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I might not understand the full problem this is solving. Is it to get rid of all the social bookmarking buttons on blogs? Something tells me only being supporte

by alttab 14y ago

I might not understand the full problem this is solving. Is it to get rid of all the social bookmarking buttons on blogs? Something tells me only being supported in chrome, and having to literally download an app to share seems rather silly. Unless a large portion of the intended audience is tech-centric or cares about this thing, bloggers will now have intent plugins and social sharing plugins. So I'll state my original point- there has to be more leverage behind web intents that I'm missing? Does anyone have good links that may shed more light?

julien 14y ago
It's for any "application" that you use online. Intents are not limited to "share". There could be a "print", a "sponsor", a "save" intent.;. etc. Also, it will do exactly that: help bloggers get rid of all the dummy buttons ont their sites for these services who track _their_ readers, audience and make the loading slower... while still allowing everyone to chose their platform of choice :)
kinlan 14y ago
The bigger picture is that it is not about Sharing, it's about connecting web-apps. The goal is that users will not know about or need to know about intents, they just get the flexibility to use the services that they prefer to use in the apps and sites that they visit. For developers it is about not having to create or build native, or tightly coupled integrations to a select few services. The app just asks for a service and the browser knows the list that the user can use. The "download" or install part you mention is just for now whilst we get the intent tag and other discovery mechanisms landed. If you look at AddThis, they offer support for intents in their widget, so it is not aimed at being tech centric at all. I would also add that we are not finished yet, there is still a lot to do such as setting defaults, and building explicit intents (let the dev define the endpoint of the action) and also getting more apps to provide or integrate with services.
- pwpwp 14y ago
  Is there a relation to registerProtocolHandler, somehow?
  - kinlan 14y ago
    short answer. Yes and there will be integration between RPH, RCH and intents.
vibrunazo 14y ago
It's similar to when you wanna open a file, but doesn't know what app to open that file type with. The OS shows you a list of apps that can handle that file type and you can choose a default one. Except this is now handled by the browser instead of the OS. And it let's the website choose which "file type", and it's not just for files but for any links. The "file type" is what the web intent is and the app can be any webapp or browser extension. Sharing in just one of the many examples of intents. You could also have one intent for editing a picture, which would open an app for editing. Or playing a video. Adding an event to the calendar etc. You can make up your own intents, it can be virtually anything. If you used android, it works just like android intents. When an android app needs to play a video, it doesn't need to say "open app X", it just needs to say "I wanna play this video" and the OS will show the user with a list of apps which registered to be able to do that.

by alttab 14y ago

julien 14y ago

It's for any "application" that you use online. Intents are not limited to "share". There could be a "print", a "sponsor", a "save" intent.;. etc. Also, it will do exactly that: help bloggers get rid of all the dummy buttons ont their sites for these services who track _their_ readers, audience and make the loading slower... while still allowing everyone to chose their platform of choice :)

kinlan 14y ago

The bigger picture is that it is not about Sharing, it's about connecting web-apps. The goal is that users will not know about or need to know about intents, they just get the flexibility to use the services that they prefer to use in the apps and sites that they visit. For developers it is about not having to create or build native, or tightly coupled integrations to a select few services. The app just asks for a service and the browser knows the list that the user can use. The "download" or install part you mention is just for now whilst we get the intent tag and other discovery mechanisms landed. If you look at AddThis, they offer support for intents in their widget, so it is not aimed at being tech centric at all. I would also add that we are not finished yet, there is still a lot to do such as setting defaults, and building explicit intents (let the dev define the endpoint of the action) and also getting more apps to provide or integrate with services.

pwpwp 14y ago
Is there a relation to registerProtocolHandler, somehow?
- kinlan 14y ago
  short answer. Yes and there will be integration between RPH, RCH and intents.

vibrunazo 14y ago

It's similar to when you wanna open a file, but doesn't know what app to open that file type with. The OS shows you a list of apps that can handle that file type and you can choose a default one. Except this is now handled by the browser instead of the OS. And it let's the website choose which "file type", and it's not just for files but for any links. The "file type" is what the web intent is and the app can be any webapp or browser extension. Sharing in just one of the many examples of intents. You could also have one intent for editing a picture, which would open an app for editing. Or playing a video. Adding an event to the calendar etc. You can make up your own intents, it can be virtually anything. If you used android, it works just like android intents. When an android app needs to play a video, it doesn't need to say "open app X", it just needs to say "I wanna play this video" and the OS will show the user with a list of apps which registered to be able to do that.