How NowSignage Handles Webpages
Technical guidance on how the NowSignage platform handles webpages.
The NowSignage application is designed to render webpages directly on the device or media player itself, utilising the internal browser technologies that are inherent to the specific hardware and operating system in use.
This approach ensures that the content is displayed efficiently and effectively, taking full advantage of the device's capabilities. The method by which these webpages are rendered is not uniform but rather varies depending on the platform being used. Each platform, whether it be Android, Windows, Mac, or others, has its own set of browser technologies and capabilities, which influence how the NowSignage app processes and displays the content.
This platform-specific rendering approach allows NowSignage to optimise performance and compatibility across a wide range of devices and operating systems, ensuring that users receive a seamless and high-quality viewing experience regardless of the hardware they are using.
Android Devices:
- NowSignage uses the Android WebView component to load webpages.
- Leverages the WebView browser pre-installed on the Android player, behaving similarly to loading the default Android browser.
- Webpage compatibility can vary based on the Android OS version — for example, an Android 7.1 device may use an outdated WebView, leading to potential rendering issues compared to newer Android versions.
Note for Android devices -
Within the Android app, webpages are rendered using the device’s WebView component, which is the standard method for displaying web content inside Android applications. WebView operates independently from any standalone browser on the device (such as Chrome), so testing a page in a browser is not a like-for-like comparison with how it will behave inside the NowSignage app.
In most cases, WebView is powered either by the Android System WebView component or by Chrome acting as the WebView provider. Because of this, the version of WebView on the device can directly impact how webpages are displayed within the app.
If the WebView component is outdated, it may cause compatibility issues, even if the same page works correctly in a standalone browser. To resolve this, we recommend ensuring that WebView is up to date and, where possible, switching the WebView provider (for example, to Chrome) to improve compatibility.
Windows, Mac, BrightSign, LG webOS, Samsung Tizen:
- NowSignage uses the Chromium browser engine to render webpages on these devices.
- The version of Chromium used depends on the maximum version supported by the hardware and OS.
- In these environments, webpages are rendered within an iFrame inside the NowSignage app. Some websites implement security headers (such as X-Frame-Options or Content-Security-Policy) that block rendering inside iFrames.
- When these restrictions are present, NowSignage cannot bypass them — the website itself must be configured to allow rendering within an iFrame for full compatibility.