Open URLs in Native FB App - android

I've been reading on deep linking and App Links and such.
I was just wondering if it was possible on Android to simply share a URL of a Facebook Profile or Album on say WhatsApp or Telegram and get it to open in the native FB app instead of in the browser.
If not possible, why is this so?

Sean, the reason why this is not possible is because Facebook does not implement AppLinks. This means, there's no metadata on someone's profile URL so when shared, it is automatically handled by the Facebook Native Application.

Related

How to implement the sharing of invites to join the app from inside the app to WhatsApp?

I want to invite new users to my app from within the app via and want to share them the Link to redirect users to playstore to install the app via Whatsapp.
(Share on Whatsapp Functionality)
The problem:
I want to share an image about the app and also a link in the caption for sharing on Whatsapp. I have established the deep links however I am unable to share the image along with the caption from within the app to invite more users.
Tech Stack: React Native and Expo
React Native Social sharing support only text. In case you want a social share card with an image, caption, and link. You need to have a simple webpage with server-side rendering and you can define any Open Graph Metadata you want like images, text, video, and more.
WhatsApp or any social network will crawl and render a nice-looking card with all metadata you specified.
You can read more about Open Graph metadata here https://ogp.me/

Open URL with external browser in Messenger

I'm building a (Facebook) Messenger chatbot which needs to send a URL to the user which may be handled by a specific application instead of a web browser.
By default messenger opens URLs in a integrated web view instead of delegating the task of finding a suitable app to the OS.
I cannot force my users to change their Messenger settings to disable the web view, so what is a way of telling messenger not to try and open my link in its embedded web view?
The issue is not and Android one since intent filters are set up and working correctly. Messenger simply doesn't publish an intent when the URL is clicked, and only displays it in a web view.
All URLs in FB Messenger open in their webview, but you can still use deeplinks to open a native app and launch a specific screen on the user's mobile device. That way, when the user clicks on a given URL / URL button, they will "switch" from the FB Messenger chatbot to an application on their mobile device.
To create a deeplink for your Android app, it seems that the Mobile Deeplinking Library highlighted on this website (Section 2.3) will help. It lists instructions and details about how to set up your own deeplinks for iOS and Android applications.
I've only done a bit of research into mobile deeplinking but I hope this helps solve the problem!

iOS/Android does keep linking requires an HTTP server

I want to let users click on a link on an email or SMS message, and then open the app and deep link into a specific page/ViewController.
I know there is a more general implementation, when user browse your website with a mobile web browser, and if your app is installed, launch your app instead of keep browsing it in the web browser.
I was wondering if deep linking itself can be done without setting up a server?
In iOS parlance, I want to register a custom URI scheme, and when user taps on a link via the custom URI scheme in a mobile email client or SMS message app, open our app, and get some payload into it as well so I can deep link into a specific ViewController.
(Sorry I don't know Android well, though I do need it on Android as well. I'm actually working with Cordova.)
No, deep linking on Android does not require an http server
https://developer.android.com/training/app-indexing/deep-linking.html
It works the same way - a custom URI scheme
To enable Google to crawl your app content and allow users to enter your app from search results, you must add intent filters for the relevant activities in your app manifest. These intent filters allow deep linking to the content in any of your activities. For example, the user might click on a deep link to view a page within a shopping app that describes a product offering that the user is searching fo

How to show the link preview in Whatsapp and twitter(and likewise apps) when I pass a URL link from my own app?

I want to share a link through my app and I can easily do it with the help of intents. My problem is that when someone tries to forward that link through Whatsapp or Twitter or other apps it does not show the link preview to that URL. How can this functionality be achieved?

Facebook Share From Mobile Web to Native App Without Javascript?

I am looking to let a reader of my site share the url from a mobile browser to their native facebook app without using javascript, or having them login through the cumbersome web process.
In the past, this was accomplished using the fb://publish/profile/me?text=blah url scheme for both iOS and Android. When clicked, this link would open the native app and start a new share dialog.
Sometime in late 2013/early 2014 though, this method stopped working. Is there a more current way to use a static URL to open up a native share dialog on iOS and/or an Android Intent? A canonical answer is needed here as searching SO leads to a ton of old, deprecated dead ends.
It's crazy that facebook doesn't have the latest URI schemes documented. Whatsapp, twitter, mail, sms, tel all have them available and are working.
Whatsapp:
whatsapp://send?text=Hello%20World!
Twitter:
twitter://post?message=hello%20world!
Mail:
mailto:<address>[?<header1>=<value1>[&<header2>=<value2>]]
SMS:
sms:+15105550101?body=hello%20there
Tel:
tel:<phonenumber>
I've been researching methods of HTML5 interaction with phone features (intents), maybe there is a way to open the mobile phone share menu from a web url? This would allow the user to share an article, per say, with any native app if installed (fb, twitter, etc...)
I don't know if you've come across this thread, but the guy seems like did some reverse engineering and has a full list of all Facebook custom URL schemes
In short there is NO official or unofficial way to do this anymore (or yet).
The URL schemes above described was never documented as an official way to open the the sharing dialog.
BUT
There is the new AppLinks framework.
The App Links framework is documented here
What it does is basically allows you to have meta tags on certain URLs that let you launch your (or any) app from Facebook. Basically Facebook checks if your page supports an app link and then links directly to your app
So, theoretically it should be simple to launch the Facebook app from your browser if you have it and if not load another link. (which is basically what you need). However even though Facebook created it they haven't put it on their pages yet. (in other words in the future these meta tags might work to open the apps).

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