angularjs - Post a form in a new window / inAppBrowser in Ionic (Cordova)

Question

I want to submit a checkout form to an external url, that should open a new window with the result, but I can't make my app to open it nor in a separate window, nor using the in app browser.

What I've done until now is to create a directive with the form inside, and from linker function, call the submit element at some point.

When I'm running in browser, this opens a new window (like I want). The problem appears when running on device, because it just REPLACES the content of my view with the new content WITHOUT OPENING an external window.

So, the question is... when running on device, how can I post this form opening a new window (navigator) or in-app-browser, and show there the results?

Thanks!!

Answer 1

Well, it has been complex to figure it out, but at the end the solution is "quite" simple. I'll post it here to help any other people facing the same problem. If anyone has a more elegant solution, it will be welcomed.

What I ended doing is to:

1. Open the new window with my own template with angular and my form.
2. In the new window controller, create a callback function in the global window object
3. From the old window, after the loadstop event, execute that callback
4. The posted form in the new window, redirects to the destination page (that is what I wanted to).

Here's the code (Observe that I'm using a directive with the form, so I can control when to submit it, from link function, and that data is shared with the directive through a service) :

angular.module('starter', ['ionic'])


.constant('cartData', {
        redirectUrl: 'https://test.mycart.com/hpp/pay.shtml',
        redirectMethod: 'POST',
        redirectData: {
                'formParam1': 'value1',
                'formPara2': 'value2'
            }
    }
)


.controller('InitCtrl', function($cordovaInAppBrowser, $scope, cartData) {
     
    $scope.openView = function(){
    
        var counter = 0;
        if(ionic.Platform.isWebView()){

            $ionicPlatform.ready(function() {                    
                //this is the cordova in app web view
                var ref = $cordovaInAppBrowser.open('payment.html', '_blank', {location:'yes'});

                $rootScope.$on('$cordovaInAppBrowser:loadstop', function(e, event){
                    if(counter < 1){
                        //prevent the callback to be called several times
                        $cordovaInAppBrowser.executeScript({
                            code: 'window.paymentCallback('+ angular.toJson(cartData) +');'
                        });
                        counter++;
                    }
                });
            });
        }
    };
    
})




//and then in payment.js


window.paymentCallback = null;

angular.module('payment', [])


.directive('autoSubmitForm', ['$timeout', 'autoSubmitFormDelegate', function($timeout, autoSubmitFormDelegate) {
    return {
        replace: true,
        scope: {},
        template: '<form action="{{formData.redirectUrl}}" method="{{formData.redirectMethod}}">'+
                      '<div ng-repeat="(key,val) in formData.redirectData">'+
                           '<input type="hidden" name="{{key}}" value="{{val}}" />'+
                      '</div>'+
                  '</form>',
        link: function($scope, element, $attrs) {
            
            autoSubmitFormDelegate.submitCallback = function(data) {
                $scope.formData = data;
                $timeout(function() {
                    element[0].submit();
                });
             };
        }
    }
}])

.factory('autoSubmitFormDelegate', function(){
    var delegate = {};
    
    delegate.submitCallback = null;
    
    delegate.submitForm = function(data){
        if(delegate.submitCallback){
            delegate.submitCallback(data);
        }
    }
    
    return delegate;
})

.controller('PaymentCtrl', function($scope, $timeout, $window, $sce, autoSubmitFormDelegate){


    $window.paymentCallback = function(data){
        console.log("callback called");
        data.redirectUrl = $sce.trustAsResourceUrl(data.redirectUrl);    
        $timeout(function(){
            autoSubmitFormDelegate.submitForm(data);
        });
    };
    
})

<link href="http://code.ionicframework.com/1.1.1/css/ionic.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
<script src="http://code.ionicframework.com/1.1.1/js/ionic.bundle.min.js"></script>


<body ng-app="starter">

  <ion-view view-title="Init">
  <ion-content>
    <h1>Init</h1>
      <button class="button button-positive" ng-click="openView()">Open new view</button>
  </ion-content>
</ion-view>
  
</body>



<script type="text/ng-template" id="payment.html">

<html>
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1, user-scalable=no, width=device-width">
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Security-Policy" content="default-src *; style-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline'; script-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline' 'unsafe-eval'">
    <title></title>

    <script src="../lib/angular/angular.min.js"></script>
    <script src="../js/payment.js"></script>
  </head>

  <body ng-app="payment" ng-controller="PaymentCtrl">
    <auto-submit-form></auto-submit-form>
  </body>
</html>

</script>