After spending sometime working on my iPad dashboard, I became familiar with the iOS URL Schemas. These schemas allow you to create hyperlinks to open apps.
For example, you can create a URL link such as:
fackbook:// - when saved as a tile, it will launch FaceBook when clicked.
One of the difficult aspects is knowing what these URLs are. For example, I wanted to launch my Chevrolet app from a tile or I wanted to add a hyperlink to one of my forecast radars to launch Weatherbug.
How do you find these?
The best method I could find (using a Windows PC) was to download the iMazing App (free license)
And follow these instructions here:
So in my case, the Chevy URL is:
mychevrolet-owner://
The Weatherbug URL is:
weatherbugelite-widget://
I was using an Kiosk app tKiosk, but I found the links did not work.
But if I used the Kiosker Pro App, the links worked and I was able to āreturnā back to dashboard.
One more idea, you can create a shortcut to launch an app (for example Rapid Ring).
You can then launch the shortcut using the following:
shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=[name or your shortcut]
Only problem with shortcuts is, you canāt return back to the dashboard, so youāll need to add some sort of ātimeoutā logic to relaunch the Kiosker App.
Thereās also an iPhone app that scans all of the apps on your phone and matches them to a url scheme. Unfortunately I canāt remember what itās called as I solely use Fire HDs for my dashboards. I think I put a post on here, so Iāll see if I can find itā¦
Edit: Found it. The app is āIconicalā. As soon as you click the āselect appā button, it scans all of your apps and provides possible urls with buttons to test if they launch the app.
That works for a lot of apps, but it has a database to cross-reference.
I used this one as well, but it did not have entries for my rather unique apps such as:
HTD MC / HTD Valet Home Control
myChevrolet
Lincoln Way
Bring!
But it did have over 130,000 references - so may meet most peoples needs.
My understanding is, Apple does not allow (anymore?) actual āscanningā of installed app plist.info files.
If you are able to launch an App using a āhyperlinkā like: ring:// - then it will open in a windowed mode and you can close the window by clicking in the top left - then it returns back to the dashboard.
If you use a Apple Shortcut to launch an app, when you close the app, it returns back to the Apple Device home screen - requiring you to relaunch SharpTools to get back to the dashboard.