Application-Specific Links

Do you know something like https: :? That's the URL scheme . You may already be familiar with this concept, as you will encounter other similar solutions in front-end development, such as mailto: . In fact, you can create your own URL scheme, which is very cool. There are many such solutions.

I've found that custom URL schemes are most commonly used for applications that are both web and native applications. For example, two apps I use almost every day: Notion and Figma. I really like that things I handle in these apps have URLs. Everything has a URL! ?

However. When I get the URL of the Notion page (I do it often to share it with my colleagues), what I get is a URL like this...

 <code>https://www.notion.so/csstricks/...</code>

This is great and can be used to open Notion pages in your browser. But I prefer Notion native apps. It is based on Electron, so it is still a web application, but I'm using it from my web browser, but from the Notion.app application on my computer.

Geoff shared an article a few days ago that documented how to easily make the application's browser URL open in a native app:

Fortunately, Notion’s development team took this into consideration and built notion:// link protocol. If you replace https:// part of any Notion page link with notion:// , your link will automatically open in the native app, not in a web browser.

Thomas Frank, "How to share Notion links that open directly in the app"

The native solution is basically the same as the web solution (except for the name), which is great. Thomas explores this in depth and describes how to modify clipboard content to replace Notion links with custom schemes.

I just want to illustrate one way I think works very well for me. The trick is not to modify the links themselves, but to react to links you know are Notion links and redirect them to open in Notion.app.

On a Mac, the trick is Choosy:

I prefer to set Choosy to never ask me which browser to use, it just does things according to the rules. So, under settings, I set up a bunch of applications:

For Notion, I'll monitor the link to Notion and let it open Notion... that's it!

Other applications basically do the exact same thing. The effect is very good.

But there is a warning! Occasionally, I have to switch some apps back and forth here. For example, the password reset process might send me to slack.com or some other page that is part of the process and is accessible only over the web. If Choosy is running, it will try to force the page to open in Slack.app, but it won't, and you may be stuck. So I have to close it here for the time being.

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