Fill in web form from an app and submit

Question

I have a webpage with a simple form with 3 input fields, Name, Email and Course and a submit button. Nothing fancy.

Upon developing an android app, I would like to know how I could fill in that web form from within my android app without using a webview to actually load the webpage.

You will need to implement webservices on the server side and consume them on the client side. — Phantômaxx, Nov 20 '17 at 15:26
I would use Jsoup to do it. The implentation depends on the actual page. — TDG, Dec 08 '17 at 15:43
is what u mean with ur app using intent action view open browser and fill the form? or just to pass paramater like api does? using get is more reasonable if u will use apps default browser the u can redirecting to page base on get parameter u already pass — Iqbal Rizky, Dec 11 '17 at 04:40
@IqbalRizky no, using am intent would be so much easier. Juat pass the parameter like an api. — Alin, Dec 11 '17 at 09:10

Edward DiGirolamo · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-06T20:31:48.660

4

I have used something like this in the past. However you will have to load a webview (though you dont need to show it.) then do something like below. Keep in mind that if the site changes the id down the road this approach will not work.

webView.loadUrl("javascript:var 
    name=document.getElementById('nameInput').value='" yourNameValue "'");
webView.loadUrl("javascript:document.getElementById('submit').click()");

edited Dec 06 '17 at 20:31

answered Dec 06 '17 at 20:15

Edward DiGirolamo

742
1
5
18

Will look into it a bit. Thank you :) I was hoping to achieve this without a webview. Much like parsing a json with a set method :) – Alin Dec 07 '17 at 11:19
You can just create the webview no need to attach it to a view or add it into a layout. Be sure to enable javascript with webView.getSettings().setJavascriptEnabled(true) – Edward DiGirolamo Dec 07 '17 at 14:01
Did you implement this? – Edward DiGirolamo Dec 13 '17 at 13:57
Yes I did, it's working nice once you write code listening for finished loading url and so on. – Alin Mar 02 '18 at 21:13

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 08 '17 at 13:28

Add this dependency in your build.gradle(Module:app)

dependencies {
implementation 'com.android.support:customtabs:27.0.2'
}

Add this method in Activity.

public boolean isPackageExisted(String targetPackage){
PackageManager pm=getPackageManager();
    try {
        PackageInfo info=pm.getPackageInfo(targetPackage,PackageManager.GET_META_DATA);
    } catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e) {
        return false;
    }
    return true;
}

Add this onCreate of Activity

if (isPackageExisted("com.android.chrome")){
CustomTabsIntent.Builder builder = new CustomTabsIntent.Builder();
CustomTabsIntent customTabsIntent = builder.build();                        
customTabsIntent.intent.setPackage("com.android.chrome");                             
customTabsIntent.intent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);                             
customTabsIntent.intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);                          
customTabsIntent.launchUrl(getApplicationContext(), Uri.parse("Your URL"));
}

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 12 '17 at 20:37

There is no possible way of loading a page into a mobile app without using a webview. Alternatively you can:

Create a form in android with the inputs
Set up a webservice to submit data to

See this android simple form submit tutorial for a step-by-step guide

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 13 '17 at 14:27

Use Volley to do the request: https://developer.android.com/training/volley/index.html Then you can use a post with type multipart-form-data ;), also look at the "action" field of the form so you can know where the post request must be sent and send the data through multipart-form-data as I said.

Alireza · Answer 5 · 2020-08-09T07:10:59.387

This is better

    WebView web = (WebView)findViewById(R.id.web1);
    web.getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
    web.getSettings().setDomStorageEnabled(true);
    web.loadUrl("url_address");
    web.setWebViewClient(new WebViewClient(){
        @Override
        public void onPageFinished(WebView view, String url) {
            super.onPageFinished(view, url);
            web.loadUrl("javascript:document.getElementById('username').value = 'alireza'; null");
            web.loadUrl("javascript:document.getElementById('password').value = '12345678'; null");
            web.loadUrl("javascript:document.getElementById('login_button').click(); null");
        }
    });

Can you please edit your answer to contain an explanaition? – Greg Aug 05 '20 at 21:35 — Greg, Aug 05 '20 at 21:35

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 13 '17 at 15:02

Without WebView you can't load the webpage or you can create html page in java. you can represent webpage as your app page by hiding the url address Disable address bar in Android webview

or you want read the string from the url means use this Get text from web page to string

Fill in web form from an app and submit

6 Answers6