URL Browser

A lightweight Android app to quickly open and browse website URLs with a simple, modern UI, built using Kotlin, MVVM, and WebView.

Features

• Enter any website URL and open it in an in-app WebView.

• URL validation with meaningful error messages for invalid or empty input.

• Loading indicator that reflects real-time page load progress.

• Displays the currently loaded URL in the WebView toolbar.

• Automatically saves visited URLs into a local history list.

• Dedicated History screen to view and manage previously visited URLs.

• Option to clear all browsing history from local storage.

• Option to upload browsing history to a mock REST API (Beeceptor endpoint).

• Smooth navigation between Home, WebView, and History screens.

Tech Stack

• Language: Kotlin

• Architecture: MVVM (ViewModel + LiveData)

• UI: XML layouts, Material Components, ViewBinding

• Navigation: Jetpack Navigation Component

• Storage: Room Database for URL history

• Networking: Retrofit + Gson (Beeceptor mock API)

• Web: Android WebView

• Async: Kotlin Coroutines (viewModelScope)

Screens Overview

Home Screen

• Carousel banner at the top using ViewPager2 and dots indicator.

• Text input field to enter a website URL with inline error handling.

• “Open” button to navigate to the WebView screen with the validated URL.

• Toolbar action to navigate to the History screen.

WebView Screen

• Displays the current URL in a toolbar.

• In-app WebView with JavaScript and DOM storage enabled.

• Progress bar showing page loading progress.

• Back button: returns to Home while retaining the last opened URL in the input field.

• Close button: returns to Home and clears the URL input field.

History Screen

• RecyclerView listing all previously visited URLs with their timestamps.

• Empty state when no history exists.

• Action to clear all saved history from the local Room database.

• Action to upload the complete history list to a Beeceptor mock API endpoint.

How It Works (Architecture)

• MVVM:

  • ViewModels (HomeViewModel, WebViewViewModel, HistoryViewModel) expose LiveData for UI state.

  • Fragments observe these LiveData objects and update the UI reactively.

• Room:

  • UrlHistoryEntity represents each visited URL and its timestamp.

  • UrlHistoryDao provides methods to insert, query, and clear history.

  • UrlHistoryDatabase exposes a singleton Room database instance.

• Repository:

  • UrlRepository abstracts access to Room and provides a clean API to ViewModels.

• Networking:

  • ApiService defines the uploadHistory endpoint for history upload.

  • RetrofitClient configures Retrofit with the Beeceptor base URL.

  • History is uploaded as a list of URL items in a single POST request.

• Validation:

  • UrlValidator validates and normalizes URLs (e.g., auto-adding https:// when missing).

  • Returns a sealed ValidationResult with either the formatted URL or an error message.