In my Swift iOS app, I want to download some dynamic HTML pages from a remote server, save them in the document directory, and display those pages from document directory.
This is a simplified version of what I have used to load local files in a project of mine (iOS 10, Swift 3). I have just updated my code (7.5.2017) after testing it out again on iOS 10.3.1 and iPhone 7+ as requested by Raghuram and Fox5150 in the comments.
I just created a completely new project and this is the folder structure:
Update 19.04.2018: Added a new feature to download a .zip with HTML, CSS, JS files, unzip it in /Documents/ (Alamofire + Zip) and then load those files into the webView. You can find it in the GitHub sample project as well. Again, feel free to fork & star! :)
Update 08.02.2018: finally added a GitHub sample project, which also includes a local JavaScript file. Feel free to fork & star! :)
ViewController.swift
import UIKit
import WebKit
class ViewController: UIViewController, WKNavigationDelegate {
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
let webView = WKWebView()
let htmlPath = Bundle.main.path(forResource: "index", ofType: "html")
let htmlUrl = URL(fileURLWithPath: htmlPath!, isDirectory: false)
webView.loadFileURL(htmlUrl, allowingReadAccessTo: htmlUrl)
webView.navigationDelegate = self
view = webView
}
}
ViewController.swift
import UIKit
import WebKit
class ViewController: UIViewController, WKNavigationDelegate {
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
let webView = WKWebView()
let htmlPath = Bundle.main.path(forResource: "index", ofType: "html")
let folderPath = Bundle.main.bundlePath
let baseUrl = URL(fileURLWithPath: folderPath, isDirectory: true)
do {
let htmlString = try NSString(contentsOfFile: htmlPath!, encoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue)
webView.loadHTMLString(htmlString as String, baseURL: baseUrl)
} catch {
// catch error
}
webView.navigationDelegate = self
view = webView
}
}
Gotchas to look out for:
css/styles.css
because iOS will flatten your file structure and styles.css will be on the same level as index.html so write <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="styles.css">
insteadGiven the 2 versions and the gotchas here are my html/css files from the project:
web/index.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Offline WebKit</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="styles.css">
</head>
<body>
<h1 id="webkit-h1">Offline WebKit!</h1>
</body>
</html>
web/css/styles.css
#webkit-h1 {
font-size: 80px;
color: lightblue;
}
If somebody wants a GitHub sample project, tell me in the comments section and I'll upload it.
This method allows WKWebView to properly read your hierarchy of directories and sub-directories for linked CSS/JS files. You do NOT need to change your HTML, CSS or JS code.
Updated for Xcode 9.3
Import the folder of local web files anywhere into your project. Make sure that you:
☑️ Copy items if needed
☑️ Create folder references (not "Create groups")
☑️ Add to targets
Go to the View Controller with the WKWebView and add the following code to the viewDidLoad
method:
let url = Bundle.main.url(forResource: "index", withExtension: "html", subdirectory: "website")!
webView.loadFileURL(url, allowingReadAccessTo: url)
let request = URLRequest(url: url)
webView.load(request)
index
– the name of the file to load (without the .html
extension)website
– the name of your web folder (index.html
should be at the root of this directory)The overall code should look something like this:
import UIKit
import WebKit
class ViewController: UIViewController, WKUIDelegate, WKNavigationDelegate {
@IBOutlet weak var webView: WKWebView!
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
webView.uiDelegate = self
webView.navigationDelegate = self
let url = Bundle.main.url(forResource: "index", withExtension: "html", subdirectory: "Website")!
webView.loadFileURL(url, allowingReadAccessTo: url)
let request = URLRequest(url: url)
webView.load(request)
}
}
If any of you have further questions about this method or the code, I'll do my best to answer. :)
Constructing the URLs this way allowed me to load resources from the document directory with WKWebView:
guard let docDir = try? FileManager.default.url(for: .documentDirectory, in: .userDomainMask, appropriateFor: nil, create: false) else {
return
}
let resourceURL = docDir.appendingPathComponent("/Path/To/Your/Resource")
self.wkWebView.loadFileURL(resourceURL, allowingReadAccessTo: docDir)
This works well (Swift 3, Xcode 8):
import UIKit
import WebKit
class ViewController: UIViewController, WKNavigationDelegate {
var webView: WKWebView!
override func loadView() {
webView = WKWebView()
webView.navigationDelegate = self
view = webView
}
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
if let url = Bundle.main.url(forResource: "file", withExtension: "txt")
{
do
{
let contents = try String(contentsOfFile: url.path)
webView.loadHTMLString(contents, baseURL: url.deletingLastPathComponent())
}
catch
{
print("Could not load the HTML string.")
}
}
}
}
Check that ticket: iOS: How to load local files (not in the bundle) in a WKWebView?
var nsurl = URL(fileURLWithPath: URL(fileURLWithPath: URL(fileURLWithPath: documentsDirectory()).appendingPathComponent(user_appli).absoluteString).appendingPathComponent("index.html").absoluteString) //locally
var readAccessToURL: URL? = nsurl.deletingLastPathComponent?.deletingLastPathComponent
if let anURL = readAccessToURL {
webView?.loadFileURL(nsurl, allowingReadAccessTo: anURL)
}
The files must be in the document directory.
I implemented the following to retrieve a document:
let documentDirUrl = try! FileManager.default.url(for: .documentDirectory, in: .userDomainMask, appropriateFor: nil, create: false)
let fileNameWithExtension = "IMG_0002.PNG"
let indexFileUrl = documentDirUrl.appendingPathComponent(fileNameWithExtension)
if FileManager.default.fileExists(atPath: indexFileUrl.path) {
webView.loadFileURL(indexFileUrl, allowingReadAccessTo: documentDirUrl)
}