Embedding content in Bolt
Written by Benji Weiser
Updated at June 7th, 2024
Table of Contents
Overview
Bolt apps embed all sorts of content from polls, comments and videos to your own content that's hosted elsewhere. HTML content in apps are displayed inside a webview, like all of our content.
Embedding external websites in Bolt content
If you wish to embed your website within your Bolt app, usually as their own tabs or linked from the settings page, you should only use single page applications (SPAs).
Navigating an entire website within an iframe or webview is an unreliable experience, and the ability to navigate around will be entirely reliant on the UX of that page. There are no forward or back buttons, for example.
As Bolt attempts to handle links gracefully to, amongst other things, enable deeplinking from page-to-page, embedded content that uses an external domain will usually end up with the resulting link opening in the in-app browser. To avoid this, interactivity within iframes should be achieved using JS, rather than opening new links. This ensures any changes that happen will occur within the iframe itself and provide a consistent experience for the user.
For more information on SPAs, including examples, check out this article from Adobe.
Embed options
We have 3 options for embedding content in your Bolt app
- As a managed or unmanaged webview tab - accessible via the bottom tab bar in your app
- As an iframe card - accessible within a timeline anywhere in your app
- Within content
We have a further document on security and third party embeds.