How to implement Deep Links (App Links) using GitHub as host

[RaYzZz (Gianluca Franco)]

Hello everyone,

Today I’m sharing with you a guide on how to implement modern Deep Links, also known as App Links.

In the Android documentation, the use of App Links is recommended for several reasons that make them the best choice nowadays.

The extension we will use is this one from Glich

DeepLinkExt — Handle Deep Links Effortlessly from Any App State! [Android 13+ Supported]

[Adobe Express - file] DeepLinkExt [image] [image] [image] Advanced Deep Link Handler for Kodular & MIT App Inventor Handle app deep links effortlessly with native support for cold starts, warm starts, and real-time URL interception Why Use It? Standard deep linking links frequently break or fail to pass data if your app is launched from a completely closed state (cold start). DeepLinkExt solves this problem by using a native implementation that …

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Index

1. Setup GitHub Pages

2. Setup the extension

3. Setup of assetlinks.json

3. Setup the blocks

4. Test

4. Docs

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Setup GitHub Pages

Since we will need a GitHub domain for the extension configuration, GitHub Pages will come to our aid by providing us with a free one.

Here the click by click steps:

First, access to GitHub

It may take a moment and from Actions you can check the status.

Let’s copy the domain because we will need it as an attribute to configure the extension.

test.github.io

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Setup the extension

1) android.keystore

To create the assetlinks.json file, the extension generator will need the keystore, so the first thing we need to do is download it.

2) Extension generator by Glich

At this point, we will have 2 files

• the extension com.glich.deeplinkext to upload to Kodular
• and the assetlinks.json file that we need to place inside the .well-known folder of our GitHub page

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Setup of assetlinks.json

Very simply, choose how to create the file

and make sure that

https://yourSubdomain.github.io/.well-known/assetlinks.json

is reachable and responds with the configuration

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Setup the blocks

To avoid making things too complicated, we will use a minimal example to make everything work.

In this very simple example, we register Screen1 and, on the DeepLinkReceived event, we display a message with the url.

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Test

Now, whenever a link containing

https://test.github.io/something

is opened, the app will open, triggering the DeepLinkExt.DeepLinkReceived event and receiving the URL as a parameter.

Concrete usage example

How to implement Deep Links (App Links) using GitHub as host

Concrete usage example In this example project, we will use virtual screens and, based on the received deep link, we will open a specific layout among the 3 available in VA_MAIN: VA_LAYOUT1 VA_LAYOUT2 VA_LAYOUT3. [image] So, after configuring the extension and GitHub, we will simply need to parse the received URL and, based on the path, open the corresponding layout using the setLayout procedure. [image] [image] [blocks (1)]

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Docs

• Medium - App Links, Web Links, Deep links, Universal Links, and Dynamic Links
• Android developer docs About deep links  |  App architecture  |  Android Developers
  
  

Happy oding!

[RaYzZz (Gianluca Franco)]

Concrete usage example

In this example project, we will use virtual screens and, based on the received deep link, we will open a specific layout among the 3 available in VA_MAIN:

• VA_LAYOUT1
• VA_LAYOUT2
• VA_LAYOUT3.

So, after configuring the extension and GitHub, we will simply need to parse the received URL and, based on the path, open the corresponding layout using the setLayout procedure.