Question

Is it possible to erase a specific url from the android’s webview history? I Google a lot but was not able to find any sol, even i checked the api’s documentation and i think there is no direct way to do the same.
have a look at below code:

// getting the whole list of web view's history....
WebBackForwardList list = wv.copyBackForwardList();
// getting previuous item/link 
String lastUrl = list.getItemAtIndex(list.getCurrentIndex()-1).getUrl();

From 2nd line of code it is clear that it is possible to play around with history, so i think there must be some way or trick to delete a particular link from web view history.
Does it makes any sense to you guys?

Any code snippet or any link will highly be appreciated.

thanks,

Answer 1

Well, not sure if you actually can play around with the back forward list. I would assume it’s a copy – at least that’s what the name suggest.

However, you can manipulate the back stepping to some degree. In my case I exit the application already when user tries to step back from second page towards first page.

  @Override
  public boolean dispatchKeyEvent(KeyEvent event) {
    int action = event.getAction();
    int keyCode = event.getKeyCode();
    switch (keyCode) {
        case KeyEvent.KEYCODE_BACK:
            if ((action == KeyEvent.ACTION_DOWN) && myWebView.canGoBack() ) {
                WebBackForwardList list = myWebView.copyBackForwardList();
                String lastUrl = list.getItemAtIndex(list.getCurrentIndex()-1).getUrl().toString();

                // Exit if index == 1, i.e. currently on 2nd page
                if (list.getCurrentIndex() == 1) {
                    finish();
                } else ...

You could step over also other other pages by combining stuff from above and overloading url loading:

            @Override
            public boolean shouldOverrideUrlLoading(WebView  view, String  url){
                 view.loadUrl(url);
                 return true;
            }