Develop Reference

Duplicate App Listing in Intent Chooser

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

Deep linking in Android - Chrome does not launch #intent links

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>

Android: Handling Links using IntentFilter

I'm having a bit of trouble trying to handle the following link using an IntentFilter.
http://www.fakedomain.com/clubs/players/<playerId>/<hobbies>
And a real life example would something like as follows:
http://www.fakedomain.com/clubs/players/999/21321321321#xXtor=ZQA-999-[hobbies_hobby]
And this is my IntentFilter
<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:scheme="http" android:host="www.fakedomain.com"
android:path="/clubs/players/*" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
I have tried to following android:path's and none of them work:
android:path="/clubs/players/.*/.*"
android:path="/clubs/players/*/*"
I am able to handle the following link
http://www.fakedomain.com/clubs/players/
But this is useless since the link is missing the full path.
I have read through a few other examples that showed up from a google search but I'm still unable to handle the link, chances are I am doing something completely stupid.
Any help would be appreciated.

And this is my IntentFilter
android:path does not accept wildcards. That is android:pathPattern. You may be better served using android:pathPrefix anyway.

Android Intent launch from browser

This topic has been covered before, but I can't find an answer specific to what I'm asking.
Where I am: I followed hackmod's first piece of advice here: Make a link in the Android browser start up my app? and got this to work with a link in the webpage.
However, I'm having trouble understanding the second option (intent uri's). here's what I've got:
<activity android:name="com.myapps.tests.Layout2"
android:label="Auth Complete"
>
<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="mydomain.com"
android:path="/launch" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
Now, with that I can go to "mydomain.com/launch" and it launches my activity. this all works well, except that I get the chooser. what I want is for it to just launch my activity without giving options.
From the explanation in the post I referenced it looks like thats what intent uris are for,but I can't find a straightforward example. what should my link in my webpage look like in order to launch this with no chooser?
I've seen a couple of examples that look something like this:
<a href="intent:#Intent;action=com.myapp.android.MY_ACTION;end">
However, that doesn't seem to work when I try it.
My test device is a Galaxy Tab 2.
any help would be appreciated.

I was also trying to launch the app in the recomended way. The following code worked for me.
Code inside the <activity> block of YourActivity in AndroidManifest.xml :
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="your.activity.namespace.CUSTOMACTION" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
</intent-filter>
Code in the activities onCreate() method :
Intent intent = getIntent();
if(intent != null && intent.getAction() == "your.activity.namespace.CUSTOMACTION") {
extraValue = intent.getStringExtra("extraValueName");
Log.e("AwseomeApp", "Extra value Recieved from intent : " + extraValue);
}
For the code in HTML, write an intent for launching the specific Activity, with the action your.activity.namespace.CUSTOMACTION, and your application package name your.activity.namespace. Your can also put some extra in the intent. For example intent.putExtra("extraValueName", "WOW"). Then get the required URL by printing the value of intent.toUri(Intent.URI_INTENT_SCHEME) in the Log. It should look like :
intent:#Intent;action=your.example.namespace.CUSTOMACTION;package=your.example.namespace;component=your.example.namespace/.activity.YourActivity;S.extraValueName=WOW;end
So your HTML code should look like :
<a href="intent:#Intent;action=your.example.namespace.CUSTOMACTION;package=your.example.namespace;component=your.example.namespace/.activity.YourActivity;S.extraValueName=WOW;end">
Launch App
</a>
This is as per what #hackbod suggested in here and this page from developers.google.com.

Depending on your intent filter this link should work:
start my app
But you should note that the android system will ask the user if your app or any other browser should be started.
If you want to avoid this implement a custom protcol handler. So just your app will listen for that and the user won't get the intent chooser.
Try to add this data intent:
<data android:scheme="mycoolapp" android:host="launch" />
With the code above this link should work:
start my app

I needed a small change to abhishek89m'a answer to make this work.
<a href="intent:#Intent;action=your.example.namespace.CUSTOMACTION;package=your.example.namespace;component=your.example.namespace/.YourActivity;S.extraValueName=WOW;end">
Launch App
</a>
I removed ".activity" after the slash in component name.
And I want to add, that custom action is probably the best answer to this problem if you don't want the app chooser to show up.
p.s. I would add this as comment, but I'm a new user and I don't have enough reputation points.

<a href="your.app.scheme://other/parameters/here">
This link on your browser will launch the app with the specific schema
like that on your intent
<intent-filter>
<data android:scheme="your.app.scheme" />
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
</intent-filter>

Android: using intent filter to launch app doesn't work

I know this question is asked and answered many times on SO, but I just couldn't get it to work. Here is my manifest file (I have 3 activities, I'm showing the only one that I want to be displayed when associated):
<activity
android:name=".MyActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:theme="#style/HoloDarkTheme" >
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<action android:name="android.intent.action.ACTION_SEND" />
<action android:name="android.intent.action.EXTRA_TEXT" />
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.action.BROWSABLE" />
<category android:name="android.intent.action.DEFAULT" />
<data android:scheme="http" />
<data android:host="example.com" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
When I launch a browser and go to "example.com", my app isn't launched. Is there something wrong with the above XML?
Not sure if relevant, but this activity uses MediaPlayer to play videos. Also, I'm using SDK version 11.

I figured it out. It's simply a case of typo. Instead of this,
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.action.BROWSABLE" />
<category android:name="android.intent.action.DEFAULT" />
I needed to replace "android.intent.action" with "android.intent.category" in the last two lines:
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />

I'm adding this answer here because this thread is one of the top hits when googling "intent filter to launch app from http not working". I suppose the root cause for me could also be considered a typo, but I'm going to call it an "Android documentation defect".
There's a line way toward the bottom of this page that breaks down a URI as:
<scheme>://<host>:<port>/<path>
This breakdown indicates that the "://", ":" and "/" will be added for me so I used the following data in my intent-filter:
<data android:scheme="http" />
<data android:host="my.school.edu" />
<data android:path="thingy" />
I then sent myself an SMS with the following text: "my.school.edu/thingy", which was recognized by my SMS client (Hangouts) as a web address, so it made it clickable. However, clicking on it just gave me a choice of browsers, my app was a no-show.
So I removed the host and the path, and my app launched for any link (or at least every one I tried). I put the host back in and it still worked. Put the path back and we're back to not working. On a whim I decided to prepend a slash to the path:
<data android:path="/thingy" />
...et voilà! There's my app in amongst the browsers! So the error in my view is Android's doc that suggests that the slash is inserted automagically. :) It apparently is not.
More Info: I'm using the HTTP scheme because that's what gets made clickable in SMS and email messages, giving me a free ride to that point.
And note that if you specify a unique host (and path), and the user selects "Always" when choosing your app from the list, future taps on your link will bypass that choice dialog and go straight to your app, which is nice.

Make sure you have the internet permission in your manifest.

I doubt that you can override the http scheme to point back to your app.