Navigate to specific view with URL Scheme - ios

Question

I added a url scheme newConversation to my info.plist so that when a user clicks on a link in a browser/email it will redirect him to the app. This works perfectly fine.
I was wondering how I can open the app to a specific view controller when clicking this url?
I tried using:
- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application handleOpenURL:(NSURL *)url {
if ([url.scheme isEqualToString:#"newConversation"]) {
NSLog(#"url schemeeeee");
emailLink = YES;
[self initWindow];
}
return YES;
}
but not getting anywhere with that.
Thanks!

Answer 1

Your app should only have one scheme (such as myappscheme) registered for your app. Then if you need to handle different actions, you provide more specific URLs with that scheme:
myappscheme:///newConversation
myappscheme:///doSomethingElse
Then you get /newConversation for the URL's path. Then your code becomes:
if ([url.path isEqualToString:#"/newConversation"]) {
} else if ([url.path isEqualToString:#"/doSomethingElse"]) {
}

Answer 2

To be honest, this is kind of a pain to implement on your own. A basic custom URL scheme link isn't an ideal solution and has a ton of nasty edge cases, most notably the 'Cannot Open Page" error users will see before if they don't have your app installed, and the fact that many apps actually don't recognize custom scheme URLs as 'clickable' (they just show up as regular text).
A somewhat better approach is to use a regular http:// link, and then redirect the visitor to your app — if they have it installed — or to a fallback URL/App Store page. Until iOS 9, a reasonable basic implementation was a JavaScript redirect like this:
setTimeout(function() {
window.location = "https://itunes.apple.com/path/to/your/app/";
}, 25);
// If "yourapp://" is registered, the user will see a dialog
// asking if want to open your app. If they agree, your app will
// launch immediately and the timer won't fire.
// If not installed, you'll get an ugly "Cannot Open Page"
// dialogue and the App Store will launch when the timer expires.
window.location = "yourapp://";
Unfortunately this would still show a 'Cannot Open Page' error, but until recently it was possible to get around this in a reasonably user-friendly way by using a more nuanced version of this script. Sadly, Apple intentionally broke that with the iOS 9.2 update, so custom URL schemes are actually pretty much useless for deep linking now, unless you are certain the app is already installed on that device.
The best solution is a combination of custom URL scheme links (with intelligent JavaScript redirections) and Apple's new Universal Links. Universal Links let you use a normal http:// URL to a page on your website (the page could be a simple redirection to the App Store without the custom URL trigger that causes the 'Cannot Open Page' error), which is intercepted by your phone and sent directly into your app if installed. Unfortunately Universal Links only work in iOS 9+, and don't work yet when opened inside a lot of apps.
This is quite a lot to handle, so the best option might be a free service like Branch.io (full disclosure: I work with the team) to take care of all the technical aspects.