Receive input from Android apps on your React Native (0.39) application

README.md

For a react-native app I wanted to be able to receive any URL from the browser or any other application which shares URL's with the system sharing system (or whatever it's called).

I find it weird that RN doesn't provide this out of the box but it's easy to implement.

index.android.js

import React from 'react';
import { Navigator, AppRegistry } from 'react-native';

import Splash from './app/views/Splash';

export default class MyApp extends React.Component {
    
    // Navigation and route handling removed for convinience.
    
    render(){
        // We should receieve this from the Android MainActivity
        const importUrl = this.props.importUrl;
        return (
            <Navigator
                initialRoute={{ component: Splash, passProps: { importUrl: importUrl } }}
                configureScene={ this.configureScene }
                renderScene={(route, nav) => {return this.renderScene(route, nav)}}
            />
        );
    }
}

AppRegistry.registerComponent('MyApp', () => MyApp);

MainActivity.java

package com.myapp;

import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Bundle;
import com.facebook.react.ReactActivity;
import com.facebook.react.ReactActivityDelegate;

// Standard Activiy generated by react-native

public class MainActivity extends ReactActivity {

    // Store the URL we're receiving from the share system
    public static String importUrl;
  
    @Override
    protected String getMainComponentName() {
        return "MyApp";
    }

    /**
     * Since MainActivity is our entry Intent, we have to override the default
     * onCreate from ReactActivity and obtain the parameter "importUrl"
     */
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        final Intent intent = this.getIntent();
        final String action = intent.getAction();
        final String type = intent.getType();

        if (Intent.ACTION_SEND.equals(action) && type != null && "text/plain".equals(type)) {
            // Extract the URL from the Intent and set it to our variable
            MainActivity.importUrl = intent.getStringExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT);
        }

        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    }

    /**
     * The magic happens here. getLaunchOptions works on a delegate since version 0.34 of RN
     * Check https://github.com/facebook/react-native/pull/9320 for more information.
     */
    @Override
    protected ReactActivityDelegate createReactActivityDelegate() {
        return new ReactActivityDelegate(this, getMainComponentName()) {
            @Override
            protected Bundle getLaunchOptions() {
                Bundle initialProps = new Bundle();
                // Set the value from our static variable for the app
                initialProps.putString("importUrl", MainActivity.importUrl);
                // Since importUrl is static we have to reset it
                MainActivity.importUrl = null;
                return initialProps;
            }
        };
    }
}