Make a link in the Android browser start up my app

Question

Is it possible to make a link such as    lt a href  anton   useful info for anton app  gt click me  lt  a gt    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    lt a href  market   search q pname com nytimes android  gt click me  lt  a gt    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  lt intent-filter gt  tag  I suggest you simply make another  lt intent-filter gt  with the new subelements in that tag to avoid the problems I had  For instance my AndroidManifest xml looks like this    lt activity android name   AntonWorld            android label   string app name  gt       lt intent-filter gt           lt action android name  android intent action MAIN    gt           lt category android name  android intent category LAUNCHER    gt       lt  intent-filter gt       lt intent-filter gt           lt data android scheme  anton    gt           lt action android name  android intent action VIEW    gt           lt category android name  android intent category BROWSABLE    gt           lt category android name  android intent category DEFAULT    gt       lt  intent-filter gt   lt  activity gt

User · Answer

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.

User · Answer

Just want to open the app through browser  You can achieve it using below code  HTML   lt a href  quot intent  Intent action packageName category android intent category DEFAULT category android intent category BROWSABLE end quot  gt Click here lt  a gt   Manifest   lt intent-filter gt         lt action android name  quot packageName quot    gt         lt category android name  quot android intent category DEFAULT quot    gt         lt category android name  quot android intent category BROWSABLE quot    gt   lt  intent-filter gt   This intent filter should be in Launcher Activity  If you want to pass the data on click of browser link  just refer this link

User · Answer

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    lt a href  classRegister true  gt Go to register java lt  a gt    or you can make  lt  a href  classRegister true     lt -  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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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   lt manifest package  com myApp      gt     lt application     gt       lt activity     gt         lt intent-filter gt           lt action android name  android intent action VIEW    gt           lt category android name  android intent category DEFAULT    gt           lt category android name  android intent category BROWSABLE    gt           lt data           android host  gallery            android scheme  myApp    gt         lt  intent-filter gt       lt  activity gt           and click this url from an email on your phone for example   lt a href  intent   gallery directLink true Intent scheme myApp package com myApp end  gt     Click me   lt  a gt    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

User · Answer

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            lt intent-filter gt             lt action android name  android intent action VIEW    gt             lt category android name  android intent category DEFAULT    gt             lt category android name  android intent category BROWSABLE    gt             lt data android scheme  http  android host  market android com                  android path   search    gt           lt  intent-filter gt    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

User · Answer

I apologize for promoting myself  but I have a jQuery plugin to launch native apps from web links https   github com eusonlito jquery applink  You can use it easy    lt script gt     a data-applink    applink     lt  script gt    lt a href  https   facebook com me  data-applink  fb   profile  gt My Facebook Profile lt  a gt

User · Answer

I think you ll want to look at the  lt intent-filter gt  element of your Mainfest file  Specifically  take a look at the documentation for the  lt data gt  sub-element   Basically  what you ll need to do is define your own scheme  Something along the lines of    lt intent-filter gt       lt data android scheme  anton    gt       lt action android name  android intent action VIEW    gt       lt category android name  android intent category DEFAULT    gt       lt category android name  android intent category BROWSABLE    gt   lt --Not positive if this one is needed          lt  intent-filter gt    Then you should be able to launch your app with links that begin with the anton  URI scheme

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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    lt activity     android name  com example MianActivityName      android label   string title activity launcher  gt        lt intent-filter gt           lt action android name  android intent action MAIN    gt           lt category android name  android intent category LAUNCHER    gt       lt  intent-filter gt        lt intent-filter gt                           lt data android scheme  http    gt                lt  -- or you can use deep linking like  -- gt                           lt data android scheme  http  android host  xyz abc com   gt           lt action android name  android intent action VIEW   gt           lt category android name  android intent category BROWSABLE   gt           lt category android name  android intent category DEFAULT   gt        lt  intent-filter gt   lt  activity gt    This worked for me and might help you

[android] Make a link in the Android browser start up my app?

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