How to add Activity Indicator to WKWebView (Swift 3)

Swift 5 Version

The concept is simple enough to be ported to earlier swift versions.

This is a class we would use as a parent class anywhere we want a webview.

import UIKit
import WebKit

class CustomWebViewController: UIViewController, WKNavigationDelegate {
    var activityIndicator: UIActivityIndicatorView!

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        activityIndicator = UIActivityIndicatorView()
        activityIndicator.center = self.view.center
        activityIndicator.hidesWhenStopped = true
        activityIndicator.style = .gray
        activityIndicator.isHidden = true

        view.addSubview(activityIndicator)
    }

    func webView(_ webView: WKWebView, didStartProvisionalNavigation navigation: WKNavigation!) {
        activityIndicator.isHidden = false
        activityIndicator.startAnimating()
    }

    func webView(_ webView: WKWebView, didFinish navigation: WKNavigation!) {
        activityIndicator.stopAnimating()
        activityIndicator.isHidden = true
    }
}

If we have a UIViewController with a webview, we can just inherit from CustomWebViewController and it will take care of the rest for us. Remember to connect the webview IBOutlet.

import UIKit
import WebKit

class FirstViewController: CustomWebViewController {

    @IBOutlet var webView: WKWebView!

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        webView.navigationDelegate = self

        let url = URL(string: "https://google.com")
        webView.load(URLRequest(url: url!))
    }
}

Please, below code which is working fine.

@IBOutlet weak var Activity: UIActivityIndicatorView!
var webView : WKWebView!
@IBOutlet var containerView: UIView? = nil

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    
    guard let url = URL(string: "http://www.facebook.com") else { return }
    webView = WKWebView(frame: self.view.frame)
    webView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
    webView.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
    self.view.addSubview(self.webView)
    let request = URLRequest(url: url)
    webView.load(request)
    
    // add activity
    self.webView.addSubview(self.Activity)
    self.Activity.startAnimating()
    self.webView.navigationDelegate = self
    self.Activity.hidesWhenStopped = true
    
}

Implement below these two delegate method:

func webView(_ webView: WKWebView, didFinish navigation: WKNavigation!) {
    Activity.stopAnimating()
}

func webView(_ webView: WKWebView, didFail navigation: WKNavigation!, withError error: Error) {
    Activity.stopAnimating()
}

Let me know if it is not working.

import UIKit
import WebKit

class ViewController: UIViewController, WKNavigationDelegate, WKUIDelegate {

    var webView: WKWebView!
    var activityIndicator: UIActivityIndicatorView!

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        webView = WKWebView(frame: CGRect.zero)
        webView.navigationDelegate = self
        webView.uiDelegate = self

        view.addSubview(webView)

        activityIndicator = UIActivityIndicatorView()
        activityIndicator.center = self.view.center
        activityIndicator.hidesWhenStopped = true
        activityIndicator.activityIndicatorViewStyle = UIActivityIndicatorViewStyle.gray

        view.addSubview(activityIndicator)

        webView.load(URLRequest(url: URL(string: "http://google.com")!))
    }

    func showActivityIndicator(show: Bool) {
        if show {
            activityIndicator.startAnimating()
        } else {
            activityIndicator.stopAnimating()
        }
    }

    func webView(_ webView: WKWebView, didFinish navigation: WKNavigation!) {
        showActivityIndicator(show: false)
    }

    func webView(_ webView: WKWebView, didStartProvisionalNavigation navigation: WKNavigation!) {
        showActivityIndicator(show: true)
    }

    func webView(_ webView: WKWebView, didFail navigation: WKNavigation!, withError error: Error) {
        showActivityIndicator(show: false)
    }
}