Exploring the WebView Widget in Flutter

Enhancing Flutter Apps with Web Content

27 June, 2023

Contributors

Hasnain Makada

@hasnainmakada-99

Introduction

In the ever-expanding world of app development, incorporating web content into mobile applications has become increasingly common. Flutter, the cross-platform UI framework, provides the WebView widget as a powerful tool for seamlessly integrating web content within Flutter apps. In this mini blog, we will delve into the WebView widget, exploring its features, implementation, and an example to illustrate its usage.

What is the WebView Widget?

The WebView widget in Flutter serves as a container for displaying web-based content within the app. It enables developers to embed web pages, web applications, or other online content seamlessly into their Flutter projects. The WebView widget acts as a bridge between the native web view components of the underlying platform and Flutter, allowing the rendering and interaction with web content directly within the app.

How to Use the WebView Widget in Flutter

To leverage the WebView widget in your Flutter app, follow these steps:

Installation

First, ensure you have the webview_flutter package added to your Flutter project's dependencies. You can do this by including the following line in your pubspec.yaml file:

dependencies:
  webview_flutter: ^2.0.0

Adding the WebView Widget

Now paste this below 👇 code inside your main.dart file:

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:webview_flutter/webview_flutter.dart';

void main() {
  runApp(const MyApp());
}

class MyApp extends StatelessWidget {
  const MyApp({super.key});

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return MaterialApp(
      debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
      title: 'WebView Widget in Flutter',
      theme: ThemeData(
        colorScheme: ColorScheme.fromSeed(seedColor: Colors.deepPurple),
        useMaterial3: true,
      ),
      home: const WebViewDemo(),
    );
  }
}

class WebViewDemo extends StatefulWidget {
  const WebViewDemo({super.key});

  @override
  State<WebViewDemo> createState() => _WebViewDemoState();
}

class _WebViewDemoState extends State<WebViewDemo> {
  late final WebViewController controller;
  @override
  void initState() {
    controller = WebViewController()
      ..loadRequest(
        Uri.parse('https://google.com'),
      );
    super.initState();
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(
        centerTitle: true,
        title: const Text('WebView Widget Demo'),
      ),
      body: WebViewWidget(
        controller: controller,
      ),
    );
  }
}

Now in this code, we have provided the basic functionality of embedding the Google search engine inside the webview widget with the help of the webview controller, if you want to handle more such events such as loading the page state or refreshing the site as per user requests, then you can check out about the WebView Widget here

Here's the output of the Above code 👇

This works similarly to how we use it in our browsers, So we're all good here 😀

Conclusion

The WebView widget in Flutter opens up exciting possibilities for developers to seamlessly integrate web content into their mobile apps. Whether it's displaying web pages, hosting web applications, or interacting with online content, the WebView widget provides a robust solution. By following the steps outlined in this mini blog and exploring its features, you can elevate your Flutter app development to include the best.

And if you have any further doubts, feel free to reach out on my Twitter and Showwcase handle.

flutterwebview

webcontentintegration

webviewflutterpackage

embeddedwebpages