Make a link in the Android browser start up my app?

user_340 0
Viewed 278919

Is it possible to make a link such as:

<a href="anton://useful_info_for_anton_app">click me!</a>

cause my Anton app to start up?

I know that this works for the Android Market app with the market protocol, but can something similar be done with other apps?

Here is an example of a link that will start up the Android Market:

<a href="market://search?q=pname:com.nytimes.android">click me!</a>

Update: The answer I accepted provided by eldarerathis works great, but I just want to mention that I had some trouble with the order of the subelements of the <intent-filter> tag. I suggest you simply make another <intent-filter> with the new subelements in that tag to avoid the problems I had. For instance my AndroidManifest.xml looks like this:

<activity android:name=".AntonWorld"
          android:label="@string/app_name">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
    </intent-filter>
    <intent-filter>
        <data android:scheme="anton" />
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
    </intent-filter>
</activity>
android
10 Answers

This method doesn't call the disambiguation dialog asking you to open either your app or a browser.

If you register the following in your Manifest

<manifest package="com.myApp" .. >
  <application ...>
    <activity ...>
      <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:host="gallery"
          android:scheme="myApp" />
      </intent-filter>
    </activity>
    ..

and click this url from an email on your phone for example

<a href="intent://gallery?directLink=true#Intent;scheme=myApp;package=com.myApp;end"> 
  Click me 
</a>

then android will try to find an app with the package com.myApp that responds to your gallery intent and has a myApp scheme. In case it can't, it will take you to the store, looking for com.myApp, which should be your app.

user_36297880

Just want to open the app through browser? You can achieve it using below code:

HTML:

<a href="intent:#Intent;action=packageName;category=android.intent.category.DEFAULT;category=android.intent.category.BROWSABLE;end">Click here</a>

Manifest:

<intent-filter>
      <action android:name="packageName" />
      <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
      <category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
</intent-filter>

This intent filter should be in Launcher Activity.

If you want to pass the data on click of browser link, just refer this link.

user_20245270
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