I really can't find anything for this, maybe I'm using the wrong keywords. Hope you can help anyway.
I developed an application which has the task to navigate a website in a easy way from mobile, but now I want it to be recognised outside from other applications as default for certain links. For example:
An email arrives from this website on your phone, when you click on the link in it, which rediricts to a page on that website, I want that the OS asks me to choose which application I want to use, in this case Google Chrome or my application.
Only thing I was able to do was to make it open YouTube links with the YouTube application externally, not viceversa from outside
Thanks fot the help and the idea, this is how i made it work:
Manifest.xml
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
<data
android:host="www.mywebsite"
android:scheme="https"
/>
Mainactivity.java (inside OnCreate)
WebView myWebView = (WebView) findViewById(R.id.webView);
Intent intent = getIntent();
Uri data = intent.getData();
if (data!=null) {
myWebView.loadUrl(String.valueOf(data)); //Load given link from external app
} else {
myWebView.loadUrl("http://www.mywebsite"); //Load homescreen
}
Related
Is it possible to make a link such as:
click me!
cause my Anton app to start up?
I know that this works for the Android Market app with the market protocol, but can something similar be done with other apps?
Here is an example of a link that will start up the Android Market:
click me!
Update:
The answer I accepted provided by eldarerathis works great, but I just want to mention that I had some trouble with the order of the subelements of the <intent-filter> tag. I suggest you simply make another <intent-filter> with the new subelements in that tag to avoid the problems I had. For instance my AndroidManifest.xml looks like this:
<activity android:name=".AntonWorld"
android:label="#string/app_name">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter>
<data android:scheme="anton" />
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
Please DO NOT use your own custom scheme like that!!! URI schemes are a network global namespace. Do you own the "anton:" scheme world-wide? No? Then DON'T use it.
One option is to have a web site, and have an intent-filter for a particular URI on that web site. For example, this is what Market does to intercept URIs on its web site:
<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="http" android:host="market.android.com"
android:path="/search" />
</intent-filter>
Alternatively, there is the "intent:" scheme. This allows you to describe nearly any Intent as a URI, which the browser will try to launch when clicked. To build such a scheme, the best way is to just write the code to construct the Intent you want launched, and then print the result of intent.toUri(Intent.URI_INTENT_SCHEME).
You can use an action with this intent for to find any activity supporting that action. The browser will automatically add the BROWSABLE category to the intent before launching it, for security reasons; it also will strip any explicit component you have supplied for the same reason.
The best way to use this, if you want to ensure it launches only your app, is with your own scoped action and using Intent.setPackage() to say the Intent will only match your app package.
Trade-offs between the two:
http URIs require you have a domain you own. The user will always get the option to show the URI in the browser. It has very nice fall-back properties where if your app is not installed, they will simply land on your web site.
intent URIs require that your app already be installed and only on Android phones. The allow nearly any intent (but always have the BROWSABLE category included and not supporting explicit components). They allow you to direct the launch to only your app without the user having the option of instead going to the browser or any other app.
I think you'll want to look at the <intent-filter> element of your Manifest file. Specifically, take a look at the documentation for the <data> sub-element.
Basically, what you'll need to do is define your own scheme. Something along the lines of:
<intent-filter>
<data android:scheme="anton" />
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" /> <--Not positive if this one is needed
...
</intent-filter>
Then you should be able to launch your app with links that begin with the anton: URI scheme.
I have a jQuery plugin to launch native apps from web links: https://github.com/eusonlito/jquery.applink
You can use it easily:
<script>
$('a[data-applink]').applink();
</script>
My Facebook Profile
I also faced this issue and see many absurd pages. I've learned that to make your app browsable, change the order of the XML elements, this this:
<activity
android:name="com.example.MianActivityName"
android:label="#string/title_activity_launcher">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter>
<data android:scheme="http" />
<!-- or you can use deep linking like -->
<data android:scheme="http" android:host="xyz.abc.com"/>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
</intent-filter>
</activity>
This worked for me and might help you.
Here's my recipe:
Create a static HTML that redirects to your requested app URL, put that page on the web.
That way, the links you share are 'real' links as far as Android is concerned ( they will be 'clickable').
You 'share' a regular HTTP link, www.your.server.com/foo/bar.html
This URL returns a simple 8 line HTML that redirects to your app's URI (window.location = "blah://kuku") (note that 'blah' doesn't have to be HTTP or HTTPS any more).
Once you get this up and running, you can augment the HTML with all the fancy capabilities as suggested above.
This works with the built-in browser, Opera, and Firefox (haven't tested any other browser). Firefox asks 'This link needs to be opened with an application' (ok, cancel). Other browsers apparently don't worry about security that much, they just open the app, no questions asked.
This method doesn't call the disambiguation dialog asking you to open either your app or a browser.
If you register the following in your Manifest
<manifest package="com.myApp" .. >
<application ...>
<activity ...>
<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="gallery"
android:scheme="myApp" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
..
and click this url from an email on your phone for example
<a href="intent://gallery?directLink=true#Intent;scheme=myApp;package=com.myApp;end">
Click me
</a>
then android will try to find an app with the package com.myApp that responds to your gallery intent and has a myApp scheme. In case it can't, it will take you to the store, looking for com.myApp, which should be your app.
Once you have the intent and custom url scheme for your app set up, this javascript code at the top of a receiving page has worked for me on both iOS and Android:
<script type="text/javascript">
// if iPod / iPhone, display install app prompt
if (navigator.userAgent.match(/(iPhone|iPod|iPad);?/i) ||
navigator.userAgent.match(/android/i)) {
var store_loc = "itms://itunes.com/apps/raditaz";
var href = "/iphone/";
var is_android = false;
if (navigator.userAgent.match(/android/i)) {
store_loc = "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.raditaz";
href = "/android/";
is_android = true;
}
if (location.hash) {
var app_loc = "raditaz://" + location.hash.substring(2);
if (is_android) {
var w = null;
try {
w = window.open(app_loc, '_blank');
} catch (e) {
// no exception
}
if (w) { window.close(); }
else { window.location = store_loc; }
} else {
var loadDateTime = new Date();
window.setTimeout(function() {
var timeOutDateTime = new Date();
if (timeOutDateTime - loadDateTime < 5000) {
window.location = store_loc;
} else { window.close(); }
},
25);
window.location = app_loc;
}
} else {
location.href = href;
}
}
</script>
This has only been tested on the Android browser. I am not sure about Firefox or Opera. The key is even though the Android browser will not throw a nice exception for you on window.open(custom_url, '_blank'), it will fail and return null which you can test later.
Update: using store_loc = "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.raditaz"; to link to Google Play on Android.
You may want to consider a library to handle the deep link to your app:
https://github.com/airbnb/DeepLinkDispatch
You can add the intent filter on an annotated Activity like people suggested above. It will handle the routing and parsing of parameters for all of your deep links. For example, your MainActivity might have something like this:
#DeepLink("somePath/{useful_info_for_anton_app}")
public class MainActivity extends Activity {
...
}
It can also handle query parameters as well.
Try my simple trick:
public boolean shouldOverrideUrlLoading(WebView view, String url) {
if(url.startsWith("classRegister:")) {
Intent MnRegister = new Intent(getApplicationContext(), register.class); startActivity(MnRegister);
}
view.loadUrl(url);
return true;
}
and my html link:
Go to register.java
or you can make < a href="classRegister:true" > <- "true" value for class filename
however this script work for mailto link :)
if (url.startsWith("mailto:")) {
String[] blah_email = url.split(":");
Intent emailIntent = new Intent(android.content.Intent.ACTION_SEND);
emailIntent.setType("text/plain");
emailIntent.putExtra(android.content.Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, new String[]{blah_email[1]});
emailIntent.putExtra(android.content.Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, what_ever_you_want_the_subject_to_be)");
Log.v("NOTICE", "Sending Email to: " + blah_email[1] + " with subject: " + what_ever_you_want_the_subject_to_be);
startActivity(emailIntent);
}
Just want to open the app through browser? You can achieve it using below code:
HTML:
Click here
Manifest:
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="packageName" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
</intent-filter>
This intent filter should be in Launcher Activity.
If you want to pass the data on click of browser link, just refer this link.
I want to open my app and load the URL when specific links are clicked.
This is my Manifest for handling external links.
<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="www.android.com" />
<data android:scheme="https" android:host="www.android.com" />
</intent-filter>
And for handling incoming links this is the code
intentData = getIntent().getData();
if(intentData !=null){
loadUrl = intentData.toString();
}else {
loadUrl = "https://www.android.com";
}
webView.loadUrl(loadUrl);
Now when I clicked https://www.android.com from external app like whatsapp its loaded in webview but the webview is attached to whatsapp. Check screenshots below.
And if anyone can give me any hints or guide me on how to open my app when I open the URL(https://www.android.com) from Google Chrome(in my phone) will be a great help
For second part of your question:
And if anyone can give me any hints or guide me on how to open my app
when I open the URL(https://www.android.com) from Google Chrome(in my
phone) will be a great help
take a look at this answer:
"Essentially, the Chrome team feels that if a user actually types something into the address bar, no redirect should ever happen. As you've discovered, this is counter to behavior in all other browsers."
Use this line in Manifest file of your Activity which is Handling that intent to avoid such problem.
android:launchMode="singleTask"
You can find detail implementation here, https://developer.android.com/guide/webapps/webview.html
You have to override methods, and handle clicks.
My android app allows to open other website like "http://www.google.com" in a web browser from app. And my code is below.
<activity
android:name=".HomeActivity"
android:launchMode="singleTop"
android:screenOrientation="portrait" >
<intent-filter>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<data android:scheme="http" />
<data android:scheme="https" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
But this gives me a problem. In the email or text message, click any website link, there will be a choice to open from my app. See the picture I posted. If I click on www.google.com in the text message, I will get a choice to open from my app.
I don't want the popup shows my app. How to handle this? Please help. Thanks a lot.
You can't avoid that, unless you specifically know what browser the user wants to use. And you don't know that.
You could have a WebView activity/fragment bundled in your application that will display webpages for you. That way you'd have full control. Here's a guide on WebView
Your app is being displayed in the Complete Action Using chooser because of your intent-filter:
<intent-filter>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<data android:scheme="http" />
<data android:scheme="https" />
</intent-filter>
and particularly because you've specified just a "scheme" entry, with no specific "host". This would in effect offer any web URL intent to open in your app.
Without understanding what your intended behavior exactly is, you can delete the <data> nodes from your intent-filter to remove your app from the Chooser.
Or alternatively, you might want specific URL's to offer your app in the Chooser, like http://yourserver.com and https://yourserver.com, for this you could alter your intent-filter as follows:
<data android:scheme="http" android:host="yourserver.com" />
If your question is to block URLs of other websites in your android app for download purpose then search for the iConstants.java file in your project and write the following code:
public interface iConstants {
public static final String[] DISABLE_DOWNLOADING = {"URL", };
public static final String WEB_DISABLE = "We cannot allow to download videos form this website.";
}
I have to open my android application, when user clicks on a link that has my domain name. For example, lets say my domain is abc.com and i have posted this link on my Facebook page. When one of my friend(who has my application installed in his device) clicks on the link(in the device's browser), i should be able to open my website in a webview inside my application.
I am not sure how to get this work, but will intent-filters work? If so, can someone give me a piece of code to start with?
You have to define a custom Intent Filter in the activity that should be launched when the url is clicked.
Let say that you want to launch the FirstActivity when a user click a http://www.example.com/ link on a web page.
Add this to your activity in the Manifest :
<activity android:name=".FirstActivity"
android:label="FirstActivity">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW"></action>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"></category>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE"></category>
<data android:host="www.example.com" android:scheme="http"></data>
</intent-filter>
</activity>
When the user will click a HTML link to http://www.example.com/, the system will prompt either to use the browser or your app.
You can achieve this by using URI schemes (link e.g. myscheme://open/chat), add into your manifest this filter into e.g. main activity section (set your scheme name):
<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="YOUR_SCHEME_NAME" />
</intent-filter>
In your activity where you've set filter, you can get URI by calling this (in onCreate):
Uri intentUri = getIntent().getData();
Is it possible to make a link such as:
click me!
cause my Anton app to start up?
I know that this works for the Android Market app with the market protocol, but can something similar be done with other apps?
Here is an example of a link that will start up the Android Market:
click me!
Update:
The answer I accepted provided by eldarerathis works great, but I just want to mention that I had some trouble with the order of the subelements of the <intent-filter> tag. I suggest you simply make another <intent-filter> with the new subelements in that tag to avoid the problems I had. For instance my AndroidManifest.xml looks like this:
<activity android:name=".AntonWorld"
android:label="#string/app_name">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter>
<data android:scheme="anton" />
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
Please DO NOT use your own custom scheme like that!!! URI schemes are a network global namespace. Do you own the "anton:" scheme world-wide? No? Then DON'T use it.
One option is to have a web site, and have an intent-filter for a particular URI on that web site. For example, this is what Market does to intercept URIs on its web site:
<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="http" android:host="market.android.com"
android:path="/search" />
</intent-filter>
Alternatively, there is the "intent:" scheme. This allows you to describe nearly any Intent as a URI, which the browser will try to launch when clicked. To build such a scheme, the best way is to just write the code to construct the Intent you want launched, and then print the result of intent.toUri(Intent.URI_INTENT_SCHEME).
You can use an action with this intent for to find any activity supporting that action. The browser will automatically add the BROWSABLE category to the intent before launching it, for security reasons; it also will strip any explicit component you have supplied for the same reason.
The best way to use this, if you want to ensure it launches only your app, is with your own scoped action and using Intent.setPackage() to say the Intent will only match your app package.
Trade-offs between the two:
http URIs require you have a domain you own. The user will always get the option to show the URI in the browser. It has very nice fall-back properties where if your app is not installed, they will simply land on your web site.
intent URIs require that your app already be installed and only on Android phones. The allow nearly any intent (but always have the BROWSABLE category included and not supporting explicit components). They allow you to direct the launch to only your app without the user having the option of instead going to the browser or any other app.
I think you'll want to look at the <intent-filter> element of your Manifest file. Specifically, take a look at the documentation for the <data> sub-element.
Basically, what you'll need to do is define your own scheme. Something along the lines of:
<intent-filter>
<data android:scheme="anton" />
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" /> <--Not positive if this one is needed
...
</intent-filter>
Then you should be able to launch your app with links that begin with the anton: URI scheme.
I have a jQuery plugin to launch native apps from web links: https://github.com/eusonlito/jquery.applink
You can use it easily:
<script>
$('a[data-applink]').applink();
</script>
My Facebook Profile
I also faced this issue and see many absurd pages. I've learned that to make your app browsable, change the order of the XML elements, this this:
<activity
android:name="com.example.MianActivityName"
android:label="#string/title_activity_launcher">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter>
<data android:scheme="http" />
<!-- or you can use deep linking like -->
<data android:scheme="http" android:host="xyz.abc.com"/>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
</intent-filter>
</activity>
This worked for me and might help you.
Here's my recipe:
Create a static HTML that redirects to your requested app URL, put that page on the web.
That way, the links you share are 'real' links as far as Android is concerned ( they will be 'clickable').
You 'share' a regular HTTP link, www.your.server.com/foo/bar.html
This URL returns a simple 8 line HTML that redirects to your app's URI (window.location = "blah://kuku") (note that 'blah' doesn't have to be HTTP or HTTPS any more).
Once you get this up and running, you can augment the HTML with all the fancy capabilities as suggested above.
This works with the built-in browser, Opera, and Firefox (haven't tested any other browser). Firefox asks 'This link needs to be opened with an application' (ok, cancel). Other browsers apparently don't worry about security that much, they just open the app, no questions asked.
This method doesn't call the disambiguation dialog asking you to open either your app or a browser.
If you register the following in your Manifest
<manifest package="com.myApp" .. >
<application ...>
<activity ...>
<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="gallery"
android:scheme="myApp" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
..
and click this url from an email on your phone for example
<a href="intent://gallery?directLink=true#Intent;scheme=myApp;package=com.myApp;end">
Click me
</a>
then android will try to find an app with the package com.myApp that responds to your gallery intent and has a myApp scheme. In case it can't, it will take you to the store, looking for com.myApp, which should be your app.
Once you have the intent and custom url scheme for your app set up, this javascript code at the top of a receiving page has worked for me on both iOS and Android:
<script type="text/javascript">
// if iPod / iPhone, display install app prompt
if (navigator.userAgent.match(/(iPhone|iPod|iPad);?/i) ||
navigator.userAgent.match(/android/i)) {
var store_loc = "itms://itunes.com/apps/raditaz";
var href = "/iphone/";
var is_android = false;
if (navigator.userAgent.match(/android/i)) {
store_loc = "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.raditaz";
href = "/android/";
is_android = true;
}
if (location.hash) {
var app_loc = "raditaz://" + location.hash.substring(2);
if (is_android) {
var w = null;
try {
w = window.open(app_loc, '_blank');
} catch (e) {
// no exception
}
if (w) { window.close(); }
else { window.location = store_loc; }
} else {
var loadDateTime = new Date();
window.setTimeout(function() {
var timeOutDateTime = new Date();
if (timeOutDateTime - loadDateTime < 5000) {
window.location = store_loc;
} else { window.close(); }
},
25);
window.location = app_loc;
}
} else {
location.href = href;
}
}
</script>
This has only been tested on the Android browser. I am not sure about Firefox or Opera. The key is even though the Android browser will not throw a nice exception for you on window.open(custom_url, '_blank'), it will fail and return null which you can test later.
Update: using store_loc = "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.raditaz"; to link to Google Play on Android.
You may want to consider a library to handle the deep link to your app:
https://github.com/airbnb/DeepLinkDispatch
You can add the intent filter on an annotated Activity like people suggested above. It will handle the routing and parsing of parameters for all of your deep links. For example, your MainActivity might have something like this:
#DeepLink("somePath/{useful_info_for_anton_app}")
public class MainActivity extends Activity {
...
}
It can also handle query parameters as well.
Try my simple trick:
public boolean shouldOverrideUrlLoading(WebView view, String url) {
if(url.startsWith("classRegister:")) {
Intent MnRegister = new Intent(getApplicationContext(), register.class); startActivity(MnRegister);
}
view.loadUrl(url);
return true;
}
and my html link:
Go to register.java
or you can make < a href="classRegister:true" > <- "true" value for class filename
however this script work for mailto link :)
if (url.startsWith("mailto:")) {
String[] blah_email = url.split(":");
Intent emailIntent = new Intent(android.content.Intent.ACTION_SEND);
emailIntent.setType("text/plain");
emailIntent.putExtra(android.content.Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, new String[]{blah_email[1]});
emailIntent.putExtra(android.content.Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, what_ever_you_want_the_subject_to_be)");
Log.v("NOTICE", "Sending Email to: " + blah_email[1] + " with subject: " + what_ever_you_want_the_subject_to_be);
startActivity(emailIntent);
}
Just want to open the app through browser? You can achieve it using below code:
HTML:
Click here
Manifest:
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="packageName" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
</intent-filter>
This intent filter should be in Launcher Activity.
If you want to pass the data on click of browser link, just refer this link.