Question

How to simulate tap event on UIWebView? I just need to process mouse down+up events by page scripts.

Answer 1

I am not sure whether this is possible with public APIs. Using private APIs, this is possible as mentioned here synthesizing-touch-event-on-iphone. You will not be able to use this in appstore app though.

Another possible way to do this is by using a javascript. Not sure this is exactly what you wanted. It can be done using javascript as mentioned here,

function simulate(element, eventName)
    {
        var options = extend(defaultOptions, arguments[2] || {});
        var oEvent, eventType = null;

        for (var name in eventMatchers)
        {
            if (eventMatchers[name].test(eventName)) { eventType = name; break; }
        }

        if (!eventType)
            throw new SyntaxError('Only HTMLEvents and MouseEvents interfaces are supported');

        if (document.createEvent)
        {
            oEvent = document.createEvent(eventType);
            if (eventType == 'HTMLEvents')
            {
                oEvent.initEvent(eventName, options.bubbles, options.cancelable);
            }
            else
            {
                oEvent.initMouseEvent(eventName, options.bubbles, options.cancelable, document.defaultView,
          options.button, options.pointerX, options.pointerY, options.pointerX, options.pointerY,
          options.ctrlKey, options.altKey, options.shiftKey, options.metaKey, options.button, element);
            }
            element.dispatchEvent(oEvent);
        }
        else
        {
            options.clientX = options.pointerX;
            options.clientY = options.pointerY;
            var evt = document.createEventObject();
            oEvent = extend(evt, options);
            element.fireEvent('on' + eventName, oEvent);
        }
        return element;
    }

    function extend(destination, source) {
        for (var property in source)
          destination[property] = source[property];
        return destination;
    }

var eventMatchers = {
    'HTMLEvents': /^(?:load|unload|abort|error|select|change|submit|reset|focus|blur|resize|scroll)$/,
    'MouseEvents': /^(?:click|dblclick|mouse(?:down|up|over|move|out))$/
}
var defaultOptions = {
    pointerX: 0,
    pointerY: 0,
    button: 0,
    ctrlKey: false,
    altKey: false,
    shiftKey: false,
    metaKey: false,
    bubbles: true,
    cancelable: true
}

and then use,

simulate(document.getElementById("btn"), "click");

You can try to execute javascript by implementing the UIWebView's delegate method webViewDidFinishLoad: in your UIViewController and in there you call [webview stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:@"methodName()"];. Check if that helps.