Launch custom android application from android browser

Question

Can anybody please guide me regarding how to launch my android application from the android browser?

Answer 1

Xamarin port of Felix's answer

In your MainActivity, add this (docs: Android.App.IntentFilterAttribute Class):

....
[IntentFilter(new[] { 
    Intent.ActionView }, 
    Categories = new[] { Intent.CategoryDefault, Intent.CategoryBrowsable }, 
    DataScheme = "my.special.scheme")
]
public class MainActivity : Activity
{
    ....

Xamarin will add following in the AndroidManifest.xml for you:

And in order to get params (I tested in OnCreate of MainActivity):

var data = Intent.Data;
if (data != null)
{
    var scheme = data.Scheme;
    var host = data.Host;
    var args = data.PathSegments;

    if (args.Count > 0)
    {
        var first = args[0];
        var second = args[1];
        ...
    }
}

As far as I know, above can be added in any activity, not only MainActivity

Notes:

1. When user click on the link, Android OS relaunch your app (kill prev instance, if any, and run new one), means the OnCreate event of app's MainLauncher Activity will be fired again.
2. With this link: , in above last code snippet values will be:

scheme: my.special.scheme
host: host
args: ["arg1", "arg2"]
first: arg1
second: arg2

Update: if android creates new instance of your app, you should add android:launchMode="singleTask" too.