1047128 - Launch URLs from search activity in Fennec

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: Search Activity, defect)

Description

[:Margaret Leibovic]

This came up in bug 1042956. I think we should always launch URLs in whatever version of Fennec the search activity is a part of.

From bug 1042956 comment 8:

> This makes me think we should use a special intent to launch Fennec, since
> currently the user could choose to load this URL in a different browser.

Just specify the class in the intent. Take a look at the constructors and methods for Intent. E.g.,

  intent.setClassName(AppConstants.ANDROID_PACKAGE_NAME,
                      AppConstants.BROWSER_INTENT_CLASS_NAME);

Sync has an out-of-tree helper for this; see <mobile/android/base/sync/setup/activities/ActivityUtils.java>.

Comment 1

[Eric Edens [:eedens]]

(In reply to :Margaret Leibovic from comment #0)
> This came up in bug 1042956. I think we should always launch URLs in
> whatever version of Fennec the search activity is a part of.

This is a thorny area. On one hand, we want to streamline the UX. On the other, we want to respect the user's freedom in choosing her default browser.

A couple of ideas:

1. Use a default browser (in this case Fennec), but provide an options menu to specify a different browser.
2. Use a default browser (in this case Fennec), but provide a toggle option to instead send all intents to Android.

For reference, here are the behaviors of some other apps:

 - Bing and DDG: Links are opened internally in a WebView; however, they have an option to send the intent to Android instead.
 - Google Now: All links are sent to Android.

Comment 2

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

Yes, there is a user choice issue here, but (IMO) on balance the set of people who want to use Firefox's search but open results in Chrome is far outweighed by the set of people who will be tripped up by a "choose your browser" intent chooser, and perhaps end up stuck using the AOSP Internet app, instead of Firefox, and not know how to fix it.

But: this is certainly not a decision we need to finalize for Nightly.

At this stage I suggest we always open links in the package's browser (Nightly right now), just as we do elsewhere in Fennec-shipped apps like FxA, and revisit if we get more input.

Something to consider: should results go straight to rich apps? That is, if you tap a Yelp result, should it open the browser or take you straight to the Yelp app?

That's easier if we rely on Android dispatch, but we can also do a speculative intent lookup (just as we do to put the Android action icon in the Fennec URL bar). That gives us something like Facebook's "deep linking", but preserves linkage to the 'right' browser.

Another thing to remember: when Google sends links "to Android", for the vast majority of devices that means Chrome. The user *already* 'picked' Firefox when they installed it and decided to use our search provider… let's not force them to pick it again.

Comment 3

[:Margaret Leibovic]

The other search apps you mentioned are not part of a browser, but our search activity is part of Fennec. As a different example, Dolphin registers to launch a search activity, and then actually just opens the whole Dolphin browser.

To reduce confusion for people who have multiple versions of Fennec installed, I think that for now we should have URLs open in the same version of Fennec the the search activity is running in.

I think we should hold off on the discussion about launching intents for native apps in the future.

Comment 4

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

(In reply to :Margaret Leibovic from comment #3)

> To reduce confusion for people who have multiple versions of Fennec
> installed, I think that for now we should have URLs open in the same version
> of Fennec the the search activity is running in.
> 
> I think we should hold off on the discussion about launching intents for
> native apps in the future.

I agree with this. Let's see how it feels and what it might be missing.

Comment 5

[:Margaret Leibovic]

Attachment: Launch URLs from search activity in Fennec

Luckily we already have a version of AppConstants in FirefoxSearch, so this just launches Nightly if you've built the standalone search activity.

Comment 6

[:Margaret Leibovic]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/8de637f8ae83
https://github.com/ericedens/FirefoxSearch/commit/e1aeab0c12bef4df7e37e1ea2f0ff68d3b34cd5e

Comment 7

[Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] (inactive)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/8de637f8ae83

Comment 8

[Flaviu Cos]

Verified as fixed in build 34.0a1 (2014-08-07);
Device: Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Android 4.2.1).