Creative Ways to Use the WebView Plugin

The WebView Plugin is one of the most versatile plugins to use in the system and opens up a world of possibilities.

Tim Tietz avatar
Written by Tim Tietz
Updated over a week ago

The WebView plugin in the BuildFire repository is considered by many as the most versatile plugin available. This is because it allows you to provide your users with a seamless in-app experience, while also enabling you to link to external online content, including web pages, documents, food ordering, shopping carts, and virtually anything else. With this plugin, users can easily tap on a link within your app to view the external content, and then return to your app by simply tapping the back button. This provides a seamless experience for users and ensures that they can navigate between your app and external content with ease.

While the possibilities are endless, here are a few ideas to get you started.

Using the WebView Plugin to Push Out Information

By pushing out information, you are granting your users greater access to information beyond the confines of the app. This provides them with the ability to conveniently access your website, peruse your blog, and explore your online store with just one tap. The WebView Plugin enables you to effortlessly direct traffic to any external link that you desire. There are three primary ways in which we have observed this being done:

Send them to your website

To ensure that your app and website work together cohesively instead of competing against one another, it's important to create a synergistic relationship between the two. One effective method for directing traffic to your website is by incorporating a plugin that links directly to it within your app. To achieve this, you can create a WebView Plugin and name it "Website" (or anything else you prefer) and then add the plugin instance to both in the app and Side Menu. This will allow your users to easily access your website at any time they wish.

Share a document

Depending on your industry, you may wish to provide your users with access to your menu, employee training guide, or presentation PDFs. Achieving this is easy; you can create a WebView Plugin and then insert a link directly to a website that features the content, or upload the content to Dropbox and then link to it. To learn more about linking PDFs via Dropbox, please refer to our guide titled "How to Use Dropbox with the WebView Plugin".

Direct them to your online store

If your online store is already optimized for mobile devices, we strongly recommend that you include it in your app. If it is not, there are some popular alternatives that our Builders have integrated successfully. All you need to do is sign up for one of these platforms, build your store, and then copy and paste the link into your WebView plugin instance!

Using the WebView Plugin to Pull In Information

When you pull in information, you guide your users toward a specific action that you'd like them to take. This could include filling out a survey, paying membership fees, scheduling a meeting, or making a reservation.

Gather data

If you want to collect customer feedback by asking them to fill out a satisfaction survey, you can leverage the power of push notifications to quickly inform your users about the newly uploaded survey. This enables you to obtain results in a timely fashion. To facilitate this, you can either use the JotForm plugin or insert a Google Form. To learn how to do this, please refer to our guide.

Collect payments

If you require your users to make payments for activities such as paying membership fees, making donations, registering for an event or conference, or signing up for a retreat, you can easily incorporate a link to a mobile-responsive payments platform. This will enable your users to make payments seamlessly from within your app.

Schedule a meeting

If you're a real estate agent, marketing agency, motivational speaker, or work in an industry that involves meeting with a lot of people, it's a good idea to integrate a scheduling platform into your app. This can help streamline the scheduling process and make it more efficient. We recommend trying out scheduling tools such as Calendly to facilitate this.

Make reservations

If you already have a website dedicated to accepting reservations for your restaurant, you can easily include it in the WebView plugin instance. Alternatively, you can consider using a popular reservation management platform such as Free Booking, which many of our users have found to be useful.

Remember, the WebView plugin is incredibly versatile, and this article has only scratched the surface of what it can do. Take inspiration from the examples provided and tailor them to suit your unique needs and goals.

What are some related articles?

Here are some related articles that we recommend checking out to gain a better understanding of how to make the most of the system:


If you have any questions, please reach out to Support@BuildFire.com and we would be happy to further assist you!

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