Force a WebView link to launch Safari?

Question

I have a UIWebView embedded within an iPhone app of mine. I want to be able to have certain links within that webview open into the full Mobile Safari app (i.e. not my embed

Answer 1

I haven't tried this myself but I think that you can implement the UIWebViewDelegate method

webView:shouldStartLoadWithRequest:navigationType 

which will be called anytime a link in the UIWebView is clicked on. In that method you just need to determine if the clicked link should result in launching Safari or not and use openURL if it should.

- (BOOL)webView:(UIWebView *)webView shouldStartLoadWithRequest:(NSURLRequest *)request navigationType:(UIWebViewNavigationType)navigationType {

    // Check if this was a click event and then some other criteria for determining if you want to launch Safari.
    if (navigationType == UIWebViewNavigationTypeLinkClicked && [Some other criteria]) {
        [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:request.URL];

        // Return false to indicate to the UIWebView to not navigate to the linked target
        return false;
    }

    // Return true so that the UIWebView loads the link target
    return true;
}

Don't forget that you need to set your UIWebView delegate property to an instance of the class that implements the UIWebViewDelegate.