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I have a web app calling a native app on android via an iframe intent which does not work in chrome 25 according to the following....

https://developers.google.com/chrome/mobile/docs/intents

The intent was structured like the following....

app://Requesttype=Testing&Type=123&tn=0000000000

In the new intent:// scheme how would I go about passing the parameters listed after app:// to the native application? I haven't been able to find an example.

user2418024
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  • there is clearly something missing in the doc, however the link to the source contains some explanation. apparently it's about https://code.google.com/p/android-source-browsing/source/browse/core/java/android/content/Intent.java?repo=platform--frameworks--base#6591 a type, a dot, the key, '=', the value, and a semi-colon (rather than a &) – njzk2 May 24 '13 at 15:44
  • @njzk2 it is in the docs, you have it in the Path section. – Kinlan May 30 '13 at 11:57

4 Answers4

64

With the new scheme, you can pass arguments as extras to the App, but you must encode the URI as follows:

<a href="intent://whatever/#Intent;scheme=myapp;package=com.what.ever.myapp;S.myextra=mystring;end">Do Whatever</a>

This will pass an extra String called "myextra" with the value "mystring". Having a look at the Android Code we can see how the extra parameters need to be coded. The "S" at the beginning of the "myextra" parameter defines it as a String. Other types can be:

String => 'S'
Boolean =>'B'
Byte => 'b'
Character => 'c'
Double => 'd'
Float => 'f'
Integer => 'i'
Long => 'l'
Short => 's'

For example, if we want to pass two extra parameters, an Integer and a String, we can do this:

<a href="intent://whatever/#Intent;scheme=myapp;package=com.what.ever.myapp;S.name=Perico%20de%20los%20Palotes;i.age=35;end">Do Whatever</a>

Note that you'll need to url-encode all the parameters.

In your Android app, you'll need to accept those extras. In the "onCreate" event of your Activity:

Bundle parametros = getIntent().getExtras();
if (extras != null){
    String name = extras.getString("name");
    Integer age = extras.getInt("age");

    if (name!=null && age!=null)
    {
       //do whatever you have to
       //...
    }
}else{
     //no extras, get over it!!
}

And, of course, add the filter android.intent.category.BROWSABLE in your manifest as shown in this link.

Tim Monahan-Mitchell
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ojovirtual
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    Thank you! This is the first good explanation I've seen for how to add the extras to the intent uri. – Nick White Jun 30 '14 at 18:57
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    Thank you for the info. Some additional notes: you can just use `intent:#Intent;...;end`, no need for `whatever`. The activity needs to have `BROWSABLE` and `DEFAULT` categories in intent filter. `component=` is actually ignored, use `package=` to specify your package. – domen Aug 14 '14 at 10:56
  • I found a fix check my answer above – Sid Aug 18 '15 at 15:03
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    Do you know what can i use for serializable extra? – Utkan Ozyurek Oct 20 '16 at 13:13
  • How about the encoding? It seems like android intents sent from the webapp are encoded in `UTF-8`, so if I send japanse words like `買い物` it gets encoded into `%E8%B2%B7%E3%81%84%E7%89%A9`. How can I ensure I receive the same word without encoding and decoding it? – dryleaf Jan 24 '19 at 00:18
8

For the scheme URL:

appname://RequestType/?Type=123&tn=0000000000

You would want to map to an intent URL of:

intent://RequestType/?Type=123&tn=0000000000#Intent;scheme=appname;package=com.example.appname;end
AlexD
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5

You can no longer use an iframe and custom protocol to open a native app.

You can however use the existing intent:// syntax to launch and intent and pass it data, it has the added benefit of taking the user to the Play store if it is not installed.

You either encode the data in the "path" part of the syntax as documented so you could have intent://play/?a=1#Intent;......;end; or you could encode it as an Extra.

marmor
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Kinlan
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  • i can't find the part relative to path syntax in the documentation. all details i found are in the source, around line 3720. where did you find a more detailed documentation? – njzk2 May 30 '13 at 12:38
  • it says "HOST/URI-path // Optional host", this is the place where the data is passed through. – Kinlan May 30 '13 at 16:04
  • It's pretty much the same as what was asked in the question (query parameters) - but the intent syntax is a little obscure. – Kinlan May 30 '13 at 16:28
  • The link in the answer is dead. I think this is the updated one: https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/android/intents – Karu May 05 '15 at 02:09
4

Intents are not working after 4.4.4, So this is what i am doing for my app.

created custom scheme to launch my activity in the AndroidManifest.xml with the following intent filter

1)

 <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="<<YOUR UNIQUE SCHEME(I SUGGEST YOUR PACKAGE NAME)"/>
</intent-filter>

2) Construct market url with fallback url which opens your app through custom scheme created above.

market://details?id=<<your app package from AndroidManifest.xml>>&url=<<your app custom scheme from AndroidManifest.xml>>://yourdomain.com?encoded(p1=v1&p2=v2....etc)

this opens the store if your app is not installed, and opens the app with the intent data if the app is already installed, with your decoded parameters.

Hope this helps

Sid
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