“tel”, “sms”, and “mailto” no longer working in Android after upgrading to cordova 3.6.3

Question

I recently upgraded my cordova based Android app from 3.5.0 to 3.6.3. The special links "tel", "sms", and "mailto" stopped working. When clicked, nothing happens. Is there anything I can do in the AndroidManifest.xml, or Confix.xml or anything else to get them back working?

I built two identical and very simple android apps to prove my suspicion, one with cordova 3.5.0 and one with 3.6.3. Both of them have a simple link:

<a href="tel:1(858)xxx-xxxx">Call</a>

The first one works, the second one doesn't work.

I think they added a security feature that blocks intents somehow.

PS: both apps built like this:

cordova create app com.tmp.app "App"
cordova platform add android

and in index.html, I added the telephone link above on the device ready block.

Please help.

Answer 1

I finally found the answer. All you have to do is add the following to config.xml:

<access origin="tel:*" launch-external="yes"/>
<access origin="geo:*" launch-external="yes"/>
<access origin="mailto:*" launch-external="yes"/>
<access origin="sms:*" launch-external="yes"/>
<access origin="market:*" launch-external="yes"/>

I hope this helps everyone.

It all started by IBM!!!

IBM Cordova Security Issues

Answer 2

I had an App built on 3.5.1 version and all special links were working fine. But when i upgraded on the latest version 3.6.3 then they did not work.

So I made below changes in the code and now they works fine.

1. Add InAppBrowser plugin

   cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.inappbrowser

2. Create custom function in your JS file to open special links within the InApp browser

   var app = {
           initialize: function() {
           this.bindEvents();
       },         
       bindEvents: function() {
           document.addEventListener('deviceready', this.onDeviceReady, false);
       },         
       onDeviceReady: function() {
           app.receivedEvent('deviceready');
       },
       openNativeAppWindow: function(data) {
           window.open(data, '_system');
       }
   

   };

3. The place where you are invoking special links like sms or tel then pass on your custom url with data and let it open the native browser window which in turn will push the native App to handle the special urls.

Few example:

<br><br><input type="button" onClick="app.openNativeAppWindow('http://google.com')" value="Open Google"/>
            <br><br><a onClick="app.openNativeAppWindow('geo://0,0?q=dallas')" data-rel="external">google maps</a>
            <br><br><a onClick="app.openNativeAppWindow('geo:0,0?q=Bacau')">Geolocation Test</a>
            <br><br><a onClick="app.openNativeAppWindow('geo:0,0?q=34.99,-106.61(Treasure)')">longitude & latitude with a string label</a>
            <br><br><a onClick="app.openNativeAppWindow('geo:0,0?q=1600+Amphitheatre+Parkway%2C+CA')">street address Test</a>
            <br><br><a onClick="app.openNativeAppWindow('sms:2125551212')">SMS</a>
            <br><br><a onClick="app.openNativeAppWindow('mms:2125551212')">MMS</a>
            <br><br><a onClick="app.openNativeAppWindow('tel:2125551212')">Open Phone Dialer</a>

Answer 3

As of Cordova 4.0 you must include the whitelist plugin.

<gap:plugin name="cordova-plugin-whitelist" source="npm" />
<allow-intent href="tel:*" />

https://github.com/apache/cordova-plugin-whitelist