Launching an App from a URL

Question

I am attempting to get the Android application chooser to launch when a specific URL is clicked from within a registration e-mail. I have already looked at the below question and several others but I am still having no luck with this.

Launching Android Application from link or email

I have created my intent in the AndroidManifest.xml file as below (I've placed my website address where you see ".website.org"):

 <activity android:name=".MainActivity" android:configChanges="orientation|screenSize">
                <intent-filter>
                    <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
                    <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
                </intent-filter>
                <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="https"
                        android:host="*.website.org"
                        android:path="/" />
                </intent-filter>
  </activity>

Is anyone able to assist me with what else I may be missing, as this is currently not launching anything and it's just loading the link directly in the default web browser?

Answer 1

You achieve this by Deep linking in your app.

First of all you need to add intent filters for incoming links.

<action>

Specify the ACTION_VIEW intent action so that the intent filter can be reached from Google Search.

<data>

Add one or more tags, each of which represents a URI format that resolves to the activity. At minimum, the tag must include the android:scheme attribute.

You can add more attributes to further refine the type of URI that the activity accepts. For example, you might have multiple activities that accept similar URIs, but which differ simply based on the path name. In this case, use the android:path attribute or its pathPattern or pathPrefix variants to differentiate which activity the system should open for different URI paths.

<category>

Include the BROWSABLE category. It is required in order for the intent filter to be accessible from a web browser. Without it, clicking a link in a browser cannot resolve to your app.

Also include the DEFAULT category. This allows your app to respond to implicit intents. Without this, the activity can be started only if the intent specifies your app component name.

I have used this url for launch my app “http://www.example.com/gizmos”

Look at the my Manifest.xml file,

<activity
    android:name="com.example.android.GizmosActivity"
    android:label="@string/title_gizmos" >
    <intent-filter android:label="@string/filter_view_http_gizmos">
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
        <!-- Accepts URIs that begin with "http://www.example.com/gizmos” -->
        <data android:scheme="http"
              android:host="www.example.com"
              android:pathPrefix="/gizmos" />
        <!-- note that the leading "/" is required for pathPrefix-->
    </intent-filter>
    <intent-filter android:label="@string/filter_view_example_gizmos">
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
        <!-- Accepts URIs that begin with "example://gizmos” -->
        <data android:scheme="example"
              android:host="gizmos" />
    </intent-filter>
</activity>

And notice that the two intent filters only differ by the <data> element.

<intent-filter>
  ...
  <data android:scheme="https" android:host="www.example.com" />
  <data android:scheme="app" android:host="open.my.app" />
</intent-filter>

It might seem as though this supports only https://www.example.com and app://open.my.app. However, it actually supports those two, plus these: app://www.example.com and https://open.my.app.

Read data from incoming intents

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.main);

    Intent intent = getIntent();
    String action = intent.getAction();
    Uri data = intent.getData();
}

Test your deep links

The general syntax for testing an intent filter URI with adb is:

$ adb shell am start
        -W -a android.intent.action.VIEW
        -d <URI> <PACKAGE>

For example, the command below tries to view a target app activity that is associated with the specified URI.

$ adb shell am start
        -W -a android.intent.action.VIEW
        -d "example://gizmos" com.example.android