I am trying to build a simple web application, which capture users photo and sent it my custom server there by connected to some other business use-case. My web page uses HTML's file input control to launch native camera or gallery pick up option.
var input = document.createElement('input');
input.setAttribute('accept', 'image/*');
input.setAttribute('capture', 'camera');
input.setAttribute('type', 'file');
input.click();
This web app, I placed in local webserver with a name "PhotoLocker" and testing with url like
https://localhost(ipaddress to access via mobile browser)/PhotoLocker/index.html
This link is working fine both on desktop and mobile chrome browsers and am able to debug any issues. Where as same link, I try to access from WeChat browser (just opening above link from chat window), it is not at all opening my application in WeChat in app browser.
After googling, I found that https URL scheme is not supported by WeChat. is it True? When I paste the same app url as weixin://ipaddress/PhotoLocker/index.html, I am able to see my web app home page but it is not working as expected.
My Question is - how to debug my webpage opened in WeChat browser? Do I need a official WeChat Dev account even to develop and test sample apps?
Additional Info :
I am able to debug webpage from WeChat web devloper tool as mentioned in below link. But, unable to debug mobile wechat page in this tool. It is always opening chrome dev tools.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/wiki?action=doc&id=mp1455784140&t=0.06697335132505233#1
I am a frontend developer in China, Chinese. Forgive my English for any mistake, misunderstanding I could make. Some links (dev docs mostly) below contain sites complete in Chinese, because I can not find corresponding English ones for now.
how to debug my webpage opened in WeChat browser?
Tencent provide an IDE for developing regular web interface and WeChat-mini-program, with which developer can directly interact with:
JSSDK (basically a special weixin
Object lives only in in-WeChat-browser);
API provided in WeChat-mini-program.
If you download that IDE:
First it will ask you is to use you WeChat to scan the QRCode, then confirm login with your WeChat account;
Next it will show up two square button (image below), left one is for WeChat-mini-program, the right one is for you to testing regular web page.
Click the right blue one, then you can find your way out, it's just something built top on project Blink.
As you can see the part of debugging regular webpage in WeChat IDE is no more than a simulator (in the WeChat-mini-program part, developer can write code directly in it), and in my experience it does have bugs, you will still need to test code in real machine.
For that Tencent provide another tool called vConsole, tutorials here, with it you can do following things directly in in-WeChat-browsers:
View console logs;
View network requests;
View document elements;
View Cookies and localStorages;
Execute JS command manually
and so on
Do I need a official WeChat Dev account even to develop and test sample apps?
Depends.
You may know the Official Account inside WeChat, with webpages directly opened in any context inside in-WeChat-browser, it will have the ability to interact the weixin Object, or have some API like login with WeChat, pay with WeChat Pay:
API like close current in-WeChat-browser, hide-share-button will not required anything special, you don't need to register any Official Account;
But if you want yo do the Pay, Login thing, you need an Official Account and pay for the ability every year (not sure about this outside China).
The localhost problem you faced
I don't have my working machine with me now so I can not test. Regularly I can proxy localhost with Charles then debugging in WeChat, but never do the https, I will try it later.
All the information got regarding how to debug webpage opened in wechat browser redirects to how to see log or ajax/netwrok calls analysis.
Even with WeChat web devloper tool as mentioned in below link, I am unable to debug mobile wechat page in this tool. It is always opening chrome dev tools.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/wiki?action=doc&id=mp1455784140&t=0.06697335132505233#1.
Hence further analyzed remote mobile webpage debugging and found that there is no way to put break points, watch, expressions and all just like in chrome dev tools is not possible.
As a work around - you are able to debug code, when you simulate page in dev tools but no way to debug webpage in mobile device.
Same webpage when tried to do remote debugging as per WeChat web devloper tool documentation. here we can only see console logs and network calls.
I have an app which is already published in app store, I need to send mail to users with link clicking on which it should open the app if its installed or should go to app store. I'm aware of the URL schemes and universal links and that would require modification in my app. I was wondering if there is any other way that this could be achieved where I could create a link maybe using itms-app or some other method where I don't need to make any changes in the app. Any help is appreciated
Unfortunately, not. For a phone to open your application, it needs a way to recognize your application.
URI Schemes
The URI scheme information is configured in the .plist file and is local to the application and therefore cannot be changed without an update. Although you probably don't want to use URI schemes anyways since they will present the user an error if they don't have the app instead of taking them to the app store.
Universal Links
This is the new way Apple performs deep linking and the only other way a link could open up the app. These require a locally stored entitlements file along with an .apple-app-site-association that is hosted on your own website domain and cached when the app is downloaded or updated. These also do not take users to the app store, they take users to the domain in which the AASA file is hosted.
Best Solution
Use Branch's iOS SDK to handle all of the AASA file hosting and App Store redirection. This would still require you to push out a new update, but that is the only possible way to accomplish this.
I've developed a web browsing app based on a UIWebView. All good until iOS 9 and the new way it handles universal links. For some reasons, when the user touch a link, I want him to stay in my browser instead of switching to the associated app (Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, etc.). Is there a way to do that?
This is the first time I've ever seen a button like this (see right side). Clicking on that button launches Spotify. How is Spotify able to do this for their emails? Can this be done with other applications right now?
Disclaimer: I am a Spotify employee, but I haven't worked on this feature personally.
Google recently added support for markup that lets you embed interactive actions in your messages. You can see the blog post about this or the developer reference. The basic concept is that you embed some structured JSON data in your message, as in this example.
We embed markup in our notification emails that links to the Spotify Open site. For example, here's a link for Passenger — Holes: http://open.spotify.com/track/33lol6G1GUj0d3DyE1QzLw
If you have the Spotify desktop app installed, a redirect on that page to a spotify:track: URI will open the linked track in the desktop.
I would say that it is probably either a feature of Gmail or Spotify has installed some kind of browser plugin that inserts this button onto any page that it wants.
Just like torrents, browsers can associate certain header types with specific programs for example torrents use the magnet:// url which the browser associates with an installed bit torrent client.
So I would assume that this button launches a url like spotify://this-is-a-song-name-987897/ which launches the Spotify program on your computer.
I use a web service to check for app updates and notify my user an update is available. Instead of taking them to the App Store product page as I do now, my users prefer I take them to the App Store Updates area so they can review the "what's new" and also update other apps at the same time.
Does anyone know how to get an iPhone/iPad app to open the App Store and navigate directly to the UPDATES area?
Thank you.
I figured it out using the item-apps url structure