A button in my WebView is used to go back using the history.back() JavaScript call. I do not understand much of JavaScript, but after a bit of searching I found that we can use the addJavascriptInterface() method of a WebView.

Now, I intend to finish my Activity when the button is clicked. I landed up having something of this sort:

public class MyActivity extends Activity {

private static final String sTag = MyActivity;



private WebView mWebContent;



@Override

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    setContentView(R.layout.browser_page);





    mWebContent = (WebView) findViewById(R.id.webContent);



    mWebContent.getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);

    mWebContent.getSettings().setJavaScriptCanOpenWindowsAutomatically(true);

    mWebContent.getSettings().setBuiltInZoomControls(true);

    mWebContent.addJavascriptInterface(new JavaScriptInterface(), history); //history.back();



    Bundle extras = getIntent().getExtras();



    if (extras != null) {

        mWebContent.loadUrl(extras.getString(URL));

    }

}



    public class JavaScriptInterface {

        JavaScriptInterface() {

        }



    public void back() {

        Log.v(sTag, back pressed);

        MyActivity.this.finish();

    }

}

}

But unfortunately when the button is pressed the Activity doesn't finish, neither do I get anything in the Log.

Here is the html for the button :

<a href=javascript:void(0);>

   <img src=images/btn-go-back.png onClick=history.back(); border=0 />

</a>

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance.

Edit : Just wanted to clear the fact that changing the html is not an option for me. I have no power over the the html code :). I have to handle it in the application.

Edit: Tried changing history.back() to window.history.back() (locally), still no change.

Edit : I was experimenting by locally loading html conent and found out that if I change history.back() to say something like android_app.back() and register my JavaScriptInterface by the nameandroid_app it works fine. Why is that? Does that mean that we can't use history to register an interface? Does the developer docs mention this?