Is it not possible to autoplay embedded YouTube videos using UIWebView?

Question

I'm having an issue trying to autoplay my UIWebView.

Yes, I know there are tons of questions regarding it already.

Fist off, here's my simple code:

override func viewDidLoad()
{
    super.viewDidLoad()
    // Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.

    let youtubePlayer:UIWebView = UIWebView(frame: CGRectMake(0, 0, UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds.width, UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds.height))

    youtubePlayer.loadRequest(NSURLRequest(URL: NSURL(string: "https://www.youtube.com/embed/EzNinU0g-Q0")!) )

    self.view.addSubview(youtubePlayer)
}

Now here's what I found:

I did as suggested with the following codes:

youtubePlayer.mediaPlaybackRequiresUserAction = false
youtubePlayer.allowsInlineMediaPlayback = true

That did nothing.

autoplay on video in UIWebview,iOS

This solution works, however, it's not for embedded videos, which is what I'm using.

Therefore, is there no way to auto-play using the UIWebView?

Those questions were posted years ago, so I'm not sure how things have changed.

Can anyone suggest an alternative? Since I have a UITableView set up to where, when the user selects a cell (video), it will show the UIWebView of the video.

However, I would like, if possible for the video to start playing immediately when the user selects a video instead of having to press play again to play it.

I have a similar layout design to apps like TubiMusic and Tubex, but those apps are able to autoplay videos while I can't figure out how to do the same.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

4

Here is a Swift-ified version of the top-rated obj-c answer to How to autoplay a YouTube video in a UIWebView.

Apparently the problem was with the nil base url, when I changed it to resourceURL the autoplay worked.

Here's the code:

var youTubeVideoHTML: String = "<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><style>body{margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;}</style></head> <body> <div id=\"player\"></div> <script> var tag = document.createElement('script'); tag.src = \"http://www.youtube.com/player_api\"; var firstScriptTag = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; firstScriptTag.parentNode.insertBefore(tag, firstScriptTag); var player; function onYouTubePlayerAPIReady() { player = new YT.Player('player', { width:'%0.0f', height:'%0.0f', videoId:'%@', events: { 'onReady': onPlayerReady, } }); } function onPlayerReady(event) { event.target.playVideo(); } </script> </body> </html>"

func playVideoWithId(videoId: String) {
var html: String = String(format: youTubeVideoHTML, self.frame.size.width, self.frame.size.height, videoId)

}

edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

Community

1
1

answered Feb 24 '16 at 22:19

owlswipe

19,159
9
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YES!!!...thank you this is exactly what I was looking for. – Pangu Feb 25 '16 at 06:09
@Pangu glad it helped you! – owlswipe Feb 26 '16 at 20:48
I tested this but the video is not autoplayed. Can you help me please? – Ne AS Nov 09 '16 at 14:33
@Pangu can you help Llg with auto-playing youtube videos?—seems like my answer didn't help them. See the comment above this. – owlswipe Nov 10 '16 at 03:56
1

@owlswipe `webView.loadHTMLString(html, baseURL: Bundle.main.resourceURL)` By doing this it only buffers doesn't play. – Anirudha Mahale Jul 14 '17 at 06:17
2

I found it working like this `webView.mediaPlaybackRequiresUserAction = false webView.loadHTMLString(html, baseURL: Bundle.main.resourceURL)` – Anirudha Mahale Jul 14 '17 at 06:26
@AnirudhaMahale Cool! Looks like that's working for me too. – owlswipe Jul 14 '17 at 16:37
@owlswipe Great, If you dont mind can you have a look at [this question](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45117038/access-data-of-notification-swift-3) – Anirudha Mahale Jul 15 '17 at 11:27

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 24 '16 at 11:46

2

Autoplay parameter does not work on web view. Instead you have to use the JS apis to determine the readiness state of the player and then send a play command to that.

You can use this pod https://github.com/gilesvangruisen/Swift-YouTube-Player

or you can use the google provided code

https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/guides/ios_youtube_helper

answered Feb 24 '16 at 11:46

Pradeep K

3,671
1
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Thanks!...This also worked – Pangu Feb 25 '16 at 06:10

Is it not possible to autoplay embedded YouTube videos using UIWebView?

2 Answers2