Can an app register itself to consume certain URLs?

Question

This is not a programming question but a usability one.

News site example.com has an annoying habit: when I follow a link to an article, the site first displays a pop-up saying “come use our app instead!” So I did, but article links still open the web browser, and still bring up that pop-up.

I’d like to file a bug with the app developer. Could the app have been designed to consume all URLs beginning with http://example.com/? (Otherwise I’ll complain to the web site designers.)

Answer 1

What you're describing is generally referred to in Android parlance as an "intent filter", and yes - Android supports this via the <data> element in the application's manifest file. You could point them to that documentation link in your bug report. You can also find examples on Stack Overflow with some relevant code samples:

• Android Respond To URL in Intent
• Intercepting links from the browser to open my Android app