simplest cross-browser check if protocol handler is registered

Question

When user clicks link with custom protocol (like myapp://superlink)

I need either launch an app or allow user to download and run configuration app

Answer 1

There is this old tricks that it always never fails me.

The core functionality that you need is setTimeout. I will tell you in detail:

setTimeout(function() {
  window.location = "http://itunes.com/app/yourapplocation";
}, 200);

// once you do the custom-uri, it should properly execute the handler, otherwise, the settimeout that you set before will kick in
window.location = "myapp://superlink";

Now you mentioned that it maybe a link or links so I made this nice function just for your convenience:

HTML code

Click here

JS code

$("a[href*='myapp://']").click(function(e)
{
  var el = $(this);
  setTimeout(function() {
    window.location = el.data("data-href-alt");
  }, 200);

  // once you do the custom-uri, it should properly execute the handler, otherwise, the settimeout that you set before will kick in
  window.location = el.data("href");

  e.preventDefault();
});

Hope this will help you :)