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When a user clicks on my Firebase Dynamic Link (with deep link) to launch my Android app, one of two things will happen:

  1. If the app is not installed, the user will be directed to Google Play to install the app, and then launch it with my deep link.
  2. If the app is installed, it will be launched with my deep link.

My app needs to know which one happened.

As far as I can tell, the Firebase API will not tell me if the app was installed as part of the FDL flow. Am I missing something?

P.S. Using a shared pref isn't good enough for my purposes since they are deleted when the user clears data and therefore don't perfectly represent installs. I'm looking for something like the INSTALL_REFERRER broadcast event is fired by Google Play, but that works with Firebase Dynamic Links.

Barry Fruitman
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1 Answers1

-1

Per the documentation this is totally possible:

When a user opens one of your Dynamic Links, if your app isn't yet installed, the user is sent to the Play Store or App Store to install your app (unless you specify otherwise), and your app opens. You can then retrieve the link that was passed to your app and handle the deep link as appropriate for your app

You can use the Dynamic Links SDK and call the FirebaseDynamicLinks.getDynamicLink() method to get the data passed to the link:

FirebaseDynamicLinks.getInstance().getDynamicLink(getIntent()).addOnSuccessListener(this, new OnSuccessListener<PendingDynamicLinkData>() {
    @Override
    public void onSuccess(PendingDynamicLinkData pendingDynamicLinkData) {
        Uri deepLink = null;
        if (pendingDynamicLinkData != null) {
            deepLink = pendingDynamicLinkData.getLink();
        }
    }
}).addOnFailureListener(this, new OnFailureListener() {
    @Override
    public void onFailure(@NonNull Exception e) {
        Log.w(TAG, "getDynamicLink:onFailure", e);
    }
});

You can use this coupled with a "firstlaunch" flag stored in SharedPreferences to detect if the app was installed or not.

    if (prefs.getBoolean("firstlaunch", true)) {
        prefs.edit().putBoolean("firstlaunch", false).commit();
    }

https://firebase.google.com/docs/dynamic-links/android/receive

pnavk
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    This doesn't tell me if the app was just installed, or already installed, will it? That's what I need to know. – Barry Fruitman Jan 11 '19 at 20:23
  • @BarryFruitman - you can use this combined with a boolean SharedPreference as a composite key to detect a "fresh install". So on launch - check if a value exists in shared preference, if it does then the app was already installed. See answer edit – pnavk Jan 11 '19 at 22:05
  • Sorry pnavk but I need something better than that since SharedPreferences are deleted when the user clears data, so they don't perfectly represent installs. – Barry Fruitman Jan 11 '19 at 23:17