I have a project that requires the browser to open a qr code reader app from a link. Is that possible? I know URI schemes are useful for this kind of situation, but I don't know where to look.
There is no general solution, but, in specific cases, apps can register to handle certain links.
For example, Barcode Scanner on Android responds to zxing:// links. So does the iOS app. See https://code.google.com/p/zxing/wiki/ScanningFromWebPages for details.
(It will also let you send back the results to a web page.)
It's possible that other apps also set up to follow this quasi-standard URI scheme, but it is not at all guaranteed.
It really depends on the exact app you want to open. There's no generic way.
QR Droid allows websites to use a link to open the app to scan, decode or generate a QR Code.
You can read more here:
http://qrdroid.com/web-masters.php
But as I said, you need to decide which app to use and then read the documentation for that specific app.
Related
I saw a lot of option in order to create share interaction with users:
Web share API: https://www.w3.org/TR/web-share/#sharedata-dictionary
It seems compatible with Progressive-Web-App, but it's not well supported by firefox (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/share#browser_compatibility)
Simple Sharer: https://reactjsexample.com/a-javascript-framework-to-share-url-to-social-media-sites-like-facebook-twitter-reddit-whastapp/
If I understood well, it doesn't work for mobile, am I right?
react-share: https://reactjsexample.com/social-media-share-buttons-and-share-counts-for-react/
Seems to work on every browser, but I don't know if it's PWA-friendly. Seems to be the best option, but I'm not sure... The last update was 1 year ago (https://www.npmjs.com/package/react-share) so maybe it will not be maintained through times...
What do you use for your app? What do you recommand?
Do you know better alternatives?
My need for the App is to share URL through social media or mail/text or ??? etc. No file in theory. And I'd like to have adapted preview on social media when the user share something.
I have used react-share personally and it was unable to open some of the apps in mobile like whatsapp, etc.
The workaround is deep-links.
if user is using a smartphone or a tablet (we can easily get this using navigator.userAgent) then you can use the app based deep-links otherwise the traditional way in which you can redirect user to a new web page.
Some of the examples:
Whatsapp: https://faq.whatsapp.com/563219570998715/?locale=en_US
Instagram: Answer is already given here
NOTE: deep-link works if the user has installed the application on desktop as well (never tried for macOS but for windows and ubuntu it works)
After edit:
You can use emailto: in href while writing <a .../>.
example:
Share this link
For more reference about mailto please visit this MDN doc: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a#attr-href
I'm busy building a web page where I'm using HtmlEasy and Silken with Google Closure Templates.
With ASP.NET MVC4 there is a technique of serving a mobile version of a web page by changing the file name to .mobile.. So it is not just the same version served up using a different stylesheet - the contents/data too can be different. This is really great since not everything may be relevant for a person using a mobile device.
Does HtmlEasy and Silken provide the same or similar feature? I can't seem to find anything that'll help.
Ok, when you need to detect any mobile device then its better to make use of a database.
For my own project I'm using 51Degrees Lite. Pass the user-agent to the lib and it'll tell you if the device is mobile or not. Then serve your soy template(s) accordingly.
Does there exist some kind of plugin or lightweight method of determining whether
A. A user is using a mobile device
B. The user has a particular app
C. The user does not have a particular app.
And depending on what criteria the user satisfies, display a prompt (modal, overlay, pop-up) that allows the user to view the app (if installed) or to install it (if they do not have it installed).
I realize "A" can be achieved by using media queries but I am not sure how to configure the others.
I've seen this done on many many sites so I know that it is not uncommon (view screenshot). Ideally I just want to implement some quick solution. I'm looking for something similar to "Hello Bar" for mobile only, I suppose.
Any help will be appreciated.
Example: http://i.imgur.com/VkWKu.png (the prompt at the top of the browser)
I ended up finding this:
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/AppleApplications/Reference/SafariWebContent/PromotingAppswithAppBanners/PromotingAppswithAppBanners.html
Which is exactly what I was looking for and will work in tandem with the other solutions.
I would try this approach if you really need to know if a user has your app installed.
When your app is installed and first run have it create a cookie. The only thing you have to remember to use is the CookieSyncManager because the set Cookies are stored in RAM and not storage, CookieSyncManager will sync these two.
CookieSyncManager.createInstance(context)
CookieSyncManager.getInstance().sync()
Once you've set the cookie you can then read the Cookie with the website, if its there show popup etc. Oh and only show this popup only if its a mobile device: http://www.quirksmode.org/js/detect.html
Android Developer On CookieSyncManager: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/webkit/CookieSyncManager.html
Bolg Post Explaining the Usage of the CookieSyncManager:
http://blog.tacticalnuclearstrike.com/2010/05/using-cookiesyncmanager/
I know how to do this with android not iOS or Windows...
There's no standard way to do this.
See the end of this post: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ieinternals/archive/2011/07/14/url-protocols-application-protocols-and-asynchronous-pluggable-protocols-oh-my.aspx for one mechanism available to JavaScript in IE10.
IE10's Metro environment offers this: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/10/20/connect-your-web-site-to-your-windows-8-app.aspx but I don't think that exists for the mobile browser.
Is it okay to have a full silverlight website? I've seen some website implements a full Flash website.
If yes, how can i separate pages, so they load only when user clicks on a link.
I would only use this approach if you want to force your potential users to have the sliverlight plugin. So, on a site that is open to the internet at large, I would say no. You are just alienating some potential users/viewers by forcing them to have the plugin.
Over Christmas I implemented some code to open a channel to my App Engine application using the channel API and it was working fine.
I recently returned to the code and find that it is broken, and the problem seems to lie in talkgadget that the client code is trying to load into a frame.
I took a snapshot of the code returned by /_ah/channel/jsapi on December 21 and I am comparing it to today's code.
When the older version tried to get talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/d?token=[my-token] it was hardcoded to use http. Sensibly enough, the code was later changed to check the page's protocol in document.location and adapt to cases where https is used. The problem now is that when running in a chrome extension it grabs chrome-extension: as the protocol and naturally the channel fails to open in the extension.
Setting the base of the background page to my appspot URL does not change document.location, although I had some vague notion that it should. (Not sure what the standards say.)
Is there a workaround for this? One thought was to create my own iframe loaded from my site, but then it will nest the actual channel iframe, complicating things.
I wonder if Moishe or someone else on the App Engine team could comment on this. It seems like the this is a bug and the code should take into chrome extensions either by testing for the protocol and searching for a base tag as an alternative, or provide some way to configure this through the javascript object.
Yep, this is a bug. There's a fix submitted, and it's in the process of rolling out to production; it'll probably be out in about a week.
In the meantime, your idea of an iframe embedded in the extension should work.