We can integrate WhatsApp with an Android app in two ways:
Methods
- Using the Android Intent system (covered in my previous post: http://karjol-gt.blogspot.in/2015/05/how-to-share-media-or-message-text-with.html).
- Using the custom URL scheme provided by WhatsApp.
We will discuss the second option in this post.
WhatsApp custom URL scheme (website or app)
WhatsApp provides a custom URL scheme to interact with the app. If you have a website and want to open a WhatsApp chat with a pre-defined message, you can use WhatsApp’s custom URL scheme.
Opening whatsapp://send?text= followed by the text to send will open WhatsApp, allow the user to choose a contact, and prefill the input field with the specified text.
Example (on a website)
Use a normal anchor tag. The message must be URL-encoded (spaces become %20, etc.). Example:
<a href="whatsapp://send?text=Hello%20World!">Hello, world!</a>
When the user clicks this link, WhatsApp (if installed) opens, the user selects a contact, and the predefined text "Hello World!" appears in the chat input.
Notes and compatibility
- URL-encode the message text. Unencoded spaces and special characters may break the URL.
- This method relies on the
whatsapp://custom scheme and therefore requires the WhatsApp app to be installed on the device. Behavior can vary by platform, browser, and WhatsApp version. Test on the target devices and browsers. - Consider adding a fallback for environments where the
whatsapp://scheme is unsupported (for example, conditionally offering the WhatsApp FAQ or guiding users to install WhatsApp).
Summary
That’s it. Happy Coding…
Reference
- WhatsApp FAQ: http://www.whatsapp.com/faq/
- Related post: How to share the media and text with the social android apps — http://karjol-gt.blogspot.in/2015/05/how-to-share-media-or-message-text-with.html
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