Embed a native web engine in Compose with one API across Android, iOS, web, and desktop.

The WebView library embeds each platform's native web engine in Compose. You write against WebView, WebViewState, and WebViewNavigator once; the library binds to Android WebView, WKWebView, WebView2, WebKit2GTK, or an iframe underneath.

The public API and the Android/iOS implementations follow compose-webview-multiplatform. ComposeNativeWebView adds a WasmJs target and a desktop path on the Tao NativeView stack.

Separate repository — versioned independently

WebView ships from NucleusFramework/ComposeNativeWebview with its own release cycle, like the system tray and the PDF reader. Its version number is independent of Nucleus — pin it separately. The artifact is dev.nucleusframework:composewebview, published to Maven Central.

Latest release: 1.0.1

One API instead of one per platform

Platform	Native web engine
Android	`android.webkit.WebView`
iOS	WKWebView
WasmJs	`HTMLIFrameElement`
Desktop (Linux)	WebKit2GTK via Tao `NativeView`
Desktop (macOS)	WKWebView via Tao `NativeView`
Desktop (Windows)	WebView2 CompositionController via Tao `NativeView`

Without a shared layer, a multiplatform app integrates and maintains each engine separately. ComposeNativeWebView replaces that with a single Compose surface and the same navigation, cookie, and JavaScript model on every target.

Add the dependency

build.gradle.kts

kotlin {
    sourceSets {
        commonMain.dependencies {
            implementation("dev.nucleusframework:composewebview:1.0.1")
        }
    }
}

The same artifact covers Android, iOS, Desktop (JVM), and WasmJs.

Show a page

Hoist a WebViewState and drop WebView into your layout:

import androidx.compose.foundation.layout.fillMaxSize
import androidx.compose.runtime.Composable
import androidx.compose.ui.Modifier
import dev.nucleusframework.webview.web.WebView
import dev.nucleusframework.webview.web.rememberWebViewState

@Composable
fun HelloWeb() {
    val state = rememberWebViewState("https://example.com")
    WebView(state = state, modifier = Modifier.fillMaxSize()) {
        // Optional Compose overlay on top of the native surface
    }
}

The trailing content lambda draws Compose UI over the embedded engine — the same role as the content slot on Tao NativeView.

Supported targets

Target	Backend
Android	`android.webkit.WebView`
iOS	WKWebView
WasmJs	IFrame
JVM desktop	Tao + platform native library

Desktop requires a Nucleus Tao window (nucleusApplication and decorated-window-tao). Windows also needs the WebView2 Runtime (or Edge). Native libraries ship inside the artifact under nucleus/native/….

What the library covers

Content loading: URL (with headers), inline HTML, and HTML from app resources.
Navigation: back, forward, reload, stop, with canGoBack / canGoForward as Compose state.
Observable state: isLoading, loadingState, lastLoadedUrl, pageTitle, and per-request errors.
A unified cookie manager across platforms.
evaluateJavaScript and a callback-based JS ↔ Kotlin bridge (window.kmpJsBridge).
A RequestInterceptor for navigator-initiated main-frame navigations.

Limitations

RequestInterceptor does not intercept sub-resources (images, XHR, scripts).
Desktop needs the Tao backend; the library does not embed a browser on the AWT path.
WasmJs: history back/forward is unavailable in the iframe; CORS must allow embedding; JavaScript runs only on the same origin; cookies apply only when the iframe destination matches the parent origin.

What's next

Getting started — load URLs and HTML, navigate, evaluate JS, intercept requests.
API reference — every public type, its parameters, and defaults.
PDF reader — another Nucleus component shipped from its own repository.
Native views on Tao — the desktop embedding primitive used under the hood.

WebView