Android WebView of local website manipulating the URL

Issue

When using an Android WebView I am able to load in my custom web application using the view.loadUrl("https://example.com/assets/www/index.html") method.

Where the webpage is stored locally in my android assets

However there is a slight issue. This will set the URL of my page to http://example.com/assets/www/index.html. What I would like to do, is to load my content using a much simpler URL such as: http://example.com

However I can't seem to find a solution for this other than hosting my website remotely.

Here is my current Activity:

class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
    private var myWebView: WebView? = null

    @SuppressLint("SetJavaScriptEnabled")
    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)
        val assetLoader = WebViewAssetLoader.Builder()
            .setDomain("example.com")
            .addPathHandler("/assets/", WebViewAssetLoader.AssetsPathHandler(this))
            .addPathHandler("/build/", WebViewAssetLoader.AssetsPathHandler(this))
            .addPathHandler("/res/", WebViewAssetLoader.ResourcesPathHandler(this))
            .build()
        initiateWebView(findViewById(R.id.webv), assetLoader);
    }

    private fun initiateWebView(view: WebView, assetLoader: WebViewAssetLoader) {
        myWebView = view;

        view.webViewClient = LocalContentWebViewClient(assetLoader)
        view.settings?.javaScriptEnabled = true
        if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.KITKAT) {
            WebView.setWebContentsDebuggingEnabled(true)
        }
        myWebView?.addJavascriptInterface(JsWebInterface(this), "androidApp")
        view.loadUrl("https://example.com/assets/www/index.html")

    }

    override fun onBackPressed() {
        if (myWebView?.canGoBack() == true) {
            myWebView?.goBack()
        } else {
            super.onBackPressed()
        }
    }

}

private class LocalContentWebViewClient(private val assetLoader: WebViewAssetLoader) :
    WebViewClientCompat() {
    private val jsEventHandler = com.example.minsundhedpoc.JSEventHandler();

    @RequiresApi(21)
    override fun shouldInterceptRequest(
        view: WebView,
        request: WebResourceRequest
    ): WebResourceResponse? {
        return assetLoader.shouldInterceptRequest(request.url)
    }

    override fun shouldOverrideUrlLoading(view: WebView, request: WebResourceRequest): Boolean {
        val url = view.url
        // Log.d("LOG","previous_url: " + url);
        return false
    }

    override fun onPageCommitVisible(view: WebView, url: String) {
        super.onPageCommitVisible(view, url)
        jsEventHandler.sendEvent(view, "myCustomEvent");

    }

    // to support API < 21
    override fun shouldInterceptRequest(
        view: WebView,
        url: String
    ): WebResourceResponse? {
        return assetLoader.shouldInterceptRequest(Uri.parse(url))
    }

}

Solution

Simple answer to your question. No you can't do that. of course there is will be work around such as VPN or tunneling

BUT think about it a minute. letting the user see a local website with a domain name ?

of course he will try to access it from the browser. and won't be able to do that.

And what if you want to update your website ? you will need to completely update the app. that's not practical.

Consider using a remote web hosting like firebase hosting it's for free and giving you 2 doamins (example.web.app) and (example.firebaseapp.com) and you can use any custom domain, there is a providers can give you a custom domain for free (strongly not recommend that as they can withdraw it any time) like freenome and for paid domain providers there is some cheap solutions like cosmotown and dynadot

Answered By - Hussien Fahmy