Open url

Hello!
Does anyone understood how to simply open an url in a new tab (or at least in the same tab)?
I'm looking for a solution by 1 year, and none of the solutions I've found on the web seem to work.

This solution
http://va.lent.in/opening-links-in-a-unity-webgl-project/
for me, on Chrome, it just download the webpage, and on IE it simply do nothing like with Chrome on mobile.

Any help and tip is much appreciated!
Thank-you!

Daniele

 

Let me bump this again as I can't believe this is not covered in a simple way by Unity.
Any reason there is not an OpenURL equivalent for webgl or at least an example? (the docs fail to mention webgl for Application.OpenURL BTW).
Used to be ExternEval to call JS in page but depreceated - why and what replacement?

 

c# (in your code)

Code (CSharp):

1.     [DllImport("__Internal")]
2.     public static extern void OpenMyUrl(string str);
3. //....
4. void myvoid()
5. {
6.     OpenMyUrl("google.com");
7. }
8.  

OpenMyUrl.jslib: (in Assets/Plugins folder)

Code (JavaScript):

1. var OpenMyUrlPlugin = {
2.   OpenMyUrl: function(str) {
3.       var url = Pointer_stringify(str);
4.       window.open(url, '_blank');
5.   }
6. };
7. mergeInto(LibraryManager.library, OpenMyUrlPlugin);

 

Yes it should be do-able like that but if you do that in response to a UI click (even pointer up) the browser just thinks you created a popup & blocks

 

I use this little snippet to open URLs, it's similar to the above but is not treated as a popup because it fires on a user input event. Allows you to open a URL either by key press or mouse press. Of course you'd have to clean it up if you've already got events registered for onmouseup or onkeyup.

Code (csharp):

1.     OpenUrl: function(urlPtr)
2.     {
3.         var url = Pointer_stringify(urlPtr);
4.         document.onmouseup = function()
5.         {
6.             window.open(url, "_blank", "");
7.             document.onkeyup = null;
8.             document.onmouseup = null;
9.         }
10.         document.onkeyup = function()
11.         {
12.             window.open(url, "_blank", "");
13.             document.onkeyup = null;
14.             document.onmouseup = null;
15.         }      
16.     },

 

Well that works - but only after second click if I call it on unity button click, so still not quite there for me!

 

This is best solution I have come up with as a variant on the above - keep an onmouseup function active but set relevant url on mouse down on a Unity button to have it actually go somewhere (when button released)

Code (JavaScript):

1. var URLPlugin = {
2.    
3.     InitURLOpening: function() {
4.         url = "none";
5.         document.onmouseup = function()
6.         {
7.             if (url != "none") window.open(url, "_blank", "");
8.             url = "none";
9.         }
10.     },
11.  
12.     SetOpenURL: function(str)
13.     {
14.         url = Pointer_stringify(str);
15.     },
16.    
17. };
18. mergeInto(LibraryManager.library, URLPlugin);

 

Why set URL on mouse down? why not call OpenURL on mouse down with url inside parameter?
On mouse up it will run anyway correct

 

The way I understand it (not being a js web dev) is most browsers block opening new URLs without it being in response to a click or mouse event. Combined with Unity's UI message timing it means you can not just make something open right away, you have to delay it to be in response to something e.g. mouse up after an init on unity mouse down.
If a unity dev could confirm (& perhaps also let us know why no easy solution built in to easily handle such things - opening URLs, file dialogs etc) it would be good!

 

I implemented

Code (CSharp):

1. var OpenMyUrlPlugin = {
2.    OpenUrl: function(urlPtr)
3.     {
4.         var url = Pointer_stringify(urlPtr);
5.         document.onmouseup = function()
6.         {
7.             window.open(url, "_blank", "");
8.             document.onmouseup = null;
9.         }
10.     },
11. };
12. mergeInto(LibraryManager.library, OpenMyUrlPlugin);

And in Unity i call the OpenUrl function using Unity Event OnPointerDown on a UI button.
So the onmouseup gets activated on pressing down, and will open the url on mouse up.

Its not perfect because after pressing down on a button, the user can move the mouse around without lifting finger off the mouse, but that's a nonissue really.

 

yes my js was not the best - that's the way to do it

 

This implementation actually works, but for mobile devices not working when press button nothing happens until you click in somewere of the browser window

 

@danielesuppo I have a free asset that does this https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/integration/launchurlwebgl-185980 . But please be aware that currently doing this on mobile safari has issues.

@jukka_j Application.OpenURL is working just fine on WebGL. But it always opens on the same tab. It would be nice if there was an alternative version to open on new tabs.

 

Code (JavaScript):

1. window.open(url);

without parameters also open a new tab btw.

 

@jukka_j Opening on a new tab is what makes sense I think. You always want to go back to the experience. If the user wants to exit the game, he can close the tab himself, but visiting a link should never stop the game.

 

Thank you for the info! don't know that about Pointer_stringify(), and for Application.OpenURL() actually works but its deprecated and i supposed will be removed in the future?.

And for mobile devices yes!, i tried it using "ontouchend" and for pc "onmouseup" and works nicely!, if this helps someone else only add an event trigger OnPointerDown and call this function in your UI.Button

Code (JavaScript):

1. var OpenWindowPlugin = {
2.   openWindow: function(link)
3.   {
4.       var url = UTF8ToString(link);
5.       document.onmouseup = function()
6.       {
7.           window.open(url);
8.           document.onmouseup = null;
9.       }
10.       var url = UTF8ToString(link);
11.       document.ontouchend = function()
12.       {
13.           window.open(url);
14.           document.ontouchend = null;
15.       }
16.   }
17. };
18. mergeInto(LibraryManager.library, OpenWindowPlugin);

 

This would make sense to us too as it's a good use case for WebGL and the current workaround feels hacky

For a while I was using this code in a file called OpenURL.jslib in Plugins > WebGL marked for WebGL and it worked fine for a while:

Code (CSharp):

1. mergeInto(LibraryManager.library, {
2. OpenURLInTab: function (url) {
3. window.open(url, '_blank').focus();
4. }
5. });

Until one day, it randomly stopped working, perhaps a Unity bug that it even worked in the first place.
So now we are using:

Code (CSharp):

1. mergeInto(LibraryManager.library, {
2. OpenURLInTab: function (url) {
3. var fullUrl = Pointer_stringify(url);
4. console.log(fullUrl);
5. window.open(fullUrl, '_blank').focus();
6. }
7. });

 

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/integration/launchurlwebgl-185980#description