- Android Intents with Chrome
- # Syntax
- # Examples
- # Considerations
- # See also
- How to Open an Android App from the Browser
- Alex Austin
- Overview of Changes
- Adding Support for URI Schemes to Your App
- Adding Javascript to Your Website to Open Your App
- Android App Linking
- Web url
- Android
- Features
- Pros and Cons
- App Links
- Android
- Features
- Pros and Cons
- Custom scheme
- Android
- Features
- Pros and Cons
- Intent scheme
- Android
- Features
- Pros and Cons
- App scheme
- Android
- Features
- Pros and Cons
- Firebase Dynamic Links
- Android
- Features
- Pros and Cons
- Play Store url
- Android
- Features
- Pros and Cons
- Market scheme
- Android
- Features
- Pros and Cons
- Referrer Receiver
- Deeplinking
- Deferred deeplink
- Url redirections
- Adb Activity Manager
Android Intents with Chrome
Published on Friday, February 28, 2014
A little known feature in Android lets you launch apps directly from a web page via an Android Intent. One scenario is launching an app when the user lands on a page, which you can achieve by embedding an iframe in the page with a custom URI-scheme set as the src , as follows: . This works in the Chrome for Android browser, version 18 and earlier. It also works in the Android browser, of course.
The functionality has changed slightly in Chrome for Android, versions 25 and later. It is no longer possible to launch an Android app by setting an iframe’s src attribute. For example, navigating an iframe to a URI with a custom scheme such as paulsawesomeapp:// will not work even if the user has the appropriate app installed. Instead, you should implement a user gesture to launch the app via a custom scheme, or use the «intent:» syntax described in this article.
# Syntax
The best practice is to construct an intent anchor and embed that into the page so the user can launch the app. This gives you a lot more flexibility in controlling how apps are launched, including the ability to pass extra information into the app via Intent Extras.
The basic syntax for an intent-based URI is as follows:
See the Android source for parsing details.
Also, you may choose to specify fallback URL by adding the following string extra:
When an intent could not be resolved, or an external application could not be launched, then the user will be redirected to the fallback URL if it was given.
Some example cases where Chrome does not launch an external application are as follows:
- The intent could not be resolved, i.e., no app can handle the intent.
- JavaScript timer tried to open an application without user gesture.
Note that S. is a way to define string extras. S.browser_fallback_url was chosen for backward compatibility, but the target app won’t see browser_fallback_url value as Chrome removes it.
# Examples
Here’s an intent that launches the Zxing barcode scanner app. It follows the syntax thus:
To launch the Zxing barcode scanner app, you encode your href on the anchor as follows:
See the Android Zxing Manifest, which defines the package and the host.
Also, if fallback URL is specified, the full URL will look like this:
Now the URL will get you to zxing.org if the app could not be found, or the link was triggered from JavaScript without user gesture (or for other cases where we don’t launch an external application.)
# Considerations
If the activity you invoke via an intent contains extras, you can include these as well.
Only activities that have the category filter, android.intent.category.BROWSABLE are able to be invoked using this method as it indicates that the application is safe to open from the Browser.
# See also
And Chrome doesn’t launch an external app for a given Intent URI in the following cases.
- When the Intent URI is redirected from a typed in URL.
- When the Intent URI is initiated without user gesture.
Last updated: Friday, February 28, 2014 • Improve article
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How to Open an Android App from the Browser
Alex Austin
January 8th, 2018
Opening an installed app from a browser is often referred to as “deep linking”, and with this guide you’ll learn how to deep link into your Android app for yourself. We’ll focus exclusively on how to trigger an app open from a website page, rather than from the click of a link inside other apps. For a more detailed look at all of the different deep linking standards required for complete Android coverage, please see our Android deep linking series: Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , and Part 4 .
Android is, by far, one of the most fragmented platforms that developers have ever had to manage, due to Google’s decision to force device manufacturers to be responsible for porting the OS, which requires backwards compatibility and support of a multitude of devices. In this ecosystem, we, the app developers, are left to pick up the pieces. Deep linking on Android is unfortunately no different—over the years, we’ve seen a plethora of technical requirements that must be used depending on the circumstance and context of the user.
Note that Branch will implement all of this complexity for you, host the deep links, and even give you robust analytics behind clicks, app opens, and down funnel events. You can play around with Branch links for free by signing up here . We highly recommend using our tools instead of trying to rebuild them from scratch, since we give them all away for free.
Overview of Changes
There are two places where changes will need to be made in order to successfully open your Android app: your website and your Android app. You can find the details of each change in the corresponding sections below.
Adding Support for URI Schemes to Your App
A URI scheme can be any string without special characters, such as http , pinterest , fb or myapp . Once registered, if you append :// to the end (e.g. pinterest://) and click this link, the Pinterest app will open up. If the Pinterest app is not installed, you’ll see a ‘Page Not Found’ error.
It is simple to configure your app for a URI scheme. To start, you need to pick an Activity within your app that you’d like to open when the URI scheme is triggered, and register an intent filter for it. Add the following code within the tag within your manifest that corresponds to the Activity you want to open.
You can change your_uri_scheme to the URI scheme that you’d like. Ideally, you want this to be unique. If it overlaps with another app’s URI scheme, the user will see an Android chooser when clicking on the link. You see this often when you have multiple browsers installed, as they all register for the http URI.
Next, you’ll want to confirm that your app was opened from the URI scheme. To handle the deep link in the app, you simply need to grab the intent data string in the Activity that was opened via the click. Below is an example:
From here, you’ll need to do string parsing to read the values appended the URI scheme that will be very specific to your use case and implementation.
Adding Javascript to Your Website to Open Your App
Now that your Android app is ready to be triggered from a URI scheme, the next part is simple. You merely need to add some Javascript to your website that will auto trigger your app open. The function below, triggerAppOpen , will attempt to open your app’s URI scheme once you replace your_uri_scheme with the one you added in the manifest above.
You could call triggerAppOpen into window.onload if you wanted to do it on page load, or you could make it the onclick of a link somewhere on your site. Either works and the you’ll get the intended results.
Android is incredibly complicated, and there are edge cases everywhere. You’ll think everything is going well until you get that one user complaining that his links aren’t working on Facebook while running Android 4.4.4. That’s why you should use a tool like Branch—to save you this nightmare and ensure that your links work everywhere. Be sure to request a Branch demo if you’re interested in learning more.
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Android App Linking
The ultimate developer guide to Android application linking methods
The main objectives of this guide are to explore the most common deeplinking methods available on Android and evaluate their pros and cons.
The source code of the AppLinks Android app is available on the corresponding GitHub repository.
Method | Link | App not installed | Offline | Referrer | Deeplink | Deferred deeplink |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Web url | Test | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ |
App Links | Test | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ |
Custom scheme | Test | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ |
Intent scheme | Test | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ |
App scheme | Test | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ |
Firebase Dynamic Links | Test | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Play Store url | Test | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ |
Market scheme | Test | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Web url
http://smarquis.fr/action?key=value#data
Android
Uri | Value |
---|---|
scheme | http |
host | smarquis.fr |
path | /action |
query | ?key=value |
fragment | data |
Features
Feature | ✔️ / ❌ |
---|---|
App not installed | ❌ |
Offline | ✔️ |
Referrer | ❌ |
Deeplink | ✔️ |
Deferred deeplink | ❌ |
Pros and Cons
- Initial disambiguation dialog
- Doesn’t work on the same domain
- Some (in-app) browsers might directly handle these links and prevent the app to launch
App Links
https://smarquis.fr/action?key=value#data
A JSON verification file needs to be available at https://smarquis.fr/.well-known/assetlinks.json containing the application’s package name and keystore fingerprint
To test an existing statement file, you can use the official Statement List Generator and Tester tool.
During app install/update, an Android service will verify if the App Links configuration complies with the server side assetlinks.json file.
The results will be sent to logcat, with these tags: IntentFilterIntentSvc and SingleHostAsyncVerifier
Click to see logcat content
Valid App Links configuration
Invalid App Links configuration (missing or malformed assetlinks.json file, missing package_name or sha256_cert_fingerprints )
Android
Same as Web url but with https only and android:autoVerify=»true» attribute.
Uri | Value |
---|---|
scheme | https |
host | smarquis.fr |
path | /action |
query | ?key=value |
fragment | data |
Features
Feature | ✔️ / ❌ |
---|---|
App not installed | ❌ |
Offline | ✔️ |
Referrer | ❌ |
Deeplink | ✔️ |
Deferred deeplink | ❌ |
Pros and Cons
- No more disambiguation dialog
- No potential app hijacking
- Doesn’t work on the same domain
- Some (in-app) browsers might directly handle these links and prevent the app to launch
Custom scheme
link://smarquis.fr/action?key=value#data
Android
Uri | Value |
---|---|
scheme | link |
host | smarquis.fr |
path | /action |
query | ?key=value |
fragment | data |
Features
Feature | ✔️ / ❌ |
---|---|
App not installed | ❌ |
Offline | ✔️ |
Referrer | ❌ |
Deeplink | ✔️ |
Deferred deeplink | ❌ |
Pros and Cons
- Some browser doesn’t handle non-http links
Intent scheme
intent://smarquis.fr/action?key=value#data#Intent;scheme=link;package=fr.smarquis.applinks;S.key=value;S.market_referrer=my%20referrer%20data;end
Extra parameters can be added to the link and will be transfered as extras Bundle in the Intent :
- String: S.key=value
- Boolean: B.key=value
- Integer: i.key=value
- Long: l.key=value
- Float: f.key=value
- S.browser_fallback_url is the fallback URL if the corresponding link doesn’t work of if app isn’t available (will be removed from the Intent ).
- S.market_referrer will trigger a com.android.vending.INSTALL_REFERRER Broadcast once the app is installed.
Android
The url will be rewritten by the parseUri() method from the Android source code.
The new url will be link://smarquis.fr/action?key=value#data
And will contain additional parameters in the Intent .
Uri | Value |
---|---|
scheme | link |
host | smarquis.fr |
path | /action |
query | ?key=value |
fragment | data |
Extra | Value |
---|---|
key | value |
market_referrer | my referrer data |
Referrer |
---|
my referrer data |
Features
Feature | ✔️ / ❌ |
---|---|
App not installed | ✔️ |
Offline | ✔️ |
Referrer | ✔️ |
Deeplink | ✔️ |
Deferred deeplink | ❌ |
Pros and Cons
- Some browser doesn’t handle non-http links
App scheme
android-app://fr.smarquis.applinks/https/smarquis.fr/action?key=value#data#Intent;S.key=value;S.market_referrer=my%20referrer%20data;end
Extra parameters can be added to the link and will be transfered as extras Bundle in the Intent :
- String: S.key=value
- Boolean: B.key=value
- Integer: i.key=value
- Long: l.key=value
- Float: f.key=value
- S.market_referrer will trigger a com.android.vending.INSTALL_REFERRER Broadcast once the app is installed.
Android
The url will be rewritten by the parseUri() method from the Android source code.
The new url will be https://smarquis.fr/action?key=value#data
And will contain additional parameters in the Intent .
Uri | Value |
---|---|
scheme | https |
host | smarquis.fr |
path | /action |
query | ?key=value |
fragment | data |
Extra | Value |
---|---|
key | value |
market_referrer | my referrer data |
Referrer |
---|
my referrer data |
Features
Feature | ✔️ / ❌ |
---|---|
App not installed | ✔️ |
Offline | ✔️ |
Referrer | ✔️ |
Deeplink | ✔️ |
Deferred deeplink | ❌ |
Pros and Cons
- Some browser doesn’t handle non-http links
Firebase Dynamic Links
https://mr7f2.app.goo.gl/Tbeh
Create the link from the Firebase console.
Android
Same requirements as App Links.
And add the Firebase Dynamic Links dependency in the app-level build.gradle file:
Then in your Activity ‘s onCreate method, use this code to get the link if the user came from a Firebase Dynamic Link:
Uri | Value |
---|---|
scheme | https |
host | smarquis.fr |
path | /action |
query | ?key=value |
fragment | data |
Features
Feature | ✔️ / ❌ |
---|---|
App not installed | ✔️ |
Offline | ❌ |
Referrer | ❌ |
Deeplink | ✔️ |
Deferred deeplink | ✔️ |
Pros and Cons
- Ugly progress dialog when fetching link data
Play Store url
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.smarquis.applinks&url=link%3A%2F%2Fsmarquis.fr%2Faction%3Fkey%3Dvalue%23data&referrer=my%20referrer%20data
Very similar to the Market scheme.
This url contains additional query parameters that will be handled by the Play Store app:
- url is the forwarded url
- referrer will trigger a com.android.vending.INSTALL_REFERRER Broadcast once the app is installed.
Android
The url will be rewritten by the Play Store to link://smarquis.fr/action?key=value#data
Uri available in deferred deeplink only
Uri | Value |
---|---|
scheme | link |
host | smarquis.fr |
path | /action |
query | ?key=value |
fragment | data |
Referrer |
---|
my referrer data |
Features
Feature | ✔️ / ❌ |
---|---|
App not installed | ✔️ |
Offline | ✔️ |
Referrer | ✔️ |
Deeplink | ❌ |
Deferred deeplink | ✔️ |
Pros and Cons
- Some (in-app) browsers might directly handle these links and prevent the Play Store app to launch
- When app is installed, it still opens the Play Store app and completely ignores the deeplink
- Changes the «Open» button in Play Store to «Continue»
- Triggers a notification with «Tap to continue»
Market scheme
market://details?id=fr.smarquis.applinks&url=link%3A%2F%2Fsmarquis.fr%2Faction%3Fkey%3Dvalue%23data&referrer=my%20referrer%20data
This url contains additional query parameters that will be handled by the Play Store app:
- url is the forwarded url
- referrer will trigger a com.android.vending.INSTALL_REFERRER Broadcast once the app is installed.
Android
The url will be rewritten by the Play Store to link://smarquis.fr/action?key=value#data
Uri | Value |
---|---|
scheme | link |
host | smarquis.fr |
path | /action |
query | ?key=value |
fragment | data |
Referrer |
---|
my referrer data |
Features
Feature | ✔️ / ❌ |
---|---|
App not installed | ✔️ |
Offline | ✔️ |
Referrer | ✔️ |
Deeplink | ✔️ |
Deferred deeplink | ✔️ |
Pros and Cons
- Changes the «Open» button in Play Store to «Continue»
- Triggers a notification with «Tap to continue»
Referrer Receiver
Add the Broadcast Receiver in AndroidManifest.xml
And in the Receiver’s onReceive() method, you can get the referrer value
Deeplinking
You can get the deeplink Uri in your Activity ‘s onCreate() method as well as the corresponding properties:
Deferred deeplink
When using Play Store url or Market scheme or Firebase Dynamic Links methods, the regular Play Store Open button will be replaced by a Continue button.
Furthermore, a notification will be displayed with Tap to continue content.
These two actions are essential to the Deferred deeplink method as they provide the initial data to the app.
Regular Deeplink | Deferred Deeplink |
---|
Url redirections
Adb Activity Manager
To try links with adb, use the Activity Manager (am) command:
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