Tracking url of external site launched in cordova-inappbrowser-plugin - ionic-framework

Question

I'm currently building an ionic app which is to be a wrapper for an external web application. What I want to do is to be able to track the url being redirected to when the user changes location in the external web app.
In my main controller I have the following code.
app.controller('MainCtrl', function ($rootScope) {
document.addEventListener("deviceready", onDeviceReady, false);
function onDeviceReady() {
// Now safe to use the Codova API
var url = "https://external-site/";
var target = "_self";
var options = "location=no";
var ref = cordova.InAppBrowser.open(url, target, options);
ref.addEventListener('loadstart', function () {
console.log("loadstart");
});
}
});
When the page loads I don't get the event listener to fire or when the user changes locations in the external site. I have tried pointing the target to _system and _blank which makes no difference for me.
Can anybody help me?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

It's my experience that all the events not always fires on all platforms. Try subscribing to all the events and print some debug info. Then test on different devices (iOS, android) and see what events are fired.
$rootScope.$on('$cordovaInAppBrowser:loadstart', function(e, event){console.log('start')};
$rootScope.$on('$cordovaInAppBrowser:loadstop', function(e, event){console.log('stop')});
$rootScope.$on('$cordovaInAppBrowser:loaderror', function(e, event){console.log('err')});
$rootScope.$on('$cordovaInAppBrowser:exit', function(e, event){console.log('exit')});
btw: I'm using ngCordova here...

Answer 2

very strange.. all I did was update ionic, run 'ionic start test blank' add the plugin modify app.js to this
angular.module('starter', ['ionic'])
.run(function ($ionicPlatform) {
$ionicPlatform.ready(function () {
if (window.cordova && window.cordova.plugins.Keyboard) {
var inAppBrowserRef;
var target = "_self";
var options = "location=no";
inAppBrowserRef = cordova.InAppBrowser.open('https://onesignal.com/', target, options);
inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('loadstart', function () { console.log('start') });
inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('loadstop', function () { console.log('stop') });
inAppBrowserRef.addEventListener('loaderror', function () { console.log('err') });
}
});
})
and then run 'ionic run android' and all events fires perf.