How do skype extensions for browsers actually work? - firefox-addon

We have plans of developing a web application that will have to communicate with our locally running application. One of the possible options is using browser extensions. I was looking into how Skype add-ons to browsers communicate with Skype client. In Firefox, Skype add-on inserts a piece of HTML when it encounters a phone number.
Is this
<span skypeaction="...">
processed by a Skype extension which makes a call using Skype API? Do extensions for other browsers use Skype API or other communications mechanism?

I did a bit of research and here's what I found. When the user clicks on the Skype link injected by the extension, the extension creates a new Skype process and passes it the parameters specifying the action and the number. Custom protocol handler is not used.

The Skype extension would use regular expressions to search for valid and visible phone numbers displayed on a webpage, and as you say it would wrap a span class around it.
The span class would be defined within the extension code, and would insert the skype icon along with a clickable link that launches the skype application.
You also see similar functionality from iTunes and IRC, they have links in the irc://... format.

Related

How to send direct command from Google Home to custom smart device without app name?

I try to build my custom IoT device that will be controlled via Google Home device, and serve people with disabilities.
The device itself is Tiva C Launchpad, that I program from scratch, meaning I will have a full control on it.
In my vision, the user wil say something like: "Ok Google, press play button", and as a result, the Google Home device will send a direct command of press_play_button to the IoT device, preferably via the local network.
I found the Google Action SDK, alongside with the Local SDK extention, but if I understood correctly, I have to be in the app mode first ("OK Google, play {app_name}") before pronouncing the action I want, which is inconvenient.
Is there any way to achieve my requirement?
If not, I may give up on the local network control, and use sort of a webhook to send HTTP request to my smart device, and in that case I wonder if MQTT will be more suitable.
Thanks.
The Local SDK is an extension to the Smart Home API. If your device matches up with the device types and traits that the Smart Home API supports then you can use that to control your device.
It has support for media players so things like play/stop should be possible.
I have build generic Smart Home control using MQTT to reach the device, but you have to provide a HTTP endpoint for the Google System to interface with. This take a little thought as you have to map MQTT asynchronous approach to HTTP's synchronous nature.

Is it possible to integrate Google Assistant with my custom app?

I would like to integrate Google assistant inside my app. The idea is that I have a app which provides various press services, like giving latest news and such. I would like to integrate Google assistant for handling some particular requests. For example the user may ask, "what did the Lakers yesterday?" If i search this on Google or ask to the assistant, i will get a card with the score of yesterday's game. I would like, from inside my app, to replicate this interaction, that is sending the request to Google assistant and showing the answer that Google return to the user (or at least opening Google assistant with the answer)
Is such a thing possible?
I was looking at Google Assistant service sdk (https://developers.google.com/assistant/sdk/guides/service/python/) and it says:
The Google Assistant Service gives you full control over the integration with the Assistant by providing a streaming endpoint. Stream a user audio query to this endpoint to receive a Google Assistant audio response.
Is this possible only with audio interaction? I'm not quite certain this is the solution I should look into
The Google Assistant SDK Service allows you to send both audio or text to the Assistant and you'll get back responses including audio, display text, and rich HTML visual content.
For mobile apps, there's less support compared to Python, but it's still doable. For example, there's a version of the SDK for Android Things, which means for IoT devices like a Raspberry Pi. You can go through this project and remove all the IoT references, but it's something you'd need to do yourself.

How to send sms messages to be detected in iOS application

I want to be able to open my application or receive a notification when the app receives a text from a specific number.
For example, I want my application to check for this number: 301-212-1312
and every time a text from this number comes to my phone, i want the app to create a notification or open. And upon opening, it parses the information in the text and searches for a html or web link. That link is then displayed in a label to the user in the application.
Sample Text from 301-212-1312:
Hey can you help me with my code, I even tried searching for solutions on www.stackoverflow.com
Sample Application action:
Application opens, parses text from number and displays only the web link
Click here to go to page: www.stackoverflow.com
You won't be able to do this the way you want to. Apps in iOS are sandboxed, so they live in their own bubble and don't have access to other system events such as receiving a text from a certain number. Instead, what you would have to do is create a specific link that your app can open, and have that link deep link to your app (which is new as of iOS 9) be sent in your message. Think getting a message from someone that sent you from Floorboard, where you click on the link and it takes you to that story in the app, rather than their website.
Take a look to XMPP protocol, you can find some implementation from github
A definition from wikipedia
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is a communications
protocol for message-oriented middleware based on XML (Extensible
Markup Language).1 It enables the near-real-time exchange of
structured yet extensible data between any two or more network
entities.2 Originally named Jabber,[3] the protocol was developed by
the Jabber open-source community in 1999 for near real-time instant
messaging (IM), presence information, and contact list maintenance.
Designed to be extensible, the protocol has also been used for
publish-subscribe systems, signalling for VoIP, video, file transfer,
gaming, Internet of Things (IoT) applications such as the smart grid,
and social networking services.

writing an iOS app to pay utility bill

Ok, I have a client who is a utility provider (like power, water, etc). They want their customers to be able to pay their bill from an iOS app. Since this isn't a product will it be okay to use an alternative payment gateway using WebView?
This specific usage sounds fine. Apple doesn't allow you to sell app content through anything but the store, but taking payment for an entirely external service should be fine, there are dozens of similar apps for general payment processing (LevelUp, 4square, etc.), and this is the same sort of thing, just for a more specific debt.
That said, if all your app is is a WebView wrapper for your site, Apple will reject it because of that. An app that wraps a webview must additionally use a nontrivial amount of native functionality.
In general, if your application is just a UIWebView embedded in a UIView, it will almost certainly be rejected. What is the benefit of an application embedding a mobile version of the website, compared to just loading the mobile site in the default Safari web browser?
If you are going to do this, Apple requires that the application be more than just a web browser loading a default URL. This can be one component of the app, but it cannot be the only component.

Asterisk registration programmatically

I am trying to implement Asterisk server for VOIP in an iPhone application.
I am able to register the user through manually, but I wanted to do the same thing programmatically. I am not sure but there might be some idea like sending through an HTTP request.
If you have any idea or pointer please share with me.
Thanks
I think the thing that you are looking for is called SIP client. You install the client on the iPhone and it will register to your SIP server (let it be Asterix or anything else). Then you can make VoIP calls between the clients registered contemporary, send instant messages, exchange files or even implement some custom protocol over SIP to exchange other type of data.
There are a lot of SIP client applications for iPhone, and even a couple of SIP stacks that is a framework that allows you to build your own SIP client application through its API calls, so you will have full control on everything. One of the most mature of these with iPhone support is pjsip. Check out their web site to see whether this is what you are looking for.
it is hard because is necessary modify the dial plan in order to add a sip account. but you can program a web service that read a text file with the extensions from your mobile.
it is nto fully clear from your desription what exactly you want, but probably this one will help
http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+auto-dial+out

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