Feature request: Share url with WebCast

[brezelman]

I would like to have this app as a target for an url's "share by" android menu.

Like this I could browse in my main browser, and switch to WebCast, if needed, fast.

[warren-bank]

eh..

https://stackoverflow.com/a/4085505

Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
i.setType("text/plain");
i.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "Sharing URL");
i.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "http://www.url.com");

..quickly refreshing my memory on the Intents used to "share" text between apps;
it's just an unformatted block of text (in an string extra)..
which would need to be filtered through a text parser to extract the first URL (if one is present)..
doable but ugly.

https://github.com/warren-bank/Android-WebCast/blob/v05.02.00/android-studio-project/WebCast/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml#L41-L55

..these are the current Intent filters.. that accept any http(s) URL.

Can your main browser "open" the URL (as the data URI in an Intent), rather than "sharing" the URL (as text)?

[warren-bank]

related..

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41846390/share-url-from-browser-to-other-apps-in-android

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31205502/android-get-url-from-browser

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idk.. suppose if I'm looking for something to do in an afternoon, I'll add this; it's a pretty good suggestion. (thanks!)

[brezelman]

Can your main browser "open" the URL (as the data URI in an Intent), rather than "sharing" the URL (as text)?

Oh, sorry, I didn't mention, that I use Fennec. I don't think there's an "open by" feature to open the current site with another app, just share.

I only saw that feature in Foss Browser today. That's working as expected.

it's just an unformatted block of text (in an string extra)..
which would need to be filtered through a text parser to extract the first URL (if one is present)..
doable but ugly.

Ok, that must be how Firefox and other apps do it then. Which is actually pretty neat, as copying a block of text is often easier in some apps than just copying an url.

[warren-bank]

I thought about it for a minute and decided on a different approach..

Rather than updating this app (and potentially several of my other apps) to support accepting and parsing shared text,
I wrote a separate standalone app to perform that task.. with the ability to detect various types of embedded data.. and forward it along to a more appropriate app to digest the (properly formatted) data.

https://github.com/warren-bank/Android-ShareForwarding
https://github.com/warren-bank/Android-ShareForwarding/releases

It currently supports:

• web URLs.. for example, from a browser (tested with Firefox)
• geo coordinates.. for example, from mapping software (tested with Google Maps)
• email address.. for example, on a "contact us" webpage (tested with Firefox)
• phone number.. for example, on a "contact us" webpage (tested with Firefox)

It's only 11KB.. and solves this problem in a generic way.. to work with forwarding of shared text between any 2 apps.

[brezelman]

Thanks for the quick solution. I opened a bug report there, as it doesn't find any apps for me.

warren-bank/Android-ShareForwarding#1

[brezelman]

I was a little bit too quick. Your new app uses the system's default open mechanism? That's not helpful for those, like me, who have set their main browser as default browser.
The shared url will always be opened in the default browser then.
I'm not able to share a website with WebCast like that (without making it my default browser).

[warren-bank]

I don't know if you've tested the update (v1.0.1)..

but with respect to default apps..
if you've chosen an app to "always open" a particular type of Intent, then Android will do that..
if not, then Android will present a dialog that allows you to choose an app to open "just once"..
for example

there is a way to configure the Intent to force the dialog to display,
but, in my experience, this causes some devices to entirely ignore the Intent..
so I tend not to go that route.

[brezelman]

Yes, I tested version 1.0.1, it's working as intended by you.

The reason for my feature request was to save interactions. If I don't set the browser to “always open”, I don't save any interactions; on the contrary, I have to carry out a lot more interactions.

That way I doubt that the companion app will be of much use to anybody.

[warren-bank]

suppose that's what makes the world go round..
personally, I never set the "always use" option..
because I always like the see a chooser dialog..
so this configuration works for me.

but, I don't see any harm in adding an option to use this behavior

as is, the app doesn't appear in the launcher.
I could add a "settings" Activity, and have that serve as the page that displays when the app's icon is clicked in the launcher.
The only setting I can think to add is a checkbox: "Force chooser dialog"

[warren-bank]

v1.1.0 implements what I've described..
so you'll want to open the app from the launcher, and set the checkbox to a checked state.

after doing this..
whenever you share text to this app, you should be presented with a chooser dialog..
regardless of whether you've previously selected to "always use" particular apps to handle specific types of intents.

---

update: I just tested this version.. and it didn't display a chooser dialog after choosing a default app; I'll need to look into the problem.

---

update: I just stepped through the app with the debugger.. and:

• the checkbox setting is properly saved (by the settings activity) and read at runtime (by the main activity)
• the intent is properly bundled and embedded into a new intent with action: ACTION_CHOOSER
• when the new intent is started.. if there is already a "preferred activity" then no chooser dialog is shown
  • despite the documentation for this action, that says:

    The user does not have the option to make one of the matching activities a preferred activity,
    and all possible activities will always be shown even if one of them is currently marked as the preferred activity.
    

• tested in:
  • Android 7
  • Android 8

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interesting: before Android 12, Android allowed other apps to be used in place of the system-provided app to display the activity chooser dialog. I tested this app.. and when a "preferred activity" is selected, it displays a chooser having only the one "preferred" app in the list.

I love Android.. but it can really be a headache sometimes.

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this would work..
but it would require a permission and a little extra code..
to basically query for all the activities to display in the chooser,
and build an array of intents to hand to the chooser to use.

[brezelman]

I looked around and found other apps to work with:

• NeoLinker maybe has the same approach and problem as it opens the browser directly but states otherwise in the description?!
• Easy Open Link has the app selection feature on it's roadmap.
• Open Link With can do it.

I tried your WebCast Reloaded browser extension, too, but because Firefox has no cast support at the moment, this won't help me much.

[warren-bank]

v1.1.1 works on Android 7 and 8.
I haven't tested it yet on 11+.

[brezelman]

I can confirm the successful app list display in Android 13 with v. 1.1.1.

However it doesn't list all apps registered as browser on my device:

Compared to Open Link With:

[warren-bank]

just to let you know.. v1.2.0 is out, which should allow the Intents to match more apps

previously, the Intents (effectively) had no MIME type.
Android uses Intent.resolveType to infer a MIME type,
but it wasn't returning a value for any URL..
so I took a peek at the code for its implementation, and realized that it is only meant to work on "content:" URIs..
which is completely irrelevant for our purposes.

now, I'm using a MIME type mapping class that's provided with WebView to infer MIME types from URLs.
It isn't perfect.. is missing a lot of common file extensions, which is disappointing..
but it's much better than before.

for example:

• .pdf files will include PDF viewers
• .mp4 files will include video players
• .torrent files will include bittorrent clients
• etc..

in addition to this, I've added a new "Settings" option..
that (when checked) will cause "http" and "https" URLs that cannot infer a MIME type to default to: "text/html"..
which should add most web browsers to the list of apps.