Comment on page

Integrate with Desktop Apps via Custom URL Schemes

Operating systems allow applications to register a custom URL scheme (as opposed to, e.g., https://). Applications (including the Web Browser) can use this to deep-link into and perform actions in other desktop applications
Some popular productivity applications supporting URL schemes:
​Drafts​
​Omnifocus​
​Obsidian​
​Zoom​
​Slack​
​Microsoft Power Automate​
Using a Custom URL Scheme
To use a custom URL scheme, you can use the @pixiebrix/browser/open-tab brick just like with a normal URL
Depending on the application, you may need to specify a different encoding for spaces URL query parameters using the spaceEncoding. For most cases, the default %20 encoding is what's expected. But you may need to use + in some cases.
Advanced: Disable Browser Confirmation
By disabling the confirmation, a malicious site could trick you into performing an action in a desktop application. That being said, most applications do not expose destructive actions via URL schemes for this reason
When you try to navigate to a link with a custom URL scheme, Chrome will prompt you to open the application:
If you're trying to trigger a lot of actions, that can become tedious. Here are some steps for disabling the confirmation in Chrome.
MacOS
1.​Open the terminal​
2.In the prompt, enter the following with the URL scheme for the application you're using. For example, the Drafts URL scheme is drafts://, so we'd enter:
defaults write com.google.Chrome URLAllowlist -array-add 'drafts://*'
3.Restart Chrome
Desktop Developer Resources
​Mac: Defining a Custom URL Scheme for Your App​

Integration Scenarios

Airtable

Last modified 28d ago