Android Question Pros and Cons of using a WebView

[dieterp]

I'd like to know what the pros and cons are of using a WebView in an app. We have a website that is designed to be fully responsive, meaning each page fits in perfectly into a WebView when embedded in an app. Is this a safe route to follow, or should we be rather looking to redesign each website page locally in the app activity?

 

[Eme Fibonacci]

My experience:

I tried to create an app using JQuery Mobile as interface. The html document would be read locally in a webview. A b4a application would be the "player".

Cons:
- webview is very slow.
- Click events are very slow.
- The complexity increases.
- The difficulty in maintaining it increases.

In my opinion it is better to create a native app and b4a can do this easily.

 

[dieterp]

Thanks for the feedback Eme. Maybe you can assist with answering this question for me too please (Or maybe I should post it as a separate forum question)?

One of the pages that I load in a WebView has 2 filter dropdowns that brings back a resultset from those 2 selections. In a normal browser we store those 2 selections in localstorage variables so that when the user leaves the page, upon their return the dropdown selections will default to the previous selection. I see that this approach won't directly work in a WebView, but is there a way for the same functionality to work by using WebViewExtras etc.?

 

[DonManfred]

(Or maybe I should post it as a separate forum question)?

Yes. Create a new Thread for any new question you have.
This thread is about pros and cons for a Webview.

 

[DonManfred]

To stay at the topic. I aggree with @Eme Fibonacci that a native App is most probably the right solution.
I dont see any Pros is using a Webview (maybe except of Displaying a Helppage).
I do prefer writing a Native App.

The work for a Native app is probably less than working with a Webview and trying to connect to the content from b4a,