iPhone Safari Web App opens links in new window

I have problem with web after adding icon to Home Screen. If the web is launched from Home Screen, all links will open in new window in Safari (and lose full screen functionality). How can I prevent it? I couldn't find any help, only the same unanswered question.

I found JavaScript solution in iWebKit framework:

var a=document.getElementsByTagName("a");
for(var i=0;i<a.length;i++)
{
    a[i].onclick=function()
    {
        window.location=this.getAttribute("href");
        return false
    }
}

The other solutions here either don't account for external links (that you probably want to open externally in Safari) or don't account for relative links (without the domain in them).

The html5 mobile-boilerplate project links to this gist which has a good discussion on the topic: https://gist.github.com/1042026

Here's the final code they came up with:

<script>(function(a,b,c){if(c in b&&b[c]){var d,e=a.location,f=/^(a|html)$/i;a.addEventListener("click",function(a){d=a.target;while(!f.test(d.nodeName))d=d.parentNode;"href"in d&&(d.href.indexOf("http")||~d.href.indexOf(e.host))&&(a.preventDefault(),e.href=d.href)},!1)}})(document,window.navigator,"standalone")</script>

If you are using jQuery, you can do:

$("a").click(function (event) {
    event.preventDefault();
    window.location = $(this).attr("href");
});

This is working for me on iOS 6.1 and with Bootstrap JS links (i.e dropdown menus etc)

$(document).ready(function(){
    if (("standalone" in window.navigator) && window.navigator.standalone) {
      // For iOS Apps
      $('a').on('click', function(e){
        e.preventDefault();
        var new_location = $(this).attr('href');
        if (new_location != undefined && new_location.substr(0, 1) != '#' && $(this).attr('data-method') == undefined){
          window.location = new_location;
        }
      });
    }
  });

This is an old question and many of the solutions here are using javascript. Since then, iOS 11.3 has been released and you can now use the scope member. The scope member is a URL like "/" where all paths under that scope will not open a new page.

> The scope member is a string that represents the navigation scope of > this web application's application context.

Here is my example:

{
  "name": "Test",
  "short_name": "Test",
  "lang": "en-US",
  "start_url": "/",
  "scope": "/",
  ...
}

You can also read more about it here. I also recommend using the generator which will provide this functionality.

> If you specify the scope, everything works as expected similar to > Android, destinations out of the scope will open in Safari — with a > back button (the small one in the status bar) to your PWA.

Based on Davids answer and Richards comment, you should perform a domain check. Otherwise links to other websites will also opened in your web app.

$('a').live('click', function (event)
{      
    var href = $(this).attr("href");

    if (href.indexOf(location.hostname) > -1)
    {
        event.preventDefault();
        window.location = href;
    }
});

If using jQuery Mobile you will experience the new window when using the data-ajax='false' attribute. In fact, this will happen whenever ajaxEnabled is turned off, being by and external link, by a $.mobile.ajaxEnabled setting or by having a target='' attribute.

You may fix it using this:

$("a[data-ajax='false']").live("click", function(event){
  if (this.href) {
    event.preventDefault();
    location.href=this.href;
    return false;
  }
});

(Thanks to Richard Poole for the live() method - wasn't working with bind())

If you've turned ajaxEnabled off globally, you will need to drop the [data-ajax='false'].

This took me rather long to figure out as I was expecting it to be a jQuery Mobile specific problem where in fact it was the Ajax linking that actually prohibited the new window.

This code works for iOS 5 (it worked for me):

In the head tag:

<script type="text/javascript">
    function OpenLink(theLink){
        window.location.href = theLink.href;
    }
</script>

In the link that you want to be opened in the same window:

<a href="(your website here)" onclick="OpenLink(this); return false"> Link </a>

I got this code from this comment: iphone web app meta tags

Maybe you should allow to open links in new window when target is explicitly set to "_blank" as well :

$('a').live('click', function (event)
{      
    var href = $(this).attr("href");
    
    // prevent internal links (href.indexOf...) to open in safari if target
    // is not explicitly set_blank, doesn't break href="#" links
    if (href.indexOf(location.hostname) > -1 && href != "#" && $(this).attr("target") != "_blank")
    {
        event.preventDefault();
        window.location = href;
    }

});

I've found one that is very complete and efficient because it checks to be running only under standalone WebApp, works without jQuery and is also straightforward, just tested under iOS 8.2 :

Stay Standalone: Prevent links in standalone web apps opening Mobile Safari

You can also do linking almost normally:

<a href="#" onclick="window.location='URL_TO_GO';">TEXT OF THE LINK</a>

And you can remove the hash tag and href, everything it does it affects appearance..

This is what worked for me on iOS 6 (very slight adaptation of rmarscher's answer):

<script>                                                                
    (function(document,navigator,standalone) {                          
        if (standalone in navigator && navigator[standalone]) {         
            var curnode,location=document.location,stop=/^(a|html)$/i;  
            document.addEventListener("click", function(e) {            
                curnode=e.target;                                       
                while (!stop.test(curnode.nodeName)) {                  
                    curnode=curnode.parentNode;                         
                }                                                       
                if ("href" in curnode && (curnode.href.indexOf("http") || ~curnode.href.indexOf(location.host)) && curnode.target == false) {
                    e.preventDefault();                                 
                    location.href=curnode.href                          
                }                                                       
            },false);                                                   
        }                                                               
    })(document,window.navigator,"standalone")                          
</script>

This is slightly adapted version of Sean's which was preventing back button

// this function makes anchor tags work properly on an iphone

$(document).ready(function(){
if (("standalone" in window.navigator) && window.navigator.standalone) {
  // For iOS Apps
  $("a").on("click", function(e){

    var new_location = $(this).attr("href");
    if (new_location != undefined && new_location.substr(0, 1) != "#" && new_location!='' && $(this).attr("data-method") == undefined){
      e.preventDefault();
      window.location = new_location;
    }
  });
}

});

For those with Twitter Bootstrap and Rails 3

$('a').live('click', function (event) {
  if(!($(this).attr('data-method')=='delete')){
    var href = $(this).attr("href");
    event.preventDefault();
    window.location = href; 
  }   
});

Delete links are still working this way.

I prefer to open all links inside the standalone web app mode except ones that have target="_blank". Using jQuery, of course.

$(document).on('click', 'a', function(e) {
	if ($(this).attr('target') !== '_blank') {
		e.preventDefault();
		window.location = $(this).attr('href');
	}
});

One workaround i used for an iOS web app was that I made all links (which were buttons by CSS) form submit buttons. So I opened a form which posted to the destination link, then input type="submit" Not the best way, but it's what I figured out before I found this page.

I created a bower installable package out of @rmarscher's answer which can be found here:

http://github.com/stylr/iosweblinks

You can easily install the snippet with bower using bower install --save iosweblinks

For those using JQuery Mobile, the above solutions break popup dialog. This will keep links within webapp and allow for popups.

$(document).on('click','a', function (event) {
	if($(this).attr('href').indexOf('#') == 0) {
	    return true;
	}
    event.preventDefault();
	window.location = $(this).attr('href');		
});

Could also do it by:

$(document).on('click','a', function (event){
	if($(this).attr('data-rel') == 'popup'){
        return true;
	}
	event.preventDefault();
	window.location = $(this).attr('href');		
});
 

Here is what I'd use for all links on a page...

document.body.addEventListener(function(event) {
    if (event.target.href && event.target.target != "_blank") {
        event.preventDefault();
        window.location = this.href;                
    }
});

If you're using jQuery or Zepto...

$("body").on("click", "a", function(event) {
   event.target.target != "_blank" && (window.location = event.target.href);
});

You can simply remove this meta tag.

<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes">