I am trying to find a way to embed a link to open a navigation to geocoordinates (lat + lon) via the uri geo scheme.
However, it seems not all platforms are currently supported. The requirement is to let the user choose its own provider (Google Maps / Apple Maps / other navigation app).
How do I create a cross-platform link which works at least with Windows Chrome, Apple iPhone and Android phones?
If absolutely required, the links may change dynamically by user agent.
I tried this scheme, but it just opens a blank new tab for Chrome on Windows without anything defined:
Start navigation
How can I make sure as a fallback in such cases at least any mapping application opens?
Is this even technically possible already or is the geo uri scheme really that inaccessible currently?
Related
I am developing an iOS safari extension. Right after the installation and opening the container app, I would like to take the users to a page which shows instructions on how to enable the extension and allow it to run on all pages. Is there a way to detect the state of the extension?
So, the flow will be as: User opens the container app, and we take the user to a page on safari and depending on:
(1) if the extension is enabled
(2) if the extension is allowed to run on all pages
How can I detect these two states from the extension ?
Tried looking around if there is an API to detect so. Doesn't seem there to be one?
What I am trying to do is opening a deep link in mobile browse (Not in app). Deeplinking is all set up, all the links with specific domains are opening/navigating into app opened from any where else. Now here is a scenario that there are some particular links with same domain (I set up deeplinking for), I want to open that in browser because I don't have any view to show for that link in my app so I want them open in browser.
I have identified the links but when I opened these links via Linking.openUrl it navigates me to the app.
if (lowerUrl.includes(PostType.NO_DEEP_LINK)) {
Linking.openURL(lowerUrl);
return null;
}
Is there any method I can specify the Linking method to open url in mobile browser not in app although the url has a same domain that is setup for deep linkg.
Solution 1#
The best possible solution for that can be using android:pathPattern in android manifest. Basically you have to provide path pattern (a sort regex) to match the valid links.
Documentation for that can be found here.
https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/data-element
Solution # 2
One has to make RN Native Module and instead Linking.openURL(lowerUrl) to handle this kind of scenario.
To make browser native module one can take help from here.
This solution doesn't work with devices which lacks google play services like Kindle Fire, etc
I want to build links in my web page to open in Waze.
I have a DB with my customers addresses (not the GPS or Lat/Long) and want to click on the link and open Waze with the directions to the address.
This should be relatively easy to do with the Waze Deeplinks feature. The deep links work differently depending on which environment you're on (see below), which should be fine in your use case.
Basically, when you link someone to https://waze.com/ul?q=some%20address, the Waze site will then take the appropriate action:
Desktop: shows a page that allows you to send the location to a mobile device
Mobile (with Waze installed): open the app and start the search with the entered arguments
Mobile (without Waze installed): open as the live map with a link to the the Play Store or App Store to install Waze
There's the argument &navigate=yes you could add to the URL to start the navigation directly. But from my experience that only seems to have an effect if you provide exact coordinates to navigate to, which you mention you don't have.
I need to open a third-party app from my react native mobile app. I understand that this is called universal linking on iOS and AppLink on Android.
I have done a lot of research for this, and I have been able to set up a link to the third party app on the app store. Now I just need to get my app to open up the app if the user has it installed. That requires the URI scheme of the other app, though.
My question is, how do I get the URI scheme to this third party app? Rather, how do I get the URI scheme of any app? I know the URI scheme of the twitter app is 'twitter://app', but the app I am trying to link to is way more niche than twitter or other popular apps, so there is no help for this sort of thing online.
Any tips?
Finding the URL scheme of an iOS app
Due to Apple's tendency for secrecy, it's not easy to find the URL scheme of an iOS app. But it can be done. Here's how I do it, using a Mac app called iMazing.
Launch iMazing, select a connected iOS device, click Apps:
In the footer of the window, click Manage Apps:
Select the app you're interested in , then select Export .IPA menu item. Note: You may need to download the app first.
The saved file will have the .ipa extension. Change the extension to .zip, and unzip the file. You now have a directory with the name matching the app's name.
Assuming "asana" is the app name, open the file "asana/Payload/asana.app/Info.plist" in a text editor, and search for a section that contains "CFBundleURLSchemes". Assuming the app contains CFBundleURLSchemes (they are optional), it should look something like this:
The URL scheme is in the <string>asana</string>, so the complete url scheme in this case is "asana://". Test that the URL launches the app by typing it into iOS Safari browser window. If it works, Safari should display an alert like this:
What About Apps Without CFBundleURLSchemes?
I haven't found a way to launch apps without CFBundleURLSchemes directly, but you can link to the app's page in the App Store, where the user can open the app with the Open button (or Get button if the app is not installed).
You will need to obtain the app page's URL from the App Store:
Open App Store, go to the app's page, click the share icon:
Click Copy Link:
The URL will look like this:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/asana-organize-tasks-work/id489969512
Clicking on that link in Safari will bring up the app page in the App Store.
Maybe it is worth to start with some background:
There are various ways to deep link into an app, and it depends on the platform (iOS\Android\WindowsPhone...) and its version.
On iOS, up until version 9, the way to open an app was by using URI schemes, e.g. the one you added above: twitter://app. Each app declares the scheme that should be used. Therefore in order to deep link into the app you wish to open, you'll need to use the scheme that it declared. This is the same for Android until version 6.
Starting iOS9+, Apple introduced Universal Links as the method for deep linking. Here's some information: https://developer.apple.com/ios/universal-links/
In these versions, URI schemes won't longer work when using Safari browser (which is the iOS default browser) if the app is not installed. If the app is installed, however, URI schemes should allow opening the app, if everything is configured successfully. In Android there's a similar method called "AppLinks".
Having said this, the above information is for setting deep link for your app. I do not think that it is a common use case to open a third party app from your app - deep links are configured and used by the app owner (e.g. for publishing his\her app to engage users).
I have created a custom App URL for my iOS app. The URL format is similar to this:
myappname://texttobeparsed
This works fine when I paste the URL in safari, My App opens and correctly handles the URL. The problem is that other apps such as iMessage or Notes do not recognize this as a URL.
Why isn't this URL scheme being recognized as a URL? Could it have to do with how I set it up in my info.plist file or something else?
Or, does the URL need to be in a different format to be recognized?
I know it's possible to have the system recognize it as a URL in apps other than web-browsers because I've seen it before with other apps (ex. iTunes: itms://itunes.com/apps/appname or Twitter: twitter:// or Facebook: fb://).
There's nothing you can do about this. If the link isn't explicit (e.g. in an HTML email), these apps can just recognize a built-in set of standard URL schemes. itms:// is one of Apple's own schemes (for the iTunes Store), so it makes sense that it is supported in addition to the standard mailto://, http://, tel://... schemes.
Edit: I would guess that the information that is used to determine what constitutes a valid URL in text views etc. is cached somehow. Contrary to what I initially guessed, it seems that app-specific URLs do work in Notes, etc. I've tested this with tweetbot:// for example (which I have installed) and twitter:// (which I don't have installed) to verify that it doesn't just check for a pattern like *://, but actually uses information about the installed apps.
I'd suggest that you try to restart your device. If it's an issue with some cache, that might help and I don't think there's much else you could do if your URL scheme already works in Safari.
Update: I've installed the official Twitter app to test this, the twitter:// scheme wasn't immediately recognized in Notes, but after killing and restarting the Notes app, it worked.
Update 2: I've done a minimal test app with myappname:// as a custom URL scheme. Again, like with the Twitter app, it worked after restarting the Notes app, so it doesn't seem related to the popularity of the app or whether it's been submitted or not.
I can't answer as to why it's not working (beyond guessing that the link interpreter is hard-coded to only recognize certain URL schemes), but I can say that the typical way around this is to link to a web page, and have the web page redirect to your custom scheme.
It's slightly less elegant, because the user will see Safari open up briefly before being forwarded to your app, but it's also more robust because the web page can provide a link to the app store to install the app if it is not installed on the user's phone.