Launching Google Finance and display graph on a particular Stock, is that possible ?

Question

I would like to do two things within my Android app :

1. Check if the Google Finance app is installed on the device. Should be pretty straighforward, isn't it ?

2. If yes, launch an intent to Open up Google Finance, displaying a graph on a particular Stock. So I also need to pass the stock ticker to Google Finance in some way... but is this even possible ?

Any other alternative I could use to display Stock Charts (let's say a 5 days intraday chart) on any stock ?

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

I am not aware of there being any publicly-documented packages or Intents to achieve your aim, let alone an Intent that would meet your specific open-a-graph-on-a-stock request.

Since I am assuming you are looking for something that is free, I would look into launching the Browser (or perhaps using the WebView widget) on some existing Web-based finance site.

Answer 2

Hi,

Unfortunately, very few intents with parameters are published and documented. OpenIntents tries to collect some of them http://www.openintents.org/

Another way of finding available intents is to look at the AndroidManifest.xml of the deployed application (usually only compressed, not encrypted). Of course, this method discovers intents that may not be public and will change over time.

Recently came across ManifestExplorer https://www.isecpartners.com/manifest_explorer.html which I have built into an .apk at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4379928/android/ManifestExplorer.apk

It allows you to see the AndroidManifest.xml of all installed applications.

The manfiest of com.google.android.apps.finance doesn't include any relevant intents. However, it is interesting that it contains a data scheme for http://finance.google.com so that if you use the browser to navigate to this page it asks if you want to open it in the finance app instead.

Best way would probably be to follow the advice from CommonsWare