Create your simple browser using WKWebView

We all are aware of the term web view, it’s not new for us. We have already used UIWebView in the past. Developers were using UIWebView class in the 8.0 and earlier versions to embed web content in an iOS app. However, UIWebView was a bit gawky, burly, and exuded in strainer memory. Thus, Apple has introduced WKWebView to replace of UIWebView. Through WKWebView developers can display interactive web content in their applications.

WKWebView has replaced UIWebView in WebKit and UIKIT in AppKIT by providing consistent API across both platforms. Hence, it is proven that WkWebview is one of the most important features of iOS8 and macOS.

Let’s take a look at the Advantages of WKWebView

• WKWebView runs itself on the separate thread where the application runs. So the separate memory has been allocated to the WebView which results in better application performance. As a result of this, whenever WKWebView got crashed due to exceeds amount of memory then it never affects the application. It will only crash the webview but not the app.

• It uses the latest javascript engine so that page rendering became faster in comparison with UIWebView.

What is the main objective behind using WKWebView?

Web-Kit is the layout and rendering engine behind Safari on the iOS operating system. It renders and parses HTML to load the images on the display and execute JavaScript. WKWebView development is similar to the UIWebView with a certain amount of enhancement. It deals with the application completely differently compared with UIWebView. WebKit has a unique feature and strong Javascript coding standard to deal with the apps.

Most importantly, It is working as a separate process rather than running within an app to improve the performance of the application. From the UI perspective, it is beyond showcasing simple web pages in an iOS app. 7

Let’s begin with our simple web browser creation

iOS has multiple ways to work with reviews but today we are discussing WKWebView which is a part of the WebKit framework instead of the UIKit framework.

In this tutorial, we are going to create a web browser using the WKWebView Object. We will be using Xcode 10.1 and built for iOS 12.1 using swift language version 4.2.

1. Firstly, create a single view application with the name of SOBrowserApp and make a language selection as swift in the view controller. swift & import the Webkit framework.
2. Now, add @IBOutlets for WKWebView.
3. Create a view in Main. storyboard with WKWebView, Next and Back button(UI button) with a search option.
4. Create an Activity Indicator and set the observer in ViewDidLoad.
5. On clicking the “Go” button, we will call and btnSearchAction in which we are using google Url to load searchable data OR items in WKWebView.
6. Handle the below function for the “Back” and “Next” buttons.

Wrapping Up: WKWebView provides many features that were only present in safari. It provides 60fps responsive scrolling using fast javascript, Core Animation, hardware acceleration, and built-in functionalities like back-forward swipe and zoom in safari. It helps to improve CPU performance by 3-4 times than older and newer iOS devices. With high-speed performance, it does not affect CPU performance. Thus, WKWebView is like including new features in the next releases.

If you would need any help in WKWebView development, feel free to contact us. We are a leading iPhone development company in India. You can hire iPhone app developer with prominent WKWebView development experience.

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