I am hoping there might be some way of detecting whether or not an uri:scheme is registered on a mobile device from within the browser.
IE: I'd like to check if the facebook, twitter, pinterest apps are installed and can be launched from their associated uri:scheme.
if(fb_isInstalled) {
// href="fb://profile/...."
} else {
// href="http://m.facebook.com/..."
}
Basically if the user has installed facebook, then launch the app, but fall back to the mobile version of the fb website if the app is not installed.
I think I've got a working solution.
<!-- links will work as expected where javascript is disabled-->
<a class="intent"
href="http://facebook.com/someProfile"
data-scheme="fb://profile/10000">facebook</a>
And my javascript works like this.
note: there's a little jQuery mixed in there, but you don't need to use it if you don't want to.
(function () {
// tries to execute the uri:scheme
function goToUri(uri, href) {
var start, end, elapsed;
// start a timer
start = new Date().getTime();
// attempt to redirect to the uri:scheme
// the lovely thing about javascript is that it's single threadded.
// if this WORKS, it'll stutter for a split second, causing the timer to be off
document.location = uri;
// end timer
end = new Date().getTime();
elapsed = (end - start);
// if there's no elapsed time, then the scheme didn't fire, and we head to the url.
if (elapsed < 1) {
document.location = href;
}
}
$('a.intent').on('click', function (event) {
goToUri($(this).data('scheme'), $(this).attr('href'));
event.preventDefault();
});
})();
I also threw this up as a gist that you can fork and mess with. You can also include the gist in a jsfiddle if you so choose.
@kmallea forked the gist and radically simplified it. https://gist.github.com/kmallea/6784568
// tries to execute the uri:scheme
function uriSchemeWithHyperlinkFallback(uri, href) {
if(!window.open(uri)){
window.location = href;
}
}
// `intent` is the class we're using to wire this up. Use whatever you like.
$('a.intent').on('click', function (event) {
uriSchemeWithHyperlinkFallback($(this).data('scheme'), $(this).attr('href'));
// we don't want the default browser behavior kicking in and screwing everything up.
event.preventDefault();
});