I have an HTML project (CSS/JS/jQuery) that I'd like to test on an iPad (in Safari). From what I've read, iOS browsers don't support the file:///path/to/project protocol, and even if it did, I don't believe that you'd be able to navigate the file system to where your project is located.

Please correct me on any of this information if I'm wrong, I'm an Android guy so much of this is new to me. Nonetheless, I tried to use an app called Fileapp to solve my problem. I was able to access and load my project, but it was within Fileapp's native browser, and not Safari (unless it actually WAS Safari and it was just masked).

Does anybody know of a solution to my problem (preferably free)?

I have an HTML project (CSS/JS/jQuery) that I'd like to test on an iPad (in Safari). From what I've read, iOS browsers don't support the file:///path/to/project protocol, and even if it did, I don't believe that you'd be able to navigate the file system to where your project is located.

Please correct me on any of this information if I'm wrong, I'm an Android guy so much of this is new to me. Nonetheless, I tried to use an app called Fileapp to solve my problem. I was able to access and load my project, but it was within Fileapp's native browser, and not Safari (unless it actually WAS Safari and it was just masked).

Does anybody know of a solution to my problem (preferably free)?

• javascript
• html
• ipad
• safari

• Do you have no option for hosting the project, even on your local area network? – saluce Commented Jun 15, 2012 at 13:48
• 3 Set up an Apache server on your local network and connect directly to it. – Ry- ♦ Commented Jun 15, 2012 at 13:48
• Does your site have have server side code that needs to be run? – trumpetlicks Commented Jun 15, 2012 at 13:49
• This might be slightly off-topic for Stack Overflow. You could also try Super User. – Cᴏʀʏ Commented Jun 15, 2012 at 13:49
• 1 @Cory I think that it's appropriate for SO given that OP is clearly asking about testing locally and/or in a dev environment. – Brian Driscoll Commented Jun 15, 2012 at 13:50

4 Answers 4

2016 UPDATE:

There are several services which now make this easy. If you don't have your own web server check out one of these free services which make updating a live webpage from your PC easy:

Heroku

Git Pages

Both of these services require using git, learn it, you won't regret it.

Days of FTPing or using Dropbox to serve html to an iPad are long gone.

If you need to be able to do this while not connected to the internet check out this article on using local IP tunneling. This would essentially open up the localhost on your PC to be viewed by anyone on a wifi network, regardless of if the wifi was actually connected to the Internet.

http://wesbos./localhost-mobile-device-testing/

I prefer Heroku as I am more likely to be switching between locations and PC's than I am to be on a wifi network without an Internet connection.

OLD ANSWER 2012

Get a Dropbox account and put the project in your public folder.

Right click to get the public link and then browse to that location on your iPad.

When I get link from the iPad app it doesn't work it just shows the raw html with a URL structure like so

dropbox./s/...

When I go to the website and copy public link (only available if the file is in PUBLIC FOLDER) I get the link that actually works.

Apache probably isn't the most convenient webserver to use for this kind of ad-hoc serving of a local project. Instead, if you're on Mac or on a Linux distribution that has Python installed (which is most of them), you can launch a webserver to serve your current working directory at the terminal with a one-liner:

python -m SimpleHTTPServer

By default it will serve on port 8000; you can specify another port by passing it as a final argument to the mand.

To connect to this server from another device, like your iPad or phone, first of all you'll need to make sure your phone is connected to the same local network as your Mac or Linux PC. Then, on the puter, run

ifconfig

and look through the output for your local IP address, which will be labelled as inet addr in the output and listed under one of the connections other than "Local Loopback". On my current PC, I see inet addr:192.168.0.3 listed under the wlan0 connection.

Now, on your phone, open your browser of choice and navigate to the IP address you got from ifconfig on whatever port SimpleHTTPServer is serving on. For example, http://192.168.0.3:8000. You'll be presented with a directory listing corresponding to the directory in which you launched the server, and from there you can view whatever files you're interested in.

The answer to your question is that even with iPadOS the iPad is not a replacement for a Windows, Linux, or Mac. Still too many “can’t get there from here” cases.

One solution to the problem, as pointed out by minitech in the ments of the original questions, was to set up an apache server on my local network and connect directly to it. This worked exactly as I needed it to.