Opening other apps from your using cordova

• Cordova uses UrlSchemes to open other apps.
• URL schemes for ios and android will be different,

ex: for opening skype(lync), urlscheme for
           ios: lync:// or sip://
           android: com.microsoft.office.lync15

additionally to know the UrlScheme of an app for android you can look at the url of the app in google play store.
ex: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.office.lync15&hl=en

URL Schemes for some popular apps

ios	android
sip:// or lync://	com.microsoft.office.lync15
yammer://	com.yammer.v1
twitter://	com.twitter.android
ms-outlook://	com.microsoft.office.outlook

for opening these apps, we have a good plugin called lampa: https://github.com/lampaa/com.lampa.startapp

to install the plugin use,

ionic plugin add com.lampa.startapp

to use the plugin use the following code:

if(device.platform === 'iOS') 

{

scheme = 'lync://';

}

else if(device.platform === 'Android')

{

scheme = 'com.microsoft.office.lync15';

}

navigator.startApp.start(scheme,function() { 

//alert("found 2013");

},

function() {  

$ionicPopup.alert({       

 template: "Please Install Lync",

 okType:'button-positive'

});

});

you can also do app availability check using it:

navigator.startApp.check("com.application.name", function(message) { /* success */

    console.log("app exists: "); 

    console.log(message.versionName); 

    console.log(message.packageName); 

    console.log(message.versionCode); 

    console.log(message.applicationInfo); 

}, 

function(error) { /* error */

    console.log(error);

});

additional details can be found in the github page.

additionally,
to allow other apps to open your app, you can define custom url scheme for your app:

ionic plugin add cordova-plugin-customurlscheme --variable URL_SCHEME=mycoolapp

mycoolapp:// is the url scheme of your app for ios.
if you want to do it manually, open xcodeproj file and add string URL Identifier in info.plist.
ex:


more details at: https://github.com/EddyVerbruggen/Custom-URL-scheme

for android:
add scheme in data node under activity->intent-filter.
<activity ....>
     <intent-filter>
         <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
         <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
         <category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
         <data android:scheme="myapp" />
     </intent-filter>
 </activity>

reference: http://www.telerik.com/blogs/how-to-use-custom-url-schemes

please comment if you have any queries/inputs.