Question

I have a URL rendered as a NSString in my iOS app. Right now if the user taps the URL, it will open the webpage in Safari. Is there a way to catch the tap and open it in a UIWebView? I have the UIWebView controller all setup, just need to catch the URL click. Thanks!

Here’s the code that renders the URL right now.

[detailInfoList addObject: [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
                            [NSNumber numberWithInteger:kCarrierInfo], @"type", 
                            [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://www.ups.com/track/%@/%@", userPackage.carrier, userPackage.trackingNumber], 
                            @"link", nil]];

Answer 1

Edit: Your URL won’t be caught and passed to UIWebView automatically. You have to put some procedures / methods in place to catch it. Otherwise, it will be handed over to Safari, e.g. links in UITextView.

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You have to pass the URL to the instance of UIWebView. Whether you have sub-classed it as a new ViewController or it is an object within your current viewController, you can set its URL by calling loadRequest method:

// if it is an object
[self.webView setLoadRequest:[URLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.apple.com"]]];

// or if it is subclassed
self.loadRequest = ... // as mentioned above

You can alternatively, use requestWithURL:(NSURL *)theURL cachePolicy:(NSURLRequestCachePolicy)cachePolicy timeoutInterval:(NSTimeInterval), which I personally prefer, because you can customize it with more options.

Here are useful links to read:
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/uikit/reference/UIWebView_Class/Reference/Reference.html

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSURLRequest_Class/Reference/Reference.html#//apple_ref/doc/c_ref/NSURLRequest

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSURL_Class/Reference/Reference.html#//apple_ref/doc/c_ref/NSURL