In my Android Developer Course, the instructor showed us how to create webviews and dataviews. I wanted to take that one step farther, so I made this app, which can switch between a dataview and a webview. You can download it here, just click on the floating button to switch between the views:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/d8x9yc4ykn7943v/Webviewfordummieslikeme.apk

Currently, for a webview, it goes to my website, right here. For a data view, I just threw together a few lines of HTML code and slapped it in there. But, here are a few great little tidbits about the program for those who are new like me, and need help figuring out what to do.

MainActivity.java

/* Copyright 2017 by AlaskaLinuxUser (https://thealaskalinuxuser.wordpress.com)
*
* Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the “License”);
* you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
* You may obtain a copy of the License at
*
* http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
*
* Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
* distributed under the License is distributed on an “AS IS” BASIS,
* WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
* See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
* limitations under the License.
*/
package com.alaskalinuxuser.webviewsfordummies;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.design.widget.FloatingActionButton;
import android.support.design.widget.Snackbar;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.webkit.WebView;
import android.webkit.WebViewClient;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

// Declare your webview …
WebView myWebView;
// Declare our boolean for switching.
Boolean webViewTrue;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
setSupportActionBar(toolbar);

// Set our boolean to true, as we are displaying a website first.
webViewTrue = true;

// To identify my webview that I am going to put the website or data on.
myWebView = (WebView)findViewById(R.id.myWebView);

// To enable javascript.
myWebView.getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);

// To keep it here in our mini webview browser
myWebView.setWebViewClient(new WebViewClient());

// To load which webpage, in this case, mine.
myWebView.loadUrl(“https://thealaskalinuxuser.wordpress.com”);

// So, by clicking on the FAB, you can swap between webview and dataview.
FloatingActionButton fab = (FloatingActionButton) findViewById(R.id.fab);
fab.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
@Override
public void onClick(View view) {
Snackbar.make(view, “Switched between webview and dataview.”, Snackbar.LENGTH_LONG)
.setAction(“Action”, null).show();

// If we are in webview mode.
if (webViewTrue) {

// Then switch to dataview mode.
webViewTrue = false;

// You can load any data you make, you just need data, type, and encoding.
String myEncoding = “UTF-8”;
String myType = “text/html”;
String myData = “<html><body><h1>Check this out!</h1><p>This is just demonstrating how to load your own ‘data’.</p><h2>More info!</h2><p>Feel free to test this out with some code edits.</p></body></html>”;

// And pass that to our webview.
myWebView.loadData(myData, myType, myEncoding);

// Else, if you are in dataview, switch to web view.
} else {

// Set our boolean back to true.
webViewTrue = true;

// To load which webpage, in this case, mine.
myWebView.loadUrl(“https://thealaskalinuxuser.wordpress.com”);

}

}
});
}

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
// Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_main, menu);
return true;
}

@Override
public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
// Handle action bar item clicks here. The action bar will
// automatically handle clicks on the Home/Up button, so long
// as you specify a parent activity in AndroidManifest.xml.
int id = item.getItemId();

//noinspection SimplifiableIfStatement
if (id == R.id.action_settings) {
return true;
}

return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
}
}
The key parts here are these:

// If we are in webview mode.
if (webViewTrue) {

// Then switch to dataview mode.
webViewTrue = false;

// You can load any data you make, you just need data, type, and encoding.
String myEncoding = “UTF-8”;
String myType = “text/html”;
String myData = “<html><body><h1>Check this out!</h1><p>This is just demonstrating how to load your own ‘data’.</p><h2>More info!</h2><p>Feel free to test this out with some code edits.</p></body></html>”;

// And pass that to our webview.
myWebView.loadData(myData, myType, myEncoding);

// Else, if you are in dataview, switch to web view.
} else {

// Set our boolean back to true.
webViewTrue = true;

// To load which webpage, in this case, mine.
myWebView.loadUrl(“https://thealaskalinuxuser.wordpress.com”);

}

If you are in a webview, it switches to a dataview, and vice versa. But the thing I wanted to point out is the use of the String variables (myEncoding, myType, myData) which here I just set statically, but you could have some app that when the user clicks something, it fills in these variables, which in turn, when you load the data, it now has some pertinent information. Just food for thought. Praise God, it even works!

Linux – keep it simple.

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