Chrome Custom Tabs

Overview

Chrome custom tabs give apps more control over their web experience, and make transitions between native and web content more seamless without having to resort to a WebView.

Chrome custom tabs allow an app to customize how Chrome looks and feels. An app can change things like:

• Toolbar color
• Enter and exit animations
• Add custom actions to the Chrome toolbar and overflow menu

Chrome custom tabs also allow the developer to pre-start Chrome and pre-fetch content for faster loading.

Quick Integrating with Chrome Custom Tabs:

1. Add the Android Support Library for Chrome Custom Tabs as a dependency to your gradle build file:

compile 'com.android.support:customtabs:24.0.0+'

    > The library only works on API 16 (Jelly Bean) an above. If you are supporting previous API, you can add `<uses-sdk tools:overrideLibrary="android.support.customtabs"/>` to your manifest to force its use and check the API version at runtime and just use Chrome Custom tabs if its >= 16

2. Copy the following files from [`GoogleChrome`](https://github.com/GoogleChrome/custom-tabs-client) sample git repo to your project and adjust the package names accordingly:

    - [CustomTabActivityHelper.java](https://github.com/GoogleChrome/custom-tabs-client/blob/master/demos/src/main/java/org/chromium/customtabsdemos/CustomTabActivityHelper.java)
    - [CustomTabsHelper.java](https://github.com/GoogleChrome/custom-tabs-client/blob/master/shared/src/main/java/org/chromium/customtabsclient/shared/CustomTabsHelper.java)
    - [KeepAliveService.java](https://github.com/GoogleChrome/custom-tabs-client/blob/master/shared/src/main/java/org/chromium/customtabsclient/shared/KeepAliveService.java)
    - [ServiceConnection.java](https://github.com/GoogleChrome/custom-tabs-client/blob/master/shared/src/main/java/org/chromium/customtabsclient/shared/ServiceConnection.java)
    - [ServiceConnectionCallback.java](https://github.com/GoogleChrome/custom-tabs-client/blob/master/shared/src/main/java/org/chromium/customtabsclient/shared/ServiceConnectionCallback.java)


3. Use the following method to open a Chrome Custom Tab *if possible*. If the user doesn't have a browser that supports Chrome Custom Tabs, it will open the default browser:

```java
CustomTabsIntent customTabsIntent = new CustomTabsIntent.Builder().build();
CustomTabActivityHelper.openCustomTab(this, customTabsIntent, uri,
        new CustomTabActivityHelper.CustomTabFallback() {
            @Override
            public void openUri(Activity activity, Uri uri) {
                Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, uri);
                activity.startActivity(intent);
            }
        });

Next Steps

The above quick integration example will open your Uri on a Chrome Custom Tab without warming up, pre-fetching or UI customizations.

You can find an example on how to connect to the Chrome Custom Tabs service to use warm-up and pre-fetching on the ServiceConnectionActivity sample from the Google Chrome Team.

For more information on possible UI customizations, check the CustomUIActivity sample from the Google Chrome Team.

References

• https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/android/customtabs
• https://github.com/GoogleChrome/custom-tabs-client