There is an app on Google Play which is embedding my website in a webview. The app does nothing else, and includes a 3rd party monetization feature.
I want to detect when users are accessing my site via the app, so that I can show a message.
I haven't however been able to find a way to distinguish between the Android mobile browser and the app, as the user agents are the same.
Is there any known method to detect a webview?
Thanks.
Unfortunately, the answer is no, there isn't a way to distinguish between the Android mobile browser and another webview-based app.
Unless the app developer elects to modify the user agent, of course.
If you know the App ID of the app displaying your website through a webview, you can use PHP to detect if your site is being accessed through the app rather than a mobile browser by using the $_SERVER global array.
<?php
$app_id = "com.domain.appname";
$using_app = ( $_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH'] == $app_id ) ? TRUE: FALSE;
if ( $using_app ) {
echo "Using app message.";
}
?>
You can then use the $using_app variable to control content output and display a custom message.
This is all assuming of course you are server scripting your site via PHP.
You can also flag the app as copyright violator and ask Google to remove it from the market...
Related
I have implemented deeplink for my ionic v1 application and also implemented universal link for same. I also checked so many links to implement App store redirection functionality.
Most of the link suggest to implement javascript code which first check device and based on ios/adnroid/window it will redirect to particular store but let say I will create that javascript code look like below
const iOS = !!navigator.platform && /iPad|iPhone|iPod/.test(navigator.platform);
if (iOS) {
window.location.href = "temp://itunes.apple.com/us/app/...";
}
but where should I put this file so when user click on deeplink it should redirect to particular this file and redirect to App Store/Play Store?
Let say I want to give my deeplink to some other server for which i don't have any access then what?
is there any other param or attribute we can set like fallback url by which when app is not installed it will automatically going to that particular link?
Any answer would be great help.
Thanks.
Usually it works that way:
You place a link on the website where you want to advertise your app. That link has a click tracking domain that points to your server. e.g. click.example.com/....
Upon clicking, if the app is installed, Universal Links would ensure that the app is opened. This is done by iOS (only if you configured Universal Links correctly, see https://developer.apple.com/ios/universal-links/). If the app is not installed, a redirect is done to your click tracking domain. This is where your Javascript logics should apply, so basically you need to reply to the request with a 302 redirect to an HTML file that contains the redirection logics (as in the example above). In that server response you can handle any fallback URL you want to use.
By the way, to make Universal Links work, anyway you had to host the AASA file, so you probably already created a server, so you can use it for the case where the app is not installed.
I am struggling a little bit. I have a common url like www.domain.com/test.html
and i want Android users to get my app open if "test" is included, otherwise if they don't have the app their should be directed to the play store. I got everything implemented and it works with mozilla browser. But using chrome on Android it should be forbidden to automatically open the app if it is available!?. Now if the user enters www.domain.com/test.html and i recognize he is using Android and Chrome i tried the intent stuff in a script in a redirected www.domain.com/android_chrome.html:
<script> window.open("intent://scan/#Intent;scheme=zxing;package=com.google.zxing.client.android;S.browser_fallback_url=http%3A%2F%2Fzxing.org;end","_self")
</script>
But the App won't open automatically. If i use a regular Link:
Take a QR code
it works. But i want to let it open automatically!
Google restricted starting intents from javascript apps, that's why it isn't working. Security reasons I guess. You should just display nice big link to let user switch to your app instead of website - or let him continue if he doesn't want to launch the app.
Forcing users into using app is bad, IMO. Splash screen suggesting to use it is okay, but don't push it.
I'm developing website with a lot of HTML5 and CSS3 features. I'm also using iframe to embed several content on my website. It works fine if I open it using Chrome/Firefox/Safari mobile browser. However, if I share on facebook (post/page) and I opened it up with Facebook application with Facebook Internal Browser, my website is messed up.
Is there any tools or way to debug on Facebook Browser? Thanks.
This is how you can do the debugging yourself. It's painful, but the only way I've come across so far.
tl;dr Get the Facebook App loading a page on your local server so you can iterate quickly. Then print debug statements directly to the page until you figure out what is going on.
Get a link to a page on your local server that you can access on your mobile device (test in mobile safari that it works). See this to find out your local IP address How do you access a website running on localhost from iPhone browser. It will look something like this
http://192.xxx.1.127:3000/facebook-test
Post that link on your Facebook page (you can make it private so your friends aren't all like WTF?)
Click the posted link in the Facebook mobile App and it will open up in Facebook's mobile browser
Since you don't have a console, you basically need to print debug statements directly to the page so it is visible. Put debug statements all over your code. If your problems are primarily related to CSS, then you can iteratively comment out stuff until you've found the issue(s) or print the relevant CSS attributes using JavaScript. Eg something like (using JQuery)
function debug(str){$('body').append("<br>"+str);}
Quite possibly the most painful part. The Facebook browser caches very aggressively. If you are making changes and nothing has happened, it's because the content is cached. You can sometimes resolve this by updating the URLs, eg /facebook-test-1, /facebook-test-2, or adding dummy parameters eg /facebook-test?dummy=1. But if the changes are in external css or js sheets it sometimes will still cache. To 100% clear the cache, delete the Facebook App from your mobile device and reinstall.
The internal browser the Facebook app uses is essentially a uiWebView. Paul Irish has made a simple iOS app that lets you load any URL into a uiWebView which you then can debug using Safari's Developer Tools.
https://github.com/paulirish/iOS-WebView-App
I found a way how to debug it easier. You will need to install the Ghostlab app (You have a 7-day free trial there, however it's totally worth paying for).
In Ghostlab, add the website address (or a localhost address) you want to debug and start the session.
Ghostlab will generate a link for access.
Copy that link and post it on Facebook (as a private post)
Open the link on mobile and that's it! Ghostlab will identify you once you open that link, and will allow you to debug the page.
For debugging, you will have all the same tools as in the Chrome devtools (how cool is that!). For example, you can tweak CSS and see the changes applied live.
If you want to debug a possible error, you can try to catch it and display it.
Put this at the very top of your code:
window.onerror = function (msg, url, lineNo, columnNo, error) {
var string = msg.toLowerCase();
var substring = "script error";
if (string.indexOf(substring) > -1){
alert('Script Error: See Browser Console for Detail');
} else {
var message = [
'Message: ' + msg,
'URL: ' + url,
'Line: ' + lineNo,
'Column: ' + columnNo,
'Error object: ' + JSON.stringify(error)
].join(' - ');
alert(message);
}
}
(Source: MDN)
This will catch and alert your errors.
Share a link on Facebook (privately), or send yourself a message on Facebook Messenger (easier). To break the cache, create a new URL every time, e.g. by appending a random string to the URL.
Follow the link and see if you can find any errors.
With help of ngrok create temporary http & https adress instead of your ordinary localhost:3000(or other port) and you could run your app on any devices. It is super easy to use.
and as it was written above all other useful information you should write somewhere inside div element (in case of React I recommend to put onClick on that div with force update or other function for getting info, sometimes it helps because JS in FB could be executed erlier than your information appears). Keep in mind that alerts are not reliable, sometimes they are blocked
bonus from ngrok that in console you will see which files was
requested and response code (it will replace lack of network tab)
and about iFrame.If you use it on other domain and you rely on cookies - you should know that facebook in-app browser blocks 3rd party cookies
test on Android and iOS separately because technicaly they use different browsers
I am trying to get an App to redirect to an external website. I have found a company who has done it (See image). If you type in their name "Safarinow" the first result comes up which is an App. When you click the app you get redirected to "http://www.safarinow.com".
Would anyone know how to achieve this?
p.s. I am not actually a developer but rather a Social media manager so I have a limited understanding of coding etc. I have just been asked to find out how to do this for the lazy dev team.
Thanks in advance
That could be done by using Javascript in your application iframe. That javascript can change the top-url like that:
window.top.location = 'http://www.my-website.com/';
You just have to run this code when your website is loaded. For example by using jQuery:
jQuery(window).load(function() { window.top.location = 'http://www.my-website.com/'; });
Upon install of my app on a Facebook Page, I'd like to send the user to an URL with further instructions. I'm starting the installation with http://facebook.com/add.php?api_key=app_api_key&page=page_id, which installs but redirects the user to the Facebook Page itself. It seems like various forms of redirect were available at some point:
Post-authorize callback URL. I can no longer find that in App settings.
The next parameter for add.php. I can't seem to get this to work
I have seen some apps that do redirect upon install, so I believe this is possible. Maybe it's using an old Post-authorize setting that's no longer visible?
Any help or point would be greatly appreciated! I'm also not attached to using add.php, if there's a Facebook Connect method that does this I'd use that instead (I'm looking at profile.addtab though that doesn't seem to work either).
You can set the redirect URL in the app properties. You can no longer set it from the developer control panel in Facebook, but you can still set it using the REST api.
The list of app properties is here: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/appproperties/
To set the "post_authorize_redirect_url" you would use something like this:
https://api.facebook.com/method/admin.setAppProperties?
access_token=CURRENTTOKEN&
properties={'post_authorize_redirect_url':'http://mydomain.com/post_authorize_folder/'}
I am not completely clear on this, but I believe the url needs to point to a folder, terminated with "/" rather than a specific file.
The callback gets two parameters:
installed = 1 (true)
fb_page_id = the page id when your app was installed
First page that Canvas is point to should have
< script type='text/javascript'>top.location.href = 'REDIRECT-URL';< /script>
So when your app is opened it will automaticaly redirect to REDIRECT-URL
I'm not sure that you can avoid opening of application canvas page after installing application.