/darryncampbell-cordova-plugin-intent

General purpose intent shim layer for cordova appliations on Android. Handles various techniques for sending and receiving intents.

Primary LanguageJavaMIT LicenseMIT

This plugin is provided without guarantee or warranty

npm version npm downloads npm downloads npm licence

Interaction with Camera Plugin

If you are installing this plugin along with cordova-plugin-camera you MUST install cordova-plugin-camera first.

Overview

This Cordova plugin provides a general purpose shim layer for the Android intent mechanism, exposing various ways to handle sending and receiving intents.

Credits

This project uses code released under the following MIT projects:

IntentShim

This plugin defines a window.plugins.intentShim object which provides an API for interacting with the Android intent mechanism on any Android device.

Testing / Example

An example application is available at https://github.com/darryncampbell/plugin-intent-api-exerciser to demonstrate the API and can be used to test the functionality.

Installation

cordova plugin add https://github.com/darryncampbell/darryncampbell-cordova-plugin-intent.git

Supported Platforms

  • Android

intentShim.registerBroadcastReceiver

Registers a broadcast receiver for the specified filters

window.plugins.intentShim.registerBroadcastReceiver(filters, callback);

Description

The intentShim.registerBroadcastReceiver function registers a dynamic broadcast receiver for the specified list of filters and invokes the specified callback when any of those filters are received

Android Quirks

Any existing broadcast receiver is unregistered when this method is called. To register for multiple types of broadcast, specify multiple filters.

Example

Register a broadcast receiver for two filters:

window.plugins.intentShim.registerBroadcastReceiver({
    filterActions: [
        'com.darryncampbell.cordova.plugin.broadcastIntent.ACTION',
        'com.darryncampbell.cordova.plugin.broadcastIntent.ACTION_2'
        ]
    },
    function(intent) {
        console.log('Received broadcast intent: ' + JSON.stringify(intent.extras));
    }
);

intentShim.unregisterBroadcastReceiver

Unregisters the broadcast receiver

window.plugins.intentShim.unregisterBroadcastReceiver();

Description

The intentShim.unregisterBroadcastReceiver function unregisters the broadcast receiver registered with intentShim.registerBroadcastReceiver(filters, callback);. No further broadcasts will be received for any registered filter after this call.

Android Quirks

The developer is responsible for calling unregister / register when their application goes into the background or comes back to the foreground, if desired.

Example

Unregister the broadcast receiver when the application receives an onPause event:

bindEvents: function() {
    document.addEventListener('pause', this.onPause, false);
},
onPause: function()
{
    window.plugins.intentShim.unregisterBroadcastReceiver();
}

intentShim.sendBroadcast

Sends a broadcast intent

window.plugins.intentShim.sendBroadcast(action, extras, successCallback, failureCallback);

Description

The intentShim.sendBroadcast function sends an Android broadcast intent with a specified action

Example

Send a broadcast intent to a specified action that contains a random number in the extras

window.plugins.intentShim.startActivity(
    {
        action: "com.darryncampbell.cordova.plugin.intent.ACTION",
        extras: {
                'random.number': Math.floor((Math.random() * 1000) + 1)
        }
    },
    function() {},
    function() {alert('Failed to open URL via Android Intent')}
);

intentShim.onIntent

Returns the content of the intent used whenever the application activity is launched

window.plugins.intentShim.onIntent(callback);

Description

The intentShim.onIntent function returns the intent which launched the Activity and maps to the Android Activity's onNewIntent() method, https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html#onNewIntent(android.content.Intent). The registered callback is invoked whenever the activity is launched

Android Quirks

By default the android application will be created with launch mode set to 'SingleTop'. If you wish to change this to 'SingleTask' you can do so by modifying config.xml as follows:

<platform name="android">
    ...
    <preference name="AndroidLaunchMode" value="singleTask"/>
</platform>

See https://www.mobomo.com/2011/06/android-understanding-activity-launchmode/ for more information on the differences between the two.

Example

Registers a callback to be invoked

window.plugins.intentShim.onIntent(function (intent) {
    console.log('Received Intent: ' + JSON.stringify(intent.extras));
});

intentShim.startActivity

Starts a new activity using an intent built from action, url, type, extras or some subset of those parameters

window.plugins.intentShim.startActivity(params, successCallback, failureCallback);

Description

The intentShim.startActivity function maps to Android's activity method startActivity, https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html#startActivity(android.content.Intent) to launch a new activity.

Android Quirks

Some common actions are defined as constants in the plugin, see below.

Examples

Launch the maps activity

window.plugins.intentShim.startActivity(
{
    action: window.plugins.intentShim.ACTION_VIEW,
    url: 'geo:0,0?q=London'
},
function() {},
function() {alert('Failed to open URL via Android Intent')}
);

Launch the web browser

window.plugins.intentShim.startActivity(
{
    action: window.plugins.intentShim.ACTION_VIEW,
    url: 'http://www.google.co.uk'
},
function() {},
function() {alert('Failed to open URL via Android Intent')}
);

intentShim.getIntent

Retrieves the intent that launched the activity

window.plugins.intentShim.getIntent(resultCallback, failureCallback);

Description

The intentShim.getIntent function maps to Android's activity method getIntent, https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html#getIntent() to return the intent that started this activity.

Example

window.plugins.intentShim.getIntent(
    function(intent)
    {
        console.log('Action' + JSON.stringify(intent.action));
        var intentExtras = intent.extras;
        if (intentExtras == null)
            intentExtras = "No extras in intent";
        console.log('Launch Intent Extras: ' + JSON.stringify(intentExtras);
    },
    function()
    {
        console.log('Error getting launch intent');
    });

intentShim.startActivityForResult

Starts a new activity and return the result to the application

window.plugins.intentShim.startActivityForResult(params, resultCallback, failureCallback);

Description

The intentShim.startActivityForResult function maps to Android's activity method startActivityForResult, https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html#startActivityForResult(android.content.Intent, int) to launch a new activity and the resulting data is returned via the resultCallback.

Android Quirks

Some common actions are defined as constants in the plugin, see below.

Example

Pick an Android contact

window.plugins.intentShim.startActivityForResult(
{
    action: window.plugins.intentShim.ACTION_PICK,
    url: "content://com.android.contacts/contacts",
    requestCode: 1
},
function(intent)
{
    if (intent.extras.requestCode == 1)
    {
        console.log('Picked contact: ' + intent.data);
    }
},
function()
{
    console.log("StartActivityForResult failure");
});

Predefined Constants

The following constants are defined in the plugin for use in JavaScript

  • window.plugins.intentShim.ACTION_SEND
  • window.plugins.intentShim.ACTION_VIEW
  • window.plugins.intentShim.EXTRA_TEXT
  • window.plugins.intentShim.EXTRA_SUBJECT
  • window.plugins.intentShim.EXTRA_STREAM
  • window.plugins.intentShim.EXTRA_EMAIL
  • window.plugins.intentShim.ACTION_CALL
  • window.plugins.intentShim.ACTION_SENDTO
  • window.plugins.intentShim.ACTION_GET_CONTENT
  • window.plugins.intentShim.ACTION_PICK

Tested Versions

Tested with Cordova version 6.5.0 and Cordova Android version 6.2.1