iPhone UIWebView loadHtmlString not added to history

Question

My UIWebview loads a local html file using loadHtmlString. The loaded page has links to other local html files as well as real links that use the internet.

I have added a back button with:

if ([self.webView canGoBack]) [self.webView goBack];

This works fine except it does not recognise the original page loaded with loadHtmlString.

For example, if I navigate:
local -> local -> web
local X local <- web (The first back works, the next does nothing.)

How can I get the webview to recognise the original page so the back button also works for it? Can I add it to the webview's history somehow?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I had a same problem. I tried manage the history, but it is error prone. Now I have discovered a better solution of this.

What you want to do is simply add a loadRequest to about:blank and make that as a placeholder for you before you call loadHTMLString/loadData. Then you are totally free from monitoring the history. The webview.canGoBack and canGoForward will just work. Of course, you will need a hack to handle go back to the placeholder about:blank. You can do that in webViewDidFinishLoad. Here is the code highlight:

In the function when you call loadHTMLString:

[weakSelf.fbWebView loadRequest:[NSURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"about:blank"]]];
[weakSelf.fbWebView loadHTMLString:stringResponse baseURL:url];

Code to handle goBack:

- (void)webViewDidFinishLoad:(UIWebView *)webView
{
  if ([webView.request.URL.absoluteString isEqualToString:@"about:blank"]
      && ![webView canGoBack] && [webView canGoForward]) {
    [weakSelf.fbWebView loadHTMLString:stringResponse baseURL:url];
  }
}

I think it is also possible expand this solution to handle those loadHTMLString that is not the first load. Just by having a Stack to record all the string response and insert an about:blank on each loadHTMLString. And pop the stack when each time go back to about:blank.