Submit form with POST data in Android app
- by datguywhowanders
I've been searching the web for a way to do this for about a week now, and I just can't seem to figure it out.
I'm trying to implement an app that my college can use to allow users to log in to various services on the campus with ease. The way it works currently is they go to an online portal, select which service they want, fill in their user name and pwd, and click login. The form data is sent via post (it includes several hidden values as well as just the user name and pwd) to the corresponding login script which then signs them in and loads the service.
I've been trying to come at the problem in two ways. I first tried a WebView, but it doesn't seem to want to support all of the html that normally makes this form work. I get all of the elements I need, fields for user and pwd as well as a login button, but clicking the button doesn't do anything. I wondered if I needed to add an onclick handler for it, but I can't see how as the button is implemented in the html of the webview not using a separate android element.
The other possibility was using the xml widgets to create the form in a nice relative layout, which seems to load faster and looks better on the android screen. I used EditText fields for the input, a spinner widget for the service select, and the button widget for the login. I know how to make the onclick and item select handlers for the button and spinner, respectively, but I can't figure out how to send that data via POST in an intent that would then launch a browser. I can do an intent with the action url, but can't get the POST data to feed into it.
Anyone have any suggestions?