How to make two AIR IOS application communicate?

Question

One possible solution is using Custom URL:

I follow the following tutorial and then further explore for the communicate for the two AIR applications in IOS. - The first app uses Custom URI "fbMY_APP_ID" as described in your first step, which is alright to be called by Safari. - The second app uses URLRequest with the Custom URI to communicate with first app.

I get the error: "SecurityError: Error #2193: Security sandbox violation: navigateToURL: app:/secondApp.swf cannot access tfbMY_APP_ID://test".

1. Am I missing something in this approach? Is there any way to get rid of the problem?
2. Is there any other way besides using Custom URL?

Answer 1

According to security sandbox imposed by Adobe AIR, navigateURL is restricted to well-known protocols such as http:, https:, sms:, tel:, mailto:, file:, app:, app-storage:, vipaccess: and connectpro:. You may find more information via here and here .

One way to work around is to utilize an html page as intermediate, where the page would relay the calls.

Answer 2

You can add a custom protocol from the application manifest file like this (you can add more than one protocol)

<iPhone>
...
    <InfoAdditions>
        <![CDATA[
            ...
            <key>CFBundleURLSchemes</key>
            <array>
                <string>thisIsSomeCustomAppProtocol</string>
            </array>
            ...
            ]]>
    </InfoAdditions>
    ...
</iPhone>

and you call the custom protocol like this:

<a href="thisIsSomeCustomAppProtocol://SomeCustomDataString_goes_here&use_url_encoded_strings:">This will call the App with some parameters included (if need be)</a>

Or use navigateToURL(...) like this:

var _customURL_str:String       = "thisIsSomeCustomAppProtocol://SomeCustomDataString_goes_here&use_url_encoded_strings";
var _isProtocolAvailable:Boolean= URLUtils.instance.canOpenUrl(_customURL_str);
//
if(_isProtocolAvailable)
{
    navigateToURL(new URLRequest(_customURL_str));
}

To listen for the call and actualy process the data that's being passed, do this:

NativeApplication.nativeApplication.addEventListener(InvokeEvent.INVOKE,_invokeHandler);

The event handler would process the data like this:

private function onInvoke(e:InvokeEvent):void
{
    //...
    var _queryString:String = e.arguments[0] ? e.arguments[0] : "";
    //
    if(_queryString.length > 0){
        //handle the incomming data string
    }else{
        //no extra data string was sent
    }
    //...
}

hope that helps

Cheers:

-Nick