WebView Challenges in Android: Blank Pages, Inconsistent Style Updates, and Choppy Animations

Android's WebView can occasionally encounter issues with displaying content correctly. Users may experience blank pages, inconsistent CSS updates, and choppy animations. The root of these problems can stem from various factors, including hardware acceleration and redrawing.

Causes and Solutions

• Hardware Acceleration: Enable hardware acceleration by adding android:hardwareAccelerated="true" to the application in the AndroidManifest.xml file. This can improve performance by utilizing the device's GPU for rendering.
• Redrawing: Utilize the invalidate() method in a custom WebView class to force redrawing of the view. However, this must be used cautiously as it can drain battery.

Extended WebView Class

In the provided solution, the CordovaWebView class is extended to the MyWebView class that overrides the onDraw method. Within this method, invalidate() is called continuously, causing the WebView to redraw constantly. However, note that this may be exhaustive to the battery.

Cordova Customization

If using Cordova, replace the default WebView instance with the custom MyWebView in the init() method of the MainActivity.

Additional Component

It's been observed that CrossWalk, an alternative to WebView, provides a more stable and efficient rendering experience. It incorporates the latest Chromium engine and is recommended for enhanced WebView functionality.

Additional Notes

If the above solutions do not resolve the issues, users are encouraged to provide details regarding their specific circumstances and observed behavior of the WebView. Additionally, this answer has been marked as a "community wiki" for collaborative improvements and optimizations.