Share selected text in browser to apps installed on a device

Question

Good day everyboby. I have not very trivial task on project im working on. Main part of the project is web site. The task is to allow user to select text on web site opened in any browser on android device and with some magic allow to share it to another apps installed on device. Such as Skype, Viber or any other. The problem is that there is no any app on device which i own, and should not be. And browser can be any. Will apreciate any advice. Thanks in advance

Answer 1

You have to monitor clipboard changes. So whenever user copy's text from any source you can listen to it.

You have to create a service and listen to clipboard changes.

Create a service:

public class ClipboardMonitorService extends Service {
    private static final String TAG = "ClipboardManager";
    private static final String FILENAME = "clipboard-history.txt";

    private File mHistoryFile;
    private ExecutorService mThreadPool = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
    private ClipboardManager mClipboardManager;

    @Override
    public void onCreate() {
        super.onCreate();

        // TODO: Show an ongoing notification when this service is running.
        mHistoryFile = new File(getExternalFilesDir(null), FILENAME);
        mClipboardManager =
                (ClipboardManager) getSystemService(CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);
        mClipboardManager.addPrimaryClipChangedListener(
                mOnPrimaryClipChangedListener);
    }

    @Override
    public void onDestroy() {
        super.onDestroy();

        if (mClipboardManager != null) {
            mClipboardManager.removePrimaryClipChangedListener(
                    mOnPrimaryClipChangedListener);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public IBinder onBind(Intent intent) {
        return null;
    }

    private boolean isExternalStorageWritable() {
        String state = Environment.getExternalStorageState();
        if (Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED.equals(state)) {
            return true;
        }
        return false;
    }

    private ClipboardManager.OnPrimaryClipChangedListener mOnPrimaryClipChangedListener =
            new ClipboardManager.OnPrimaryClipChangedListener() {
        @Override
        public void onPrimaryClipChanged() {
            Log.d(TAG, "onPrimaryClipChanged");
            ClipData clip = mClipboardManager.getPrimaryClip();
            mThreadPool.execute(new WriteHistoryRunnable(
                    clip.getItemAt(0).getText()));
        }
    };

    private class WriteHistoryRunnable implements Runnable {
        private final Date mNow;
        private final CharSequence mTextToWrite;

        public WriteHistoryRunnable(CharSequence text) {
            mNow = new Date(System.currentTimeMillis());
            mTextToWrite = text;
        }

        @Override
        public void run() {
            if (TextUtils.isEmpty(mTextToWrite)) {
                // Don't write empty text to the file
                return;
            }

            if (isExternalStorageWritable()) {
                try {
                    Log.i(TAG, "Writing new clip to history:");
                    Log.i(TAG, mTextToWrite.toString());
                    BufferedWriter writer =
                            new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(mHistoryFile, true));
                    writer.write(String.format("[%s]: ", mNow.toString()));
                    writer.write(mTextToWrite.toString());
                    writer.newLine();
                    writer.close();
                } catch (IOException e) {
                    Log.w(TAG, String.format("Failed to open file %s for writing!",
                            mHistoryFile.getAbsoluteFile()));
                }
            } else {
                Log.w(TAG, "External storage is not writable!");
            }
        }
    }
}

Add this to your Manifest:

<service
    android:name=".service.ClipboardMonitorService"
    android:label="Clipboard Monitor"
    android:exported="false"/>

Source: https://github.com/twaddington/Android-Clipboard-Monitor/blob/master/src/com/example/clipboardmonitor/service/ClipboardMonitorService.java