Android deep linking into an app

1 - Set Custom URL schemes like http://example.com

For example, the URL http://example.com/?id=95 , will open up the relevant FAQ and the URL http://example.com/?sectionid=8 (where sectionid is the publish id of any Section), will open up relevant section.

2 - Define in your AndroidManifest.xml your DeepLinkActivity (the one that will receive the URL data:

<activity android:name="com.example.shilpi.deeplinkingsample.DeepLinkActivity">
            <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="http" android:host="example.com"/>
             </intent-filter>
        </activity>

3 - Override the onResume() method of your DeepLinkActivity class:

@Override
protected void onResume() {
    super.onResume();

    Intent in = getIntent();
    Uri data = in.getData();
    System.out.println("deeplinkingcallback   :- "+data);
}

This technique actually seems to be working on Android from what I can tell:

http://mobile.dzone.com/news/custom-url-schemes-phonegap

I haven't tried it in a real production app yet, so your mileage may vary. What I've done is use that technique of creating a hidden iframe and attempting to set the location to the custom url scheme, and call the function from onload for the document. What I've seen so far (I've only tested it out on 2.2 and 2.3 devices) is that if I have an app installed that handles the custom scheme the app will launch, and if not the page will render.

Relatively clean single URL to cover both cases, and doesn't ruin things like Twitter shares of the URL. A real production version might only do the hidden iframe probe if the request is coming from something that looks like a platform that might support the application to reduce the risk of incompatible desktop behavior.

To answer your questions, below is a sample intent filter in the manifest.

<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="www.example.com"
        android:pathPrefix="/home"
        android:scheme="https"/>
</intent-filter>

So basically, when some one clicks on any link starting with http://www.example.com/home, he/she will be given the option to open it with your app along with the Browser apps. You have to handle the intent in the activity

Also the scheme could be anything, but http scheme is recommended by google, so that both your app and the browser app can listen to clicks on the deeplinked url.

Note : Don't forget to add android-app://yourpackage name/http/www.example.com/home/... in your web pages, if you want app linking.