Catch registered URL scheme and launch app

Question

I managed to launch my application whenever a URL scheme is called via the browser, by putting this scheme in the info.plist and adding these 2 lines:

NSAppleEventManager *appleEventManager = [NSAppleEventManager sharedAppleEventManager];
[appleEventManager setEventHandler:self andSelector:@selector(getUrl:withReplyEvent:) forEventClass:kInternetEventClass andEventID:kAEGetURL];

and correctly implementing my getUrl function.

So I tried putting the two lines above in my appDelegates's applicationWillFinishLaunching, applicationDidFinishLaunching and init. But in the three cases, I have the same scenario: if my app is already running, then the getUrl function is correctly called, by if the app is not launched, then getUrl is never called.

I found on other posts (How to handle with a default URL scheme and get url event on app open in objective c (Mac OSX)) but the suggestion which comes often is using the applicationWillFinishLaunching, which didn't work in my case.

Edit: here is my info.plist: http://pastebin.com/yM8zabvY

Can you post what you have in your Info.plist file? – zneak May 03 '14 at 02:35 — zneak, May 03 '14 at 02:35
Yes I posted my info.plist – jeanpaul62 May 03 '14 at 04:00 — jeanpaul62, May 03 '14 at 04:00

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 03 '14 at 04:21

I'm not sure where things are going sour for you. I've set up a test project, in which I just pasted the CFBundleURLTypes key from your Info.plist, and I used this in my app delegate:

-(void)getUrl:(NSAppleEventDescriptor *)event withReplyEvent:(NSAppleEventDescriptor*)reply
{
    NSLog(@"%@", event);
}

-(void)applicationWillFinishLaunching:(NSNotification *)aNotification
{
    // Register ourselves as a URL handler for this URL
    [[NSAppleEventManager sharedAppleEventManager]
     setEventHandler:self
     andSelector:@selector(getUrl:withReplyEvent:)
     forEventClass:kInternetEventClass
     andEventID:kAEGetURL];
}

And it works just like I'd expect. I get the log message regardless of whether the app was already running or not when I run open "feed://test" in the terminal.

Well, I created a fresh project like you, and now it works. I'll just try to copy paste my code from the old project and see whether it still behaves the way it should. — jeanpaul62, May 09 '14 at 18:31
It's a little weird that you couldn't get it to work with your other project, really. Good luck for the rest! — zneak, May 09 '14 at 18:38

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 09 '14 at 06:42

0

Have you verified that your app is the default handler for the feed: scheme?

You can inspect the system's URL schemes using RCDefaultApp or the Launch Services API (LSCopyDefaultHandlerForURLScheme).

answered May 09 '14 at 06:42

AriX

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Yes, as I said, if my app is already running, then the getUrl function is correctly called, which means that the default handler is my app. And I just installed RCDefaultApp to verify it. – jeanpaul62 May 09 '14 at 18:29
Ah, got it. Not necessarily though - I've seen behavior where running apps get precedence over the default app. Not sure in what case that happens but it may have to do with the declared "role handler" or something. – AriX May 10 '14 at 05:06

Catch registered URL scheme and launch app

2 Answers2