I seem to be doing something wrong with deep linking in my app. I have two activities: a post viewer which views posts on a site, and a profile viewer which views a users profile. Below is my code that I've set up following Google's guide to deep linking.
Profile Activity Manifest Declaration
<activity
android:name=".ui.activity.ProfileActivity"
android:parentActivityName=".ui.activity.MainActivity">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
<data
android:host="gab.ai"
android:pathPattern="/..*"
android:scheme="https" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
Post Viewer Activity Manifest Declaration
<activity
android:name=".ui.activity.PostViewerActivity"
android:parentActivityName=".ui.activity.MainActivity">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
<data
android:host="gab.ai"
android:pathPattern="/..*/posts/..*"
android:scheme="https" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
I've left out the intent handling code because it is redundant. The deep links work properly, except for a weird issue when opening URLs that direct to the post viewer activity.
This works perfectly. Tapping a link such as https://url/.. opens the dialog and lists only one option When selecting the app, it opens the proper activity perfectly.
Here's where it gets weird. When clicking a URL such as https://url/../posts/.. the Android System sees both activity deep links as feasible. My question is how do I get around this? Changing the URL scheme is out, and I'm not fluent enough about deep links to figure out a workaround.
In ProfileActivity android:pathPattern="/..*" equals to /..*/posts/..* because an asterisk ('*') matches a sequence of 0 to many occurrences of the immediately preceding character. Try to use escape character \ as explained in docs
Related
Here is an exemple of the link:
https://somelink.someotherlink.ws/path1/path2/path3/path4/dynamic_path1/dynamic_path2
<activity
android:name=".activite.Activity"
android:exported="true">
<tools:validation testUrl="https://somelink.someotherlink.ws/path1/path2/path3/path4/..*/..*/"/>
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
<data
android:scheme="https"
android:host="somelink.someotherlink.ws"
android:pathPattern="/path1/path2/path3/path4/..*/..*/" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
So here when I run the test from the android studio tool the url is resolving my activity and also launching it.
This also is working when clicking this url link from other apps
But only when it comes to web browser (Entering the link in the search bar and click enter or any other programatic redirection) the redirection not going to my app.
Ex:
https://somelink.someotherlink.ws/path1/path2/path3/path4/dynamic_path1/dynamic_path2
this is not getting resolved in anyway
I've also tried to use the two dot enforcement and single dot enforcement but getting same result.
Thanks for any help.
What I want to achieve is that if user tap on the link e.g. on Whatsapp:
HTTP://dev.mycompany.com/qr/asd89f7as98df78
This link will open my app supplied with the deep link.
But the issue is this link actually open my app inside the Whatsapp. So when I open the app switcher, it looks like there are two instances of my app opened. How can I fix this?
I suspect this has something to do with the way I configure my intent filter on Android Manifest. But I'm inexperienced with intent-filter. This is the current configuration for my intent filter(s):
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/>
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter android:autoVerify="true">
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
<data android:scheme="http" android:host="dev.mycompany.com" />
<data android:scheme="https" />
</intent-filter>
Is there anything I can do to fix the problem? The first intent filter is the default when I create the app. The second one is from copy pasting from solutions I find on stack overflow. But I don't think this is the fully correct solution. I don't want the app to can be opened as popup.
I've placed a deep link in my manifest using (I think) the format from the documentation
<activity
android:name="my.package.name.AInviteFriends"
android:label="#string/title_activity_a_invite_friends"
android:launchMode="singleTask"
android:theme="#style/AppTheme.NoActionBar">
<intent-filter android:label="#string/filter_view_invite_friends">
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
<data
android:scheme="my.package.name" /custom scheme I was told to use
android:host="companyurl.com"
android:pathPrefix="/invite_friends"
/>
</intent-filter>
</activity>
I then navigate to this URL from within the app, hoping for it to be intercepted and go to the activity. I'm not sure why we're using deep links instead of a normal intent, I think it's for tracking or something:
my.package.name://company.com/invite_friends
But when I try this, the browser opens with a Webpage not available/ERR_UNKNOWN_URL_SCHEME error. What am I missing about this intent?
I am not sure you can use an 'address-like' scheme.
I would start with a simple scheme, e.g 'mygreatapp' (the URI is mygreatapp://) and no host or pathPrefix.
See how it works for you and go from there
There is a perfect way to launch our android application through Deeplink.
<activity
android:name="com.example.android.GizmosActivity"
android:label="#string/title_gizmos" >
<intent-filter android:label="#string/filter_title_viewgizmos">
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
<data android:scheme="http"
android:host="www.example.com"
android:pathPrefix="/gizmos" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
Here, I can easily launch my application through “http://www.example.com/gizmos”, But my question comes when I am going to hit shorten URL of this link i.e. goo.gl/tNQpWe.
What could be the ways to launch my app through tiny/ shorten url too ?
Please suggest.
The short url will be redirecting to your server/domain and from there you do the same what "gizmos" did. Deep linking is basically a HTML page rendering some expected data by your android application (In your case android:host and android:pathPrefix)
You will need to create a basic html rendering the android schema if you need data to be passed. I would suggest you to follow Branch.io.
https://blog.branch.io/technical-guide-to-deep-linking-on-android-chrome-intents
I've been trying to use deep linking from a website I own to a resource inside my app. I've been reading about how things has evolved with deep linking in Android, particularly Paul Kinlan's blog post which seems to be the most recent explanation on how things should work.
I also have read this discussion on why custom scheme is a bad practice and should not be used, which made sense.
Now I decided to use the #intent link in my website to open the resource in the app when user taps on the link. For this, I used a link like this:
intent:#Intent;package=com.example.project;component=com.example.project/.ui.ActivityWithResource;i.res_id=80;end
But when I click on it, nothing happens, and I see this in the logs:
chromium: [INFO:CONSOLE(0)] "Navigation is blocked: intent:#Intent;package=com.example.project;component=com.example.project/.ui.ActivityWithResource;i.res_id=80;end", source: http://example.com/?res_id=80 (0)
I then read about this on Chrome documentation, which interestingly, their example was using a custom scheme, contrary to what they had argued before should not be done!
Now if I add the HTTP scheme to my intent link, like this:
intent://example.com/?res_id=80#Intent;scheme=http;package=com.example.project;component=com.example.project/.ui.ActivityWithResource;end
Then it works, because the activity has the intent-filter to handle the urls like http://example.com/, but why when I specify the component, it doesn't work?
Also, when I use HTTP scheme in my intent, in shows activity resolver (except android 6.0 as I do use auto-verify), but I assume if I can get my explicit intent link to work, it should directly open the resource in the app, as I already have defined the component in the intent link. right?
Maybe the only way is to use custom scheme after all?
Thanks
P.S: Here is the activity definition in my AndroidManifest. I wasn't sure if it requires android:pathPrefix to work or not, so I added both intent-filters
<activity
android:name=".ui.ActivityWithResource"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:exported="true"
android:screenOrientation="portrait">
<intent-filter android:autoVerify="true">
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
<data android:scheme="http" android:host="example.com" android:pathPrefix="/"/>
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter android:autoVerify="true">
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
<data android:scheme="http" android:host="example.com"/>
</intent-filter>
</activity>