Android WebView inside ScrollView scrolls only scrollview

The solution provided by @panos works but it still has issues when used with ScrollView. The following enhanced version overcomes that problem.

public class TouchyWebView extends WebView {

    public TouchyWebView(Context context) {
        super(context);
    }

    public TouchyWebView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);
    }

    public TouchyWebView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle) {
        super(context, attrs, defStyle);
    }

     @Override
     public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
         //Check is required to prevent crash
         if (MotionEventCompat.findPointerIndex(event, 0) == -1) {
         return super.onTouchEvent(event);
         }

         if (event.getPointerCount() >= 2) {
             requestDisallowInterceptTouchEvent(true);
         } else {
             requestDisallowInterceptTouchEvent(false);
         }

         return super.onTouchEvent(event);
    }

    @Override
    protected void onOverScrolled(int scrollX, int scrollY, boolean clampedX, boolean clampedY) {
        super.onOverScrolled(scrollX, scrollY, clampedX, clampedY);
        requestDisallowInterceptTouchEvent(true);
    }

}

Additionally, you might want to have the following settings for your TouchyWebView.

mWebView.getSettings().setLoadWithOverviewMode(true);
mWebView.getSettings().setUseWideViewPort(true);
mWebView.getSettings().setSupportZoom(true);
mWebView.getSettings().setBuiltInZoomControls(true);

Here is the solution. Found online. I have subclassed WebView and i'm using the requestDisallowInterceptTouchEvent(true); method to allow my webview to handle the scroll event.

TouchyWebView.java

package com.mypackage.common.custom.android.widgets

public class TouchyWebView extends WebView {

    public TouchyWebView(Context context) {
        super(context);
    }

    public TouchyWebView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);
    }

    public TouchyWebView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle) {
        super(context, attrs, defStyle);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event){
        requestDisallowInterceptTouchEvent(true);
        return super.onTouchEvent(event);
    }          
}

And in layout.xml

<com.mypackage.common.custom.android.widgets.TouchyWebView 
                android:id="@+id/description_web"
                android:layout_width="match_parent"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                 />

Panos solution is sufficient for me with one exception... My fixed-height (200dp) WebView may be empty or may have loaded lot of content. So it may be or may be not scrollable "itself". Panos solution is consuming MotionEvents always, so when WebView is empty and user touch WebView and try to scroll then WebView will not scroll (because there is no content) and scrollable parent also, cause WebView "swallows" MotionEvent - so nothing happens. I've added small if statement for expected behaviour:

@Override
public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
    if(computeVerticalScrollRange() > getMeasuredHeight())
        requestDisallowInterceptTouchEvent(true);
    return super.onTouchEvent(event);
}
  • when WebView is empty and not-vertical-scrollable then computeVerticalScrollRange() == getMeasuredHeight()
  • when WebView have content longer than its height (is scrollable) then computeVerticalScrollRange() > getMeasuredHeight()