Chapter 30. Auto-Launching with File and Protocol Associations

File and protocol associations are used to automatically launch your app when another app launches a specific file type or URI.

In previous versions of the Windows Phone OS, apps had no built-in way to communicate with other apps on the device, and no means to associate themselves with particular file types as is commonplace on the desktop.

Fortunately, the Windows Phone 8 SDK includes two new capabilities that allow your app to associate itself with files that have a specific file extension and to send messages to apps that have subscribed to a particular URI protocol, thus allowing the delegation of data handling responsibilities, sharing of data between apps, and inter-app communication.

This chapter begins with a brief introduction to file and protocol associations. It then looks at enabling file associations in your app, and you see how to register your app for handling file launch requests for specific file types. You explore two sample apps that demonstrate the concepts of registration and launching of file and protocol associations.

Finally, the chapter delves into protocol associations. You see how to register a protocol association, how to create a protocol association landing page, and how to send and receive protocol messages. You also look at programmatically launching built-in apps.