XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

On Wed, 7 May 2025 14:36:22 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote :

Can you drag-and-drop a shortcut there ? I was not even aware of it.

Nono. Creating the shortcut in the phone uses a totally different
method. IIRC, it is a menu entry that does that.

Hi Carlos,

I haven't tried it for URL shorcuts but on Android, we "should" be able to create an Intent with the URL opening up in Firefox being the intention.
<https://developer.android.com/guide/components/intents-filters>

Oh, I just looked it up for the team. You can't choose the browser.
Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW)
Uri.parse(url)
startActivity(browserIntent)
That will open up the URL in the default browser.

The Windows analogy to an Android Intent is similar to the action when you doubleclick on a *.html file in Windows where it opens the default browser.

If you want to send the URL to a specific browser on Android, then I wrote
up a tutorial for that long ago using programs designed to do that task.

These are from my notes from a few years ago so caveat emptor.
Shortcut To URL by Mio (free,adfree,rated 4.2)
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.miotti.ShortcutToURL>

Shortcut Widgets by Hamed Nikbakht (free,adfree,gsffree,rated3.7)
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cemique.shortcutwidgets>

Website Shortcut, by Deltac Development (free,adfree,gsffree,rated4.3)
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.deltacdev.websiteshortcut>

What I had learned long after writing that tutorial was that if you delete
the shortcut-to-URL-creating programs above, then the shortcuts that you
made with that program all die.

I found that out, by accident, when I wrote the tutorial for how to port Android from one phone to another over USB without using the Internet,
where, for porting purposes, you need to take a couple extra steps to bring over intact those web urls.

In summary, it's trivial on Android to create a one-tap shortcut that opens
up any desired web browser to any desired URL - you just have to know how.
--
F'up added Android newsgroup as my posts are research intensive, so the
energy invested is intended to illuminate & help very many others; but if
you feel you need to limit a reply to just the Firefox ng, I understand.

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XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

On Wed, 7 May 2025 08:27:30 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote :

A great way to find icons is simply to search images.google.com for, oh,
say "ACME WIDGETS" and the result will be an entire page of icons.

<https://openclipart.org/search/?query=icons>

That's a good idea, for most people - but not for me, as I've been there,
done that, and as a result of writing many tutorials on shortcuts & icons,
I have learned that there is much more than that web page can provide us.

But it's a good site for beginners - so thanks for point it out to us.

Like many clipart sites, that site contains thousands of royalty-free
clipart icons, which is very useful for a "typical" user who needs icons.

But what if you want a *specific* icon for a *specific web site" shortcut?

Long ago, I wrote up a tutorial for creating icons on Windows and another tutorial for creating shortcuts with icons on Android, where in both cases, having an existing icon file is fine & dandy - if it looks like you want.

I don't have that tutorial in front of me but having listed scores of icon sites, I may or may not have included your rather nice icon site above but
I checked out your site for the common pitfalls, and to your credit, your suggested site does NOT fall prey to some of the pitfalls of most sites!

Most sites make you jump through hoops and watermark the result, but yours brings up the icon without that where the image is easily screenshotted.
<https://openclipart.org/image/400px/211645>

Yes, I said screenshotted for the simple reason that you don't need to
download an icon when all you need is a 50x50 pixel image on your device.

So your site is wonderful - but it does fall prey to the pitfall of almost
all icon sites, which is that the icon you want might not even be there.

For *this* thread, the icon URL will be to a web site (based on the OP's question of creating a one-tap shortcut on Android to Firefox opening up a specific web site).

Since you're gonna likely have an entire folder of such shortcuts on your Android homescreen, how are you gonna differentiate the various web sites?

Hmm. There's rather intelligent genius in the next statement - so wake up!

1. Let's say you make a one-tap shortcut to Home Depot's web site.
2. What better icon than the Home Depot icon, right?
3. So you go to images.google.com & type "home depot" & voila!
a. You get a ton of custom web shortcut images to choose from.
b. You screenshot the entire page, and crop out the one image you want.
c. It's genius, is it not?

To make it even more efficient, this is the URL you would likely use:
<https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=YOUR+SEARCH+TERM+HERE


Which, for Home Depot URL icons might be something like this:
<https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=home+depot>

Usually you want a square or round icon, which you'll often find.
A. You screenshot that entire page
B. Then you crop out the one icon you want

They're often already in the perfect icon set of square dimensions!
Anyway, I've written so much on this to help people, it's absurd. :)

Here are some links for those who would like references to create one-tap shortcuts to almost anything on Android, including Firefox URL shortcuts.

Note: The descriptive names are on purpose as my tutorials very
often show up in the first pagef of google searches due to being
able to be found in addition to being extremely detailed & tested.

*[Tutorial] Illustrated (mostly privacy based) one-tap shortcuts so that you can access (in a single tap!) any buried Android setting or app activity*
<https://xdaforums.com/t/tutorial-illustrated-mostly-privacy-based-one-tap-shortcuts-so-that-you-can-access-in-a-single-tap-any-buried-android-setting-or-app-activity.4625951/>

*How to manually create a homescreen shortcut to a known unique Android Activity?*
<https://xdaforums.com/t/how-to-manually-create-a-homescreen-shortcut-to-a-known-unique-android-activity.4336833/>

*What Android debugging tools will analyze any active homescreen shortcut to report the exact ACTIVITY and/or INTENT calls made by that app shortcut?*
<https://xdaforums.com/t/what-android-debugging-tools-will-analyze-any-active-homescreen-shortcut-to-report-the-exact-activity-and-or-intent-calls-made-by-that-app-shortcut.4624939/>

*[Privacy] Is it possible to find the shortcut activity Google Maps uses to turn on "Google Location Accuracy"*
<https://xdaforums.com/t/privacy-is-it-possible-to-find-the-shortcut-activity-google-maps-uses-to-turn-on-google-location-accuracy.4285243/>

*There MUST be a way to search for user-created Android SHORTCUTS (not widgets); but how?*
<https://xdaforums.com/t/there-must-be-a-way-to-search-for-user-created-android-shortcuts-not-widgets-but-how.4733365/>

*[DISCUSSION] Muntashirakon App Manager*
<https://xdaforums.com/t/discussion-muntashirakon-app-manager.4674128/>

*Photo Tutorial: How to change the app icon name & image on Android*
<https://xdaforums.com/t/photo-tutorial-how-to-change-the-app-icon-name-image-on-android.4455759/>

*A list of Android Usenet newsreaders & how to search & reference NNTP DejaNews/Google web archives for comp.mobile.android newsgroup topics in one tap*
<https://xdaforums.com/t/a-list-of-android-usenet-newsreaders-how-to-search-reference-nntp-dejanews-google-web-archives-for-comp-mobile-android-newsgroup-topics-in-one-tap.4634973/>
--
F'up added Android newsgroup as all my posts are research intensive, so the energy invested is intended to illuminate & help very many others; but if
you feel you need to limit a reply to just the Firefox ng, I understand.

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XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

On Wed, 7 May 2025 19:20:57 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote:

On Wed, 7 May 2025 08:27:30 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote :

A great way to find icons is simply to search images.google.com for,
oh, say "ACME WIDGETS" and the result will be an entire page of icons.

<https://openclipart.org/search/?query=icons>

But it's a good site for beginners ...

Also note they use the resolution-independent SVG format.

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XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

On Wed, 7 May 2025 18:39:27 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote:

The Windows analogy to an Android Intent is similar to the action when
you doubleclick on a *.html file in Windows where it opens the default browser.

Except an Android Intent is not specific to opening pages in web browsers;
it is a general inter-application communication mechanism.

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On Thu, 8 May 2025 23:03:04 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote :

<https://openclipart.org/search/?query=icons>
But it's a good site for beginners ...

Also note they use the resolution-independent SVG format.

Point well taken, and agreed upon. You know your icons & formats well.

The Windows analogy to an Android Intent is similar to the action when
you doubleclick on a *.html file in Windows where it opens the default
browser.

Except an Android Intent is not specific to opening pages in web browsers;
it is a general inter-application communication mechanism.

Your point is well taken where you're actually agreeing with & therefore strengthening the ad hoc analogy since both work kind of sort of the same.

When you doubleclick on a Windows *.html file, it brings up the URL in the default web browser; when you doubleclick on a *.csv file, it brings up the document in the default Excel program; when you doubleclick on a *.jpg file
it bring it up inside the default image editor (and so on).

Sometimes you even get an Activity Chooser where you get to pick which
specific program you want the {html,csv,jpg} file to open up inside of.

Same (kind'a sort'a) with Intents.

Each Android Intent has (a) an Action and (b) Data and (c) an Activity
Chooser, which essentially accomplishes almost exactly the same things.

Android uses the MIME Type, e.g.,
a. MIME type = text/html => for opening Firefox
b. MIME type = text/csv => for opening Excel
c. MIME type = image/jpeg => for opening Gallery

In summary, it's my humble opinion that a Windows file-based shortcut
(e.g., *.htm, *.csv, &.jpg) is kind'a sort'a like Android Intents, for the purpose of describing how one-tap shortcuts open up files inside of apps.

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On Fri, 9 May 2025 02:07:47 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote:

When you doubleclick on a Windows *.html file, it brings up the URL in
the default web browser; when you doubleclick on a *.csv file, it brings
up the document in the default Excel program; when you doubleclick on a
*.jpg file it bring it up inside the default image editor (and so on).

Those are all just documents, and double-clicking displays their content
in an associated application.

An Intent, on the other hand, is a message to do something.

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On Sat, 10 May 2025 00:35:45 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote :

When you doubleclick on a Windows *.html file, it brings up the URL in
the default web browser; when you doubleclick on a *.csv file, it brings
up the document in the default Excel program; when you doubleclick on a
*.jpg file it bring it up inside the default image editor (and so on).

Those are all just documents, and double-clicking displays their content
in an associated application.

An Intent, on the other hand, is a message to do something.

I agree with you. It was just an analogy. It's not 100% the same.

We need to keep in mind that probably a lot of Android owners can't even
spell the word "Intent" (nor "Activity"), which are critical keywords for
any user to know even if he is NOT a developer - when it comes to creating one-tap shortcuts on Android to make Android more efficient.

For example, using Muntashirakon, I can create a one-tap shortcut to any Activity (even hidden Activities!) as long as they're exposed to Android.

That way Android can bring up any (public) page of any app in a single tap. That's something no other common consumer operating system can do (AFAIK).

However, the concept of "Intents", as you noted, are different in that
Intents share data or trigger an action to be handled by another app.

In a way, as far as I can tell, perhaps the closest thing to an Android
Intent on Windows is the ability to share data (such as files) via the
send-to, or open-with dialog or the mail-to type intents.

Anyway, a classic use of Android intents we recently discussed on the
Android newsgroup would be to create a folder of one-tap shortcuts
containing icons of each of your family members so that you can dial them.

Android Intents are powerful though, so that's just one simple example.

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Lawrence,

Those are all just documents, and double-clicking displays their content
in an associated application.

An Intent, on the other hand, is a message to do something.

What is double-clicking or tapping a document (of any form, including
shortcuts and executables) other than (expressing) an intent ?

Also, my intent culminating into double-clicking or tapping something is a message to the OS to do something. What it than does is dependant on the document thats clicked/tapped.

Furthermore, I can think of that "an intent" on Android as being a kind of document much like a shortcut on Windows and handled by the OS itself, but
as easily as a small, self-contained program. And yes, both methods are viable, on Android as well as on Windows.

And than there is the ambiguity of both the "intent" and "message" words you used in the above.

Bottom line: To me your above "An Intent, on the other hand, is a message to
do something." is, even within its context, rather meaningless (if someone would have told me it was a bullshit-bingo phrase I would have believed
them).


Oh, bother. I just did a quick search for "Android shortcuts" and got this
:

https://developer.android.com/develop/ui/views/launch/shortcuts

As you might notice that they also use description "shortcuts" for whats on your Androids screen, and show your "an intent" as being a verb send from
it.

Also see, using a link in the above :

https://developer.android.com/guide/components/intents-filters

, where the mechanism is explained. Which includes implicite and
explicite shortcuts - both of which get "satisfied" thru the aid of the OS - much like on Windows.

The only difference seems to be that on Windows a shortcut is a (passive)
file which gets handled by the OS, while on Android its a(n active) small program.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

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On Sat, 10 May 2025 11:05:16 +0200, R.Wieser wrote :

The only difference seems to be that on Windows a shortcut is a (passive) file which gets handled by the OS, while on Android its a(n active) small program.

Rudy brings up a good point, where I agree with anyone if they make a defensible statement about it, where the one critical observation I need to make for people reading Rudy's links (and mine too) are that most
descriptions abut Android "Activities" & Android "Intents" are for Android
app developers, and not necessarily from the perspective of the user.

From the perspective of the user, what I love about Android "Activities",
is that if the activity is declared by the app, then any user can easily
create a shortcut to that "Activity" without any programming necessary.

1. They can use Muntashirakon to find the unique name of the Activity
2. Then tape the "Create Shortcut" button in Muntashirakon
3. If desired, they customize that shortcut icon & name & its location

Voila!

No other common consumer operating system (AFAIK) can open up any public
page in any app installed on the system, in a single shortcut like that.

So, for example, if the Android Firefox app happens to have a settings page five levels deep into Firefox, you can open that page in a single tap.

That's neat!
Of all common operating systems, only Android does that (AFAIK).

On the other hand, I think every operating system has the concept of
"Intents", which, the way I think of them for a user is a one-tap shortcut
that "does something" more than just open up a single page within an app.

My aforementioned example of a classic use of Intents is to tell the
default Dialer app to make a phone call to a specific person.

The problem with creating Intents for a mere user on Android is they need
to use special apps, which, unfortunately, keep changing over the years.

Here is an alphabetical list, for example, from a tutorial I wrote years ago.
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=any.shortcuts>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alextern.shortcutexecutors>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alextern.shortcuthelper>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atolphadev.quikshort>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.balda.intenttask>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bhanu.appshortcutmaker>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cemique.shortcutwidgets>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.deltacdev.websiteshortcut>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.leedroid.shortcutter>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.panagola.app.shortcut>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shortcutmaker.shortcut>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sika524.android.quickshortcut>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trianguloy.instantintent>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.miotti.AndroidViewer>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.miotti.ShortcutToUrl>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=krow.dev.scheme>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.vndnguyen.shortcutmaster.lite>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=rk.android.app.pinnedshortcuts>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=rk.android.app.shortcutmaker>

The main point here being that all customizable operating systems allow
the user to pass data (which could be as simple as a phone number) to apps
for those apps to perform some requested action with that (data.

On Android, that is called an Intent.

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Marion,

most descriptions abut Android "Activities" & Android "Intents"
are for Android app developers, and not necessarily from the
perspective of the user.

:-) It the other way around : where those developer (people-in-the-know)
would be about the first people to refer to something by its given name
(just to be clear what they are talking about), they too are using the "shortcut" name for it instead of "intents".

As for the users ? They use whichever name is easiest to remember. And as Windows has been using the "shortcuts" name for a very similar thing for decades, its rather likely that the users will use that, instead of a new, whatever-it-may-actually-mean "intents" name.

From the perspective of the user, what I love about Android
"Activities", is that if the activity is declared by the app,
then any user can easily create a shortcut to that "Activity"
without any programming necessary.

:-) Even you are calling it a shortcut.

On Windows I can drag-and-drop most every document, regardless of if it is
an executable or something else, and have a shortcut. Heck, this thread is about internet shortcuts - which are as easy to create as document
shortcuts. Just drag-and-drop. Furthermore, programs on Windows /could/ create their own shortcuts, but there seems to be very little need for it.

After that I can open that Windows shortcut and change it any way I want - giving me full freedom over what happens.


Android is a tad different. Its is created for knobchen-druecken users,
always starting apps from the "home screen". I would not be amazed if only
a small percentage would know of the filebrowser and even less how to use
it. A commandline interface ? Whats that ?

Also, on Android there seems to be no way to alter or even just inspect
whats in a shortcut.

IOW, that Android programs create their own shortcuts is outof necessity, because neither drag-and-drop really exists, nor does it have a way to start apps by a user-created ... something (bash, script, other).

On Android, that is called an Intent.

And neither those developpers nor you are using that name. :-p

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

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On 12.05.2025 08:47, R.Wieser wrote:

...
Android is a tad different. Its is created for knobchen-druecken users,
...

wow! never heard that word (Kn÷pfchen-drⁿcken users)

We normally call them DAUs (=Dⁿmmster anzunehmender User)
(= Dumbest assumable User)

ciao..

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Schugo,

wow! never heard that word (Kn÷pfchen-drⁿcken users)

Than you will probably like "gefingerpoken" too. :-)

I stole it from a bit of a joke written in pseudo-german.

Ah yes, here it is : https://rick.cogley.info/post/blinkenlights/

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

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