Android WebView App (to Apache server)

Yippyyyy!!!

Just successfully created my first Android App.

So I have been playing around recently with modifications, improvements and configurations on my current project – “Smart Home using Raspberry Pi & Android with Voice Recognition.”

I have been thinking of implementing a simple Android application which directly opens up URL, rather than going to my browser each and every time I need to access the web control server(Apache2).

So one might be wondering what is exactly this WebView ‘nonsense’ a simple Google search gave me this definition, A “webview” is a browser bundled inside of a mobile application producing what is called a hybrid app. Using a webview allows mobile apps to be built using Web technologies (HTML, JavaScript, CSS, etc.) but still package it as a native app and put it in the app store.

Now coming back to the App, i’m using the latest Android Studio, source code below.

Main_Activity.java

//__author__ = "Mpho Mphego"
//__description__ = "Android WebView App controlling Raspberry Pi running Apache2"
//__version__ = "Revision: 1.0 "
//__date__ = "Date: 2015/01/17 22:23 "
//__url__ = "mmphego.wordpress.com"
//__copyright__ = "Copyright (c) 2015 Mpho Mphego"
//__license__ = "Java"

package com.wordpress.mpho112.mobilehomectrl;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.webkit.WebSettings;
import android.webkit.WebView;


public class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity {
    private WebView mWebView;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
        mWebView = (WebView) findViewById(R.id.activity_main_webview);
        // Enable Javascript
        WebSettings webSettings = mWebView.getSettings();
        webSettings.setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
        mWebView.loadUrl("http://172.18.20.41/");
    }


    @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);
    }
}

Activity_main.xml

<FrameLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:id="@+id/container"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    tools:context=".MainActivity">
    tools:ignore="MergeRootFrame">

    <WebView
        android:id="@+id/activity_main_webview"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent" />
</FrameLayout>