can present it in another way.

We'll try to show that error in a message box. We can do that by injecting a script that calls thealert function. That said, this won't work in browsers on Windows devices so we'll have to look at the parameter of theexecuteScript callback function to see if our attempt worked. If it didn't work out for us, we'll just show the error message in a<div> on the page.

functionloadErrorCallBack(params){$('#status-message').text("");varscriptErrorMesssage="alert('Sorry we cannot open that page. Message from the server is : "+params.message+"');"inAppBrowserRef.executeScript({code:scriptErrorMesssage},executeScriptCallBack);inAppBrowserRef.close();inAppBrowserRef=undefined;}functionexecuteScriptCallBack(params){if(params[0]==null){$('#status-message').text("Sorry we couldn't open that page. Message from the server is : '"+params.message+"'");}}

var iab = cordova.InAppBrowser;iab.open('local-url.html');                  // loads in the Cordova WebViewiab.open('local-url.html', '_self');         // loads in the Cordova WebViewiab.open('local-url.html', '_system');       // Security error: system browser, but url will not load (iOS)iab.open('local-url.html', '_blank');        // loads in the InAppBrowseriab.open('local-url.html', 'random_string'); // loads in the InAppBrowseriab.open('local-url.html', 'random_string', 'location=no'); // loads in the InAppBrowser, no location bar

var iab = cordova.InAppBrowser;iab.open('https://whitelisted-url.com');                  // loads in the Cordova WebViewiab.open('https://whitelisted-url.com', '_self');         // loads in the Cordova WebViewiab.open('https://whitelisted-url.com', '_system');       // loads in the system browseriab.open('https://whitelisted-url.com', '_blank');        // loads in the InAppBrowseriab.open('https://whitelisted-url.com', 'random_string'); // loads in the InAppBrowseriab.open('https://whitelisted-url.com', 'random_string', 'location=no'); // loads in the InAppBrowser, no location bar

var iab = cordova.InAppBrowser;iab.open('https://url-that-fails-whitelist.com');                  // loads in the InAppBrowseriab.open('https://url-that-fails-whitelist.com', '_self');         // loads in the InAppBrowseriab.open('https://url-that-fails-whitelist.com', '_system');       // loads in the system browseriab.open('https://url-that-fails-whitelist.com', '_blank');        // loads in the InAppBrowseriab.open('https://url-that-fails-whitelist.com', 'random_string'); // loads in the InAppBrowseriab.open('https://url-that-fails-whitelist.com', 'random_string', 'location=no'); // loads in the InAppBrowser, no location bar