title: Android WebView not loading a JavaScript file, but Android Browser loads it fine
body: <p>I'm writing an application which connects to a back office site. The backoffice site contains a whole slew of JavaScript functions, at least 100 times the average site. Unfortunately it does not load them, and causes much of the functionality to not work properly. So I am running a test. I put a page out on my server which loads the FireBugLite javascript text. Its a lot of javascript and perfect to test and see if the Android WebView will load it. The WebView loads nothing, but the browser loads the Firebug Icon. What on earth would make the difference, why can it run in the browser and not in my WebView? Any suggestions.</p>
  
  <p>More background information, in order to get the stinking backoffice application available on a Droid (or any other platform except windows) I needed to trick the bakcoffice application to believe what's accessing the website is Internet Explorer. I do this by modifying the WebView User Agent.</p>
  
  <p>Also for this application I've slimmed my landing page, so I could give you the source to offer me aid.</p>
  
  <pre><code>package ksc.myKMB;
  
  import android.app.Activity;
  import android.app.AlertDialog;
  import android.app.Dialog;
  import android.app.ProgressDialog;
  import android.content.DialogInterface;
  import android.graphics.Bitmap;
  import android.os.Bundle;
  import android.view.Menu;
  import android.view.MenuInflater;
  import android.view.MenuItem;
  import android.view.Window;
  import android.webkit.WebChromeClient;
  import android.webkit.WebView;
  import android.webkit.WebSettings; 
  import android.webkit.WebViewClient;
  import android.widget.Toast;
  
  public class myKMB extends Activity {
      /** Called when the activity is first created. */
      @Override
      public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
          super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); /** Performs base set up */
  
          /** Create a Activity of this Activity, IE myProcess */
          myProcess = this;
  
          /*** Create global objects and web browsing objects */
          HideDialogOnce = true;
          webview = new WebView(this) {
  
          };
          webChromeClient = new WebChromeClient() {
           public void onProgressChanged(WebView view, int progress) {
                  // Activities and WebViews measure progress with different scales.
                  // The progress meter will automatically disappear when we reach 100%
            myProcess.setProgress((progress * 100));
            //CreateMessage("Progress is : " + progress);
                }
          };
          webViewClient = new WebViewClient() {
            public void onReceivedError(WebView view, int errorCode, String description, String failingUrl) {
                   Toast.makeText(myProcess, MessageBegText + description + MessageEndText, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
                 }  
            public void onPageFinished (WebView view, String url) {
                /** Hide dialog */
             try {
             // loadingDialog.dismiss();  
             } finally {
  
             }
  
             //myProcess.setProgress(1000);
             /** Fon't show the dialog while I'm performing fixes */
                //HideDialogOnce = true;
  view.loadUrl("javascript:document.getElementById('JTRANS011').style.visibility='visible';");
  
            }
  
            public void onPageStarted(WebView view, String url, Bitmap favicon) {
  
         if (HideDialogOnce == false) {
           //loadingDialog = ProgressDialog.show(myProcess, "", 
                  //   "One moment, the page is laoding...", true);
         } else {
          //HideDialogOnce = true;
         }
        }
  
      };
  
  
      getWindow().requestFeature(Window.FEATURE_PROGRESS);
              webview.setWebChromeClient(webChromeClient);
      webview.setWebViewClient(webViewClient);
      setContentView(webview);
  
  
      /** Load the Keynote Browser Settings */
      LoadSettings();
      webview.loadUrl(LandingPage);
  
  
  }
  
      /** Get Menu */
      @Override
      public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
       MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
       inflater.inflate(R.menu.menu, menu);
       return true;
      }
  
      /** an item gets pushed */
      @Override
   public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
    switch (item.getItemId()) {
    // We have only one menu option
    case R.id.quit:
     System.exit(0);
     break;
    case R.id.back:
     webview.goBack();
    case R.id.refresh:
     webview.reload();
    case R.id.info:
     //IncludeJavascript("");
    }
    return true;
   }
  
  
  /** Begin Globals */
  public WebView webview;
  public WebChromeClient webChromeClient;
  public WebViewClient webViewClient;
  public ProgressDialog loadingDialog; 
  public Boolean HideDialogOnce; 
  public Activity myProcess;
  public String OverideUserAgent_IE = "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; MSIE 6.0; Android 1.6; en-US) AppleWebKit/525.10+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0.4 Safari/523.12.2 myKMB/1.0";
  public String LandingPage = "http://kscserver.com/main-leap-slim.html";
  public String MessageBegText = "Problem making a connection, Details: ";
  public String MessageEndText = " For Support Call: (xxx) xxx - xxxx.";
  
  public void LoadSettings() {
  
   webview.getSettings().setUserAgentString(OverideUserAgent_IE);
   webview.getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
   webview.getSettings().setBuiltInZoomControls(true);
   webview.getSettings().setSupportZoom(true);
  }
  
  /** Creates a message alert dialog */
  public void CreateMessage(String message) {
  
   AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(this);
   builder.setMessage(message)
          .setCancelable(true)
          .setNegativeButton("Close", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
            public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int id) {
             dialog.cancel();
            }
          });
   AlertDialog alert = builder.create();
   alert.show();
  }
  
  
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><a href="http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/9628/myapp.gif">The background Application is my app, running in an emulator. The top application is the browser. You&#39;ll see the browser has the firebug icon, and can activate the firebug, but the application does not have the firebug icon. http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/9628/myapp.gif</a></p>
  
  <p>My Application is running in the background, and as you can see no Firebug in the lower right hand corner. However the browser (the emulator on top) has the same page but shows the firebug. What am I doing wrong? I'm assuming its either not enough memory allocated to the application, process power allocation, or a physical memory thing. I can't tell, all I know is the results are strange.</p>
  
  <p>I get the same thing form my android device, the application shows no firebug but the browser shows the firebug.</p>
  
  <p>I already have JavaScript on the web browser on, the problem is the web view is acting to different from the web browser.</p>