For Chrome (13+), Firefox (3.0+) and Opera (11.60+) it is possible to register web application as service handler for custom URI scheme using JavaScript API:
window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler(protocol, uri, title);
protocol
is the protocol the site wishes to handle, specified as a string.
uri
is the URI to the handler as a string. You can include "%s" to indicate where to insert the escaped URI of the document to be handled.
title
is the title of the handler presented to the user as a string.
Specifically for Chrome there is a limitation that does not allow to use custom schemes that don't start with web+
prefix (except standard ones: mailto
, mms
, nntp
, rtsp
and webcal
). So if you want to register your web app as service handler as GMail do, you should write something like this:
navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto", "https://www.example.com/?uri=%s", "Example Mail");
or
navigator.registerProtocolHandler("web+myscheme", "https://www.example.com/?uri=%s", "My Cool App");
Pay attention at URI pattern, it have to contain %s
which will be replaced with actual URI of the link user clicks. For example:
<a href="web+myscheme:some+data">Open in "My Cool App"</a>
will trigger GET
request to http://www.example.com/?uri=web%2Bmyscheme%3Asome%20data
Here are some useful links: