How to check an app existence on Android?

Cocos Creator
#1

Hi all,

how can I check the existence of some application on Android? How can I decide, is the Facebook app installed on the user’s device?

I can open our company facebook page with the cc.sys.OpenURL using the fb://page/xxxxxxxxxxx command, and it works fine if the Facebook app is installed, but nothing happens when it is not installed. In that case I could open the page with the default browser, but the cc.sys.OpenURL has no return value and it does not raise an exception to catch. What can I do?

Best regards,
Zsolt

2 Likes
#2

Nobody can help me? :confused:

#3

I don’t know much about cocos creator, but in Cocos2d-x i have to use jni that call java function from cpp.

#4

Thanks for the answer! I have no experience with jni or java, can you provide some sample code please?

Best regards
Zsolt

#5

try adding this in AppActivity:

Activity activity;

and init activity in onCreate(){activity = this;}
then:

public static boolean isAppInstalled(String packageName) {
    PackageManager pm = activity.getPackageManager();
    try {
        pm.getApplicationInfo(packageName, 0);
        return true;
    }
    catch (NameNotFoundException e) {
        return false;
    }
}

let’s say your package is com.pzsolt.mygame

in cpp:

bool isAppInstalled(const char* packagename)
{
//will error in windows editor, so add #if android
return JniHelper::callStaticBooleanMethod("com/pzsolt/mygame/AppActivity", "isAppInstalled", packagename);
}

dont forget to include JniHelper, in cocos2d/cocos/platform/android/jni

2 Likes
#6

Thanks, I’ll try it soon! :slight_smile:

#7

in cocos creator for this , really no need to jni and cpp to call java
just need use jsb to call a function in java …
read this from documentation :
http://cocos2d-x.org/docs/editors_and_tools/creator-chapters/advanced-topics/java-reflection/index.html

#8

Hi all,

I just want to share the final and working solution. Based on @sevent7’s instructions I modified the AppActivity.java in Android Studio as follows:

private static AppActivity app = null;

public static boolean isFacebookInstalled() {
    try{
        ApplicationInfo info = app.getPackageManager().getApplicationInfo("com.facebook.katana", 0 );
        return true;
    } catch( PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e ){
        return false;
    }
}

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    SDKWrapper.getInstance().init(this);
    app = this;

}

At the top I had to add the following imports:

import android.content.pm.PackageManager;
import android.content.pm.ApplicationInfo;

And finally I use the following line in my game source:

var result = jsb.reflection.callStaticMethod("org/cocos2dx/javascript/AppActivity", "isFacebookInstalled", "()Z");

It works like a charm. And if the facebook app is installed I can open our facebook page in the native application, if not I can open it in a browser. Ta-taaaaam! :slight_smile:

Many thanks for all of your help!

Best regards,
Zsolt

1 Like
#9

What does katana mean? Is this the name of the version?
What if the user has a newer version?

#10

I don’t know why it is “katana”, but it is the name of the facebook app on Android. :slight_smile:

It is unlikely that they change this ID.

#11

True, the name of the package is constant, if they need a new version then they will just update the manifest.
Where was my mind when I asked?.. Nevermind.

Thanks for the answer! :slight_smile:

1 Like