Load Local HTML File or URL in React Native using react-native-webview

React Native WebView

Load Local HTML File or URL in React Native using react-native-webview is the updated and combined post of our last 2 posts Open any Website in React Native WebView and React Native Load Local HTML File in WebView.

In this example, we will use the WebView component from react-native-webview. We will make a single page where we will have 3 buttons which will load the data in WebView from different resources.

Tasks

Different tasks that you can see in this example are:

1. Loading of WebPage from URL

<WebView
  style={{flex: 1}}
  originWhitelist={['*']}
  source={{ uri: "https://aboutreact.com" }}
  style={{ marginTop: 20 }}
  javaScriptEnabled={true}
  domStorageEnabled={true}
/>

2. Load HTML Page from a variable with HTML String

<WebView
  style={{flex: 1}}
  originWhitelist={['*']}
  source={{ html: '<h1>Hello</h1>' }}
  style={{ marginTop: 20 }}
  javaScriptEnabled={true}
  domStorageEnabled={true}
/>

3. Load a Local HTML File

if(isAndroid){
  return (
      <WebView
        style={{flex: 1}}
        originWhitelist={['*']}
        source={{uri:'file:///android_asset/index.html'}}
        style={{ marginTop: 20 }}
        javaScriptEnabled={true}
        domStorageEnabled={true}
      />
  )
}else{
  return(
    <WebView
      style={{flex: 1}}
      originWhitelist={['*']}
      source={'./resources/index.html'}
      style={{ marginTop: 20 }}
      javaScriptEnabled={true}
      domStorageEnabled={true}
    />
  );
}

To Make a React Native App

Getting started with React Native will help you to know more about the way you can make a React Native project. We are going to use react native command line interface to make our React Native App.

If you have previously installed a global react-native-cli package, please remove it as it may cause unexpected issues:

npm uninstall -g react-native-cli @react-native-community/cli

Run the following commands to create a new React Native project

npx react-native init ProjectName

If you want to start a new project with a specific React Native version, you can use the --version argument:

npx react-native init ProjectName --version X.XX.X

Note If the above command is failing, you may have old version of react-native or react-native-cli installed globally on your pc. Try uninstalling the cli and run the cli using npx.

This will make a project structure with an index file named App.js in your project directory.

Installation of Dependency

To use WebView you need to install react-native-webview dependency.
To install this dependency open the terminal and jump into your project

cd ProjectName

Run the following commands

npm install react-native-webview --save

This command will copy the dependency into your node_module directory. –save is optional, it is just to update the dependency in your package.json file.

CocoaPods Installation

After the updation of React Native 0.60, they have introduced autolinking so we do not require to link the library but need to install pods. So to install pods use

npx pod-install

Project File Structure

If you want to load the HTML from the local HTML file into the WebView then you need to put them in the below-described directory.  You have to make 2 copies of the HTML file and have to put them on a different location for Android and IOS. If the directories are not there then please make the directory and then put the HTML file.

Code

Now open App.js in any code editor and replace the code with the following code

App.js

// Load Local HTML File or URL in React Native using react-native-webview
// https://aboutreact.com/load-local-html-file-url-using-react-native-webview/

//import React in our code
import React, {useState} from 'react';

//import all the components we are going to use
import {
  SafeAreaView,
  StyleSheet,
  View,
  Button,
  Platform
} from 'react-native';

//import WebView
import {WebView} from 'react-native-webview';
import HTML_FILE from './resources/index.html';
const isAndroid = Platform.OS === 'android';

const RenderWebViewElement = (props) => {
  let {index} = props;
  if (index === 1) {
    // Loading data from URL into webview
    return (
      <WebView
        style={{flex: 1}}
        originWhitelist={['*']}
        source={{uri: 'https://aboutreact.com'}}
        style={{marginTop: 20}}
        javaScriptEnabled={true}
        domStorageEnabled={true}
      />
    );
  } else if (index === 2) {
    // Load HTML directly (For simple HTML text)
    return (
      <WebView
        style={{flex: 1}}
        originWhitelist={['*']}
        source={{html: '<h1>Hello</h1>'}}
        style={{marginTop: 20}}
        javaScriptEnabled={true}
        domStorageEnabled={true}
      />
    );
  } else {
    // Load HTML from a local file
    if (isAndroid) {
      return (
        <WebView
          style={{flex: 1}}
          originWhitelist={['*']}
          source={{
            uri: 'file:///android_asset/index.html'
          }}
          style={{marginTop: 20}}
          javaScriptEnabled={true}
          domStorageEnabled={true}
        />
      );
    } else {
      return (
        <WebView
          style={{flex: 1}}
          originWhitelist={['*']}
          source={HTML_FILE}
          style={{marginTop: 20}}
          javaScriptEnabled={true}
          domStorageEnabled={true}
        />
      );
    }
  }
};

const App = () => {
  const [fragmentIndex, setFragmentIndex] = useState(1);

  return (
    <SafeAreaView style={{flex: 1}}>
      <View style={styles.container}>
        <Button
          title="Load from URL"
          onPress={() => setFragmentIndex(1)} />
        <Button
          title="Load HTML Text"
          onPress={() => setFragmentIndex(2)} />
        <Button
          title="Load from Local HTML FIle"
          onPress={() => setFragmentIndex(3)}
        />
        <RenderWebViewElement index={fragmentIndex} />
      </View>
    </SafeAreaView>
  );
};

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    backgroundColor: '#F5FCFF',
    flex: 1,
  },
});

export default App;

To Run the React Native App

Open the terminal again and jump into your project using.

cd ProjectName

1. Start Metro Bundler

First, you will need to start Metro, the JavaScript bundler that ships with React Native. To start Metro bundler run following command

npx react-native start

Once you start Metro Bundler it will run forever on your terminal until you close it. Let Metro Bundler run in its own terminal. Open a new terminal and run the application.

2. Start React Native Application

To run the project on an Android Virtual Device or on real debugging device

npx react-native run-android

or on the iOS Simulator by running (macOS only)

npx react-native run-ios

Output Screenshots

IOS

       

Android

      

This is how you can Load Local HTML File or URL in React Native using react-native-webview. If you have any doubts or you want to share something about the topic you can comment below or contact us here. There will be more posts coming soon. Stay tuned!

Hope you liked it. 🙂