Opening ntfy.sh link in a browser on Android opens the app and subscribes to the topic if the app is installed

[Copephobia]

A scenario may be:

• I have the ntfy.sh app installed on my Android device
• A browser page or application (like Slack) has a URL to a ntfy.sh topic

If I click on the ntfy.sh link, it will attempt to open the app and subscribe to the topic, so that I can view it from there.

If I do not have the ntfy.sh link, it will display the web page for that topic.

[binwiederhier]

I like this idea. And it should not be hard to implement.

[binwiederhier]

Re-opening this, since I removed the feature in the latest commit. Android is not allowing me to register reg-ex patterns of URLs and the wildcard stuff seems incredibly buggy. I spent two+ hours with it yesterday and it's not worth it for now.

[gc-ss]

Let's simplify it first?

1. Instead of handling http(s) links, let the app respond to ntfy links and the app registers to handle ntfy links
2. Have a little text template that spits out the http(s) links and the ntfy link to send to people (instead of just http(s) link)

Is this a possibility?

[binwiederhier]

I wrote a whole long paragraph about why that's difficult and then I read your comment again. You just want a Share button that prints two links, one of which will open the app?

I don't know if Android will highlight and let you click ntfy:// links, probably not, but it's worth a try definitely.

And we'd still need a solution for the web UI.

[gc-ss]

I wrote a whole long paragraph about why that's difficult and then I read your comment again

Philipp, then I did a poor job of conveying my intention. In case you happen to have that paragraph, I would really appreciate reading it. If it's gone, can you just type in the highlights so I can figure out what disconnect existed (before you read my comment again)?

You just want a Share button that prints two links, one of which will open the app?

Right. My thought is that the app can register itself with ntfy:// links and have greater control

And we'd still need a solution for the web UI.

I believe we can still use ntfy:// links or something similar (the client app can register itself with ntfy:// links)

[12nick12]

I'm not a dev, but going from what has been spoken in the issue and my limited knowledge of stuff, you could just add a ntfy: link in the web page if you can get ntfy app to open ntfy: links. Kind of link how tel: opens the dialer and mailto: opens email.

[binwiederhier]

That would be easy to do, but then it looks horribly broken for people that don't have the app installed.

[12nick12]

You could word something like "if you have the app installed hit THIS link"

[jhotmann]

For me, having the app able to handle ntfy:// links would be enough as I mainly just want to be able to open the app to a specific topic via Tasker. But having a ntfy:// link show up if you open a topic in a mobile browser could also be handy.

I wrote a custom Owntracks server implementation and part of it includes device configuration generation. It creates an owntracks:// links with the configuration data base64 encoded and is clickable from the Android and iOS browsers. The links aren't highlighted/clickable in messaging and other apps, though.

[binwiederhier]

Sorry I never responded to this. This sounds easy enough. I should be able to whip that up at some point. There are just so many tickets :-D

[binwiederhier]

(I'm starting work on this)

So if I implement ntfy://ntfy.sh/mytopic that opens the topic in the Android app and subscribes to it, that would be enough?

I wonder if I should structure the link differently, so that other actions are supported in the future, like ntfy://ntfy.sh/mytopic?action=subscribe, or ntfy://subscribe/ntfy.sh/mytopic, ...

I suppose I could iterate on it, so I think I'll just start with ntfy://ntfy.sh/mytopic.

[binwiederhier]

https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy-android/pull/24/files implements this:

• ntfy://myhost.lan/mytopic --> subscribes to https://myhost.lan/mytopic (if not already subscribed) and shows it
• ntfy://myhost.lan/mytopic?secure=false --> subscribes to http://myhost.lan/mytopic (if not already subscribed) and shows it

I think this is all there is to it. All that's missing is documentation for it.

To test:

adb shell am start -W -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d "ntfy://10.0.2.2/abc?secure=false" io.heckel.ntfy

[binwiederhier]

Done. Will be in the next Android release. Added docs too, which will be in the next server release: