I know this question is asked multiple times on SO. But none of answers worked for me in iOS 12
I know using branch.io, I can do this but I don't want to use any paid service
What I have tried
window.location.replace('myapp://');
const timer = setTimeout(() => {
window.location.replace('appstorelink://);
}, 1000);
But it shows an ugly popup that says safari can not open this page if app is not installed. After clicking on 'Ok' button it redirects to app store
Is there any workaround to stop or avoid the popup?
I have a webpage, lets call it entry.html.
When a user enters this page, a javascript code (see below) is attempting to deep-link the user to the native iOS / Android app.
If the deep-link fails (probably if the app isn't installed on device), user should "fall back" to another page- lets call it fallback.html.
here is the javascript code that is running on entry.html:
$(function(){
window.location = 'myapp://';
setTimeout(function(){
window.location = 'fallback.html';
}, 500);
});
this is a standard deep-linking method that is recommended all over the network; try to deep-link, and if the timeout fires it means that deep-link didn't occur- so fallback.
this works fine, as long app is installed on device.
but if the app isn't installed, this is the behaviour when trying to deep-link:
Mobile Safari: I see an alert message saying "Safari cannot open this page..." for a moment, and then it falls-back properly to fallback.html- which is the expected behaviour.
Mobile Chrome is my problem.
when the app isn't installed, browser is actually redirected to the myapp:// url, which is of course, invalid- so i get a "not found" page, and fall-back doesn't occur.
Finally- my question is:
How can I fix my code so FALL-BACK WILL OCCUR on mobile Chrome as well? just like mobile Safari?
note: i see that LinkedIn mobile website does this properly, with Safari & Chrome, with or without the app installed, but i couldn't trace the code responsible for it :(
note2: i tried appending an iframe instead of window.location = url, this works only on Safari, mobile Chrome doesn't deep-link when appending an iFrame even if app is installed.
Thanks all!
UPDATE:
i found a decent solution, and answered my own question. see accepted answer for my solution.
for whoever is interested, i managed to find a decent solution to solve these issues with deeplinking Chrome on Android.
i abandoned the myapp:// approach, i left it functioning only in cases of an iOS device.
for Android devices, i'm now using intents which are conceptually different than the myapp:// protocol.
I'm mainly a web developer, not an Android developer, so it took me some time to understand the concept, but it's quite simple. i'll try to explain and demonstrate MY solution here (note that there are other approaches that could be implemented with intents, but this one worked for me perfectly).
here is the relevant part in the Android app manifest, registering the intent rules (note the android:scheme="http" - we'll talk about it shortly):
<receiver android:name=".DeepLinkReceiver">
<intent-filter >
<data android:scheme="http" android:host="www.myapp.com" />
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
</intent-filter>
</receiver>
now, after this is declared in the app manifest, i'm sending myself an email with "http://www.myapp.com" in the message.
when link is tapped with the Android device, a "chooser" dialog comes up, asking with which application i want to open the following? [chrome, myapp]
the reason this dialog came up upon tapping on a "regular" url, is because we registered the intent with the http scheme.
with this approach, the deeplink isn't even handled in the webpage, it's handled by the device itself, when tapping a matching link to an existing intent rule defined in the Android app manifest.
and yes, as i said, this approach is different by concept than the iOS approach, which invokes the deeplink from within the webpage, but it solves the problem, and it does the magic.
Note: when app isn't installed, no chooser dialog will come up, you'll just get navigated to the actual web page with the given address (unless you have more than 1 browser, so you'll need to choose one... but lets not be petty).
i really hope that this could help someone who's facing the same thing.. wish i had such an explanation ;-)
cheers.
It is very important to make sure that when you try to open a deeplink URL with JavaScript that the URL is properly formatted for the device and browser. (If you do not use the appropriate deeplink URL for the browser/platform, a user may be redirected to a “Page Not Found”, which is what you experience.)
Now you must note that Chrome on Android has a different URL format than the old standard Android browser 1! You need to annotate the deep links using href="android-app://" in the HTML markup of your web pages. You can do this in the section for each web page by adding a tag and specifying the deep link as an alternate URI.
For example, the following HTML snippet shows how you might specify the corresponding deep link in a web page that has the URL example://gizmos.
<html>
<head>
<link rel="alternate"
href="android-app://com.example.android/example/gizmos" />
...
</head>
<body> ... </body>
For more details, see the references here:
https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/android/intents
https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/webmasters/server
https://developer.android.com/training/app-indexing/enabling-app-indexing.html#webpages
And here's a deep link testing tool for Android: https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/webmasters/test.html
Hope that helps.
1 Since the old AOSP browser was replaced by chromium, this is now the default way to handle deep links for recent Android versions. Nonetheless, Android still requires a conditional soltion, because older OS versions still use the AOSP browser.
I have created a Javascript plugin, which supports most of the modern browsers on mobile. But it requires to have deep linking landing pages to be hosted on cross domain(different than universal link url) to work on ios9 Facebook using universal linking. There is also different way to get that working on the Facebook iOS9 using Facebook SDK. I am sharing this if anyone might find this helpful. Currently it does not fallback option, but if falls back to the App Store.
https://github.com/prabeengiri/DeepLinkingToNativeApp
I am Using this Code to for deeplinking.
If the app is installed the app will open up..
If the app is not installed then this remains as it is..
If you wish to add any other condition for app no install then just uncomment the setTimeout code .
<script>
var deeplinking_url = scootsy://vendor/1;
$(document).ready(function(){
call_me_new(deeplinking_url);
});
var call_me_new = function(deeplinking_url){
if(deeplinking_url!=''){
var fallbackUrl ='http://scootsy.com/';
var iframe = document.createElement("iframe");
var nativeSchemaUrl = deeplinking_url;
console.log(nativeSchemaUrl);
iframe.id = "app_call_frame";
iframe.style.border = "none";
iframe.style.width = "1px";
iframe.style.height = "1px";
iframe.onload = function () {
document.location = nativeSchemaUrl;
};
iframe.src = nativeSchemaUrl; //iOS app schema url
window.onload = function(){
document.body.appendChild(iframe);
}
//IF the App is not install then it will remain on the same page.If you wish to send the use to other page then uncomment the below code and send a time interval for the redirect.
/*
setTimeout(function(){
console.log('Iframe Removed...');
document.getElementById("app_call_frame").remove();
window.location = fallbackUrl; //fallback url
},5000);*/
}
};
</script>
setTimeout(function () { if (document.hasFocus()) { window.location = 'URL WILL BEHERE';} }, 2000);
window.location = 'app://';
Need to check document.hasFocus() here because if app is open then playstore url is also open in browser
I also had similar issue, there is a possible alternative for this. If the app is not installed on user's device we can redirect that to some other url.To know more about it Check Here
Example:
Take a QR code
In my case its working fine in opera and chrome browser my deeplink url is
"intent://contentUrl + #Intent;scheme=" +envHost +;package="+envHost+";end";
For other browser create iframe and append the url.
Note -: iframe url append having issue with old device and in firefox its opening app dialog .
Tried both of the following methods so that ppl can click a link in my app and be taken to the app store to review/rate:
Rate our App
and when this linked is tapped on, nothing happens and i get the following console message:
Failed to load webpage with error: The URL can’t be shown
Also tried a window.open:
$(document).hammer().on('tap', self.frameSelector + ' .rate-us-action', function(){
window.open('itms-apps://itunes.apple.com/app/id111111111');
});
and when tapping attempting this method nothing happens and i get the following console message:
handle url: itms-apps://itunes.apple.com/app/id1111111
How do i get my phonegap app to properly open a link to the appstore???
Try this format for <> has to be replaced with the appropriate info:
http://itunes.apple.com/app/<APP_NAME>/id<APP_ID>?mt=8
I've used the following link format for Cordova/PhoneGap apps since Cordova 2.2 & iOS 5:
itms-apps://itunes.com/apps/appname
Simply replace appname with your app's name.
Rate our App
You can also open the App Store and display a page of apps by your company with the same format:
itms-apps://itunes.com/apps/companyname
In a link:
More Apps By Us
This works today on iOS 8.1.1 without the Cordova inappbrowser plugin.
Please can you help with the below?
The user goes to http://m.somedomain.com
Does the user have the native PhoneGap app installed?
a. Yes… open the native app
b. No…. stay on http://m.somedomain.com
I know I can do the following but wondered if there was another way:
setTimeout(function ()
{ window.location = "STAY ON APP"; }
, 25);
window.location = "myApp://";
Ps. This needs to work for both iOS and Android.
Thanks.
I'm creating a website for iPhone and i use the native app (cliqcliq Quickpick) to upload photos. I use the script like the following to check if the application is installed. The basic idea is to send user to a custom url, if application is there it is launched, if it is not there the url should be ignored and user is taken to App Store. Below is the script:
window.launchQuickpic = function() {
var start = new Date();
setTimeout(function() {
if (new Date() - start > 2000) {
return;
}
window.location = 'http://www.cliqcliq.com/quickpic/install/';
}, 1000);
var getParams = [...];
window.location = 'vquickpic://?' + getParams.join('&');
};
If the native app is not installed I'm getting the alert box saying that Safari does not recognize the custom url. After user clicks "ok" it works as it is supposed to. But the alert is reeealy annoying.
I've tried to surround the window.location= code with try/catch. Didn't help.
If I understand correctly, you're seeing the expected behavior.
If the app isn't installed then the system has no knowledge of what it is supposed to do with a URL that starts with 'vquickpic://'. That is why you get the error message.
I presume that what you are seeing is that you first set the window.location to 'http://www.cliqcliq.com/quickpic/install/' but before that finishes loading you try to switch to window.location to 'vquickpic://'. That generates an error and the webview keeps loading the first URL when you dismiss the alert.
The main problem here is that the error is coming from the iPhone OS itself which isn't accessible from the javascript inside a webpage. A webpage can't ask the iPhone if it has a particular app installed or can carry out a particular operation.
I think the best you can do is tell the user that clicking the link will attempt to launch the native app if it is installed but if they get an error they need to dismiss it and hit another link on the page to install the app.
I have not got this to work yet but I think this is something you should investigate. It is my believe this will suppress the message .
window.onerror = function(msg, url, linenumber) { return true; }
I have also read somewhere that a user had success doing something similar to above but instead of returning true they would switch the window.location back to a valid location such as 'about:blank'. They where using a iframe in that implementation though.
OR maybe you could try Opera Mini for that matter