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From: Marion <marion@facts.com>
Newsgroups: alt.comp.software.firefox,comp.mobile.android
Subject: Re: Internet Shortcut
Date: Sun, 11 May 2025 22:57:24 -0000 (UTC)
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On Sat, 10 May 2025 11:05:16 +0200, R.Wieser wrote :


> The only difference seems to be that on Windows a shortcut is a (passive)
> file which gets handled by the OS, while on Android its a(n active) small
> program.

Rudy brings up a good point, where I agree with anyone if they make a 
defensible statement about it, where the one critical observation I need to 
make for people reading Rudy's links (and mine too) are that most 
descriptions abut Android "Activities" & Android "Intents" are for Android 
app developers, and not necessarily from the perspective of the user.

From the perspective of the user, what I love about Android "Activities", 
is that if the activity is declared by the app, then any user can easily 
create a shortcut to that "Activity" without any programming necessary.

1. They can use Muntashirakon to find the unique name of the Activity
2. Then tape the "Create Shortcut" button in Muntashirakon 
3. If desired, they customize that shortcut icon & name & its location

Voila! 

No other common consumer operating system (AFAIK) can open up any public 
page in any app installed on the system, in a single shortcut like that.

So, for example, if the Android Firefox app happens to have a settings page 
five levels deep into Firefox, you can open that page in a single tap.

That's neat!
Of all common operating systems, only Android does that (AFAIK).

On the other hand, I think every operating system has the concept of 
"Intents", which, the way I think of them for a user is a one-tap shortcut 
that "does something" more than just open up a single page within an app.

My aforementioned example of a classic use of Intents is to tell the 
default Dialer app to make a phone call to a specific person.

The problem with creating Intents for a mere user on Android is they need 
to use special apps, which, unfortunately, keep changing over the years.

Here is an alphabetical list, for example, from a tutorial I wrote years ago.
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=any.shortcuts>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alextern.shortcutexecutors>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alextern.shortcuthelper>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atolphadev.quikshort>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.balda.intenttask>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bhanu.appshortcutmaker>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cemique.shortcutwidgets>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.deltacdev.websiteshortcut>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.leedroid.shortcutter>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.panagola.app.shortcut>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shortcutmaker.shortcut>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sika524.android.quickshortcut>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trianguloy.instantintent>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.miotti.AndroidViewer>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.miotti.ShortcutToUrl>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=krow.dev.scheme>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.vndnguyen.shortcutmaster.lite>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=rk.android.app.pinnedshortcuts>
 <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=rk.android.app.shortcutmaker>

The main point here being that all customizable operating systems allow 
the user to pass data (which could be as simple as a phone number) to apps 
for those apps to perform some requested action with that (data.

On Android, that is called an Intent.