BBOS (pre BB10) Launching App through Intents (Like Android) - url

Question

I would like to know if I can develop an application in BB OS (4 - 7) with similar functions to Android/iOs where ;
I would be able to register the app to listen for specific URL's.
I can launch the app via URL.
I can parse data from the URL and use in the app.
For instance in Android I can use Intent Filters like this
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW"></action>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"></category>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE"></category>
<data android:scheme="http"
android:host="myapp.com"
android:pathPrefix="/launchapp/" />
</intent-filter>
to launch the app upon laoding a url such as
i can then parse the two numbers after launchapp/ and use them within the application.
Anyone experienced with BB OS know if this is possible?

Answer 1

I am not aware about documented listeners to intercept opened URLs. But there is GlobalEvent mechanism. Almost every step doing on pre-BB10 OS fires one or more global events. Some of them are documented, some not.
There are documented GUID's listed: http://www.blackberry.com/developers/docs/7.0.0api/index-files/index-7.html (look for G letter, and scroll down for GUID_xxxx constants).
To catch undocumented GUIDs, implement a background application, that uses GlobalEventListener. Then open a page in browser and log all global event guids and objects which come along with guids to eventOccurred call. And you can find out, which global event guids are related to url-open event. It will help to create URL interception mechanism. And this part should be a native application (written on Java).
It is possible to launch application via url, but it should be WebWorks application. Not a native one. Check this link: http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/Web-and-WebWorks-Development/Launch-BlackBerry-WebWorks-app-via-URL-with-parameters/td-p/1674663
When your webworks application has done its part of work, it can fire GlobalEvent and your native app will wait for it to intercept it and work further.

Answer 2

There are some ways of doing this on BBOS depending on what exactly you want.
Create a browser plugin using the net.rim.device.api.browser.plugin API. Here you create a BrowserContentProvider and attach it to the BB browser for handling a particular mime type. This mime type must be unique to you that is not being handled by the native browser (say x-vnd-whatever/myapplauncher) . When the browser access your url, say http://myapp.com/launchapp/233, serve a file with the number 233 and the registered mime type. The browser will download the file, see its mime type and then pass the file content to your plugin for handling. Your plugin will read the app id - 233 and then do whatever you want with it. BlackBerry App World uses this method to allow developers to launch their app in app world from a url.
Create a HttpFilter. Using this, you can make connections to a given domain pass through your code. Here you will register your filter for your domain myapp.com and whenever someone tries to access any myapp.com, the browser will call your filter to handle the request. Again BlackBerry App World does this for access to http://appworld.blackberry.com domain. [There is a HttpFilterDemo in the samples to help you]
Use the StringPattern API. Almost all native text fields support it. So if there is a text field with text written that matches a particular pattern it will become underlined and clicking on it will show your custom actions in the Menu. [There is a StringPatternDemo in the samples to help you]
If your app is in App World and you just want to launch it, use the URL http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/xxxx where xxxx is your app's content id.
Moreover, there is no use trying anything with Global Events. Since OS 4.5, the global event broadcast mechanism has been partitioned in such a way that the system events are only delivered to system applications and not to their party apps and vise versa.
Hope this helps.