universal links setup with deeplinks

Deeplinks are great. We could also make it work with Universal Links.

What are universal links?

Universal links are web links which point to some content on the web and in your app. Universal links are different from deeplink as they are pure web links where as deeplinks will always start with yourAppScheme:// and open the app.

Shared web credentials, universal links, Handoff, and App Clips all use associated domains via the Universal links concept.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/allowing-apps-and-websites-to-link-to-your-content

And extra info here:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/supporting-associated-domains

This is a very good walk through of how to set it setup and working.

https://nishbhasin.medium.com/apple-universal-link-setup-in-ios-131a508b45d1

Summary of steps and GIO aspects....

Apple Permissions.

Setup the right permissions with apple via their website. Just add your Domains there. See Article for Screenshots etc.

URL: https://developer.apple.com/account/resources/identifiers/list

Web Server

You will need Caddy and Mkcert to fully simulate your domain under https on your laptop. You can also use this in Production as Caddy is a very good server.

# Tool for making Certs be trusted locally.
# https://github.com/FiloSottile/mkcert
go install filippo.io/mkcert@latest

# Web Server
# https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy
go install github.com/caddyserver/caddy/v2/cmd/caddy@v2.6.4

Now you need a CaddyFIle. You can run a Static or Reverse proxy. both work.

{
    # globals
    debug
    log {
        output file .data/caddy/main.log {
            roll_size 1gb
            roll_keep 1
            roll_keep_for 720h
        }
    }
}

# https://www.[INSERT-YOUR-DOMAIN-URL]/
deeplink.localhost:443 {
    root * {system.wd}/demo/deeplink-demo/deeplink.web
    encode gzip
    try_files {path} /index.html
    file_server
}

# https://test.[INSERT-YOUR-DOMAIN-URL]/
test.localhost:443 {
    reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:8080
}

Now we run it:


# Chang to where you will run the web server 

# Gen the certs and pem to disk:
mkcert -install
mkcert [INSERT-YOUR-DOMAIN-URL]

# run the caddy web server. It will look for the Caddyfile and Certs.
caddy run

Setup the Web server with the right apple-app-site-association file at: ./.well-known/apple-app-site-association

{
    "applinks": {
        "details": [
             {
               "appIDs": [ "[INSERT-YOUR-DOMAIN-URL].app", "[INSERT-YOUR-DOMAIN-URL].app2" ],
               "components": [
                 {
                    "#": "no_universal_links",
                    "exclude": true,
                    "comment": "Matches any URL with a fragment that equals no_universal_links and instructs the system not to open it as a universal link."
                 },
                 {
                    "/": "/buy/*",
                    "comment": "Matches any URL with a path that starts with /buy/."
                 },
                 {
                    "/": "/help/website/*",
                    "exclude": true,
                    "comment": "Matches any URL with a path that starts with /help/website/ and instructs the system not to open it as a universal link."
                 },
                 {
                    "/": "/help/*",
                    "?": { "articleNumber": "????" },
                    "comment": "Matches any URL with a path that starts with /help/ and that has a query item with name 'articleNumber' and a value of exactly four characters."
                 }
               ]
             }
         ]
     },
     "webcredentials": {
        "apps": [ "[INSERT-YOUR-DOMAIN-URL].app" ]
     },

      "appclips": {
          "apps": ["[INSERT-YOUR-DOMAIN-URL].MyApp.Clip"]
      }
  }

Plist inside app:

giogo cmd builder needs to add some Plist info. At build time we don't know the domain. We could make it a flag called "universal-link" and insert this template, so the dev can change it when they know what domain they are using.

<key>com.apple.developer.associated-domains</key>
<array>
    <string>applinks:[INSERT-YOUR-DOMAIN-URL]</string>
</array>

gioui-plugins / gio-plugins

universal links setup with deeplinks #54