how can cordova open app from http or https url?

Question

I found many answers for a custom URL-Scheme like this (mycoolapp://somepath).

This plugin for example adds a custom URL-Sheme.*

But I don't want a custom URL-Scheme, I want a "normal" URL like this (http://www.mycoolapp.com/somepath).

If you open this in you Browser or click on a Hyperlink for example, then it should ask you to open my app (like google maps does it).

This question maybe already has an answer, but i can't find it.

If you don't know what I mean, that's how it should look if you click on the link to my website on an Android Device:

Just with my app to select.

Answer 1

For the same problem I've used existing webintent plugin, modified the android manifest file - add those lines to 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="example.com" android:scheme="http" />
</intent-filter>

and modified the index.html ondeviceready:

function deviceReady() {
    window.plugins.webintent.getUri(function(url) {
        console.log("INTENT URL: " + url);
        //...
    }); 
}

EDIT

I've just noticed a behavior which may be unwanted. When you open the app using the link (intent) from another application, it will (in many cases) create a new instance and not use the already running one (tested with gmail and skype). To prevent this a solution is to change Android Launch mode in config.xml file:

<preference name="AndroidLaunchMode" value="singleTask" />

(It works with cordova 3.5, not sure about the older version)

Then you need to add one more function to ondeviceready:

window.plugins.webintent.onNewIntent(function(url) {
    console.log("INTENT onNewIntent: " + url);
});

This one is triggered when the app was already running and was brought to front with intent.

Answer 2

What you are looking for is called "Universal Links" on iOS and "Deep Linking" on Android.

And there is a Cordova plugin to handle that: https://www.npmjs.com/package/cordova-universal-links-plugin