Web Intents was an experimental framework for web-based inter-application communication and service discovery. Web Intents consists of a discovery mechanism and a very light-weight

RPC RPC may refer to: Science and technology * Rational polynomial coefficient * Reactive Plastic Curtain, a carbon-dioxide-absorbing device used in some rebreather breathing sets * Regional Playback Control, a regional lockout technology for DVDs * ...

system between web applications, modelled after the Intents system in Android. In the context of the framework an Intent equals an action to be performed by a provider. Web Intents allow two web applications to communicate with each other, without either of them having to actually know what the other one is.TechCrunch: Google Announces Plans To Bake Android-Like Web Intents Into Chrome
/ref>

Support

Client

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macO ...

versions 18 to 23 natively supported Web Intents. This support was disabled in version 24, citing the existence of a "number of areas for development in both the API and specific user experience in Chrome".Status of web intents in Chrome
/ref> * There is a JavaScript shim with support for

IE 8 Windows Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) is a web browser for Windows. It was released by Microsoft on March 19, 2009, as the eighth version of Internet Explorer and the successor to Internet Explorer 7. It was the default browser in Windows 7 (later def ...

IE 9 Internet Explorer 9 or IE9 (officially Windows Internet Explorer 9) is a web browser for Windows. It was released by Microsoft on March 14, 2011, as the ninth version of Internet Explorer and the successor to Internet Explorer 8, and can replace p ...

Opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libre ...

Safari A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an importa ...

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and ...

3+ and Chrome 3+.Web Intents FAQ
/ref>

Server

* There are some Web Intents

proxy Proxy may refer to: * Proxy or agent (law), a substitute authorized to act for another entity or a document which authorizes the agent so to act * Proxy (climate), a measured variable used to infer the value of a variable of interest in climate re ...

pages that make available some real services that don't yet support intents. *

AddThis AddThis is a free social bookmarking service that can be integrated into a website with the use of a web widget. Once the widget is added, visitors to the website can bookmark or share an item using a variety of services, such as Facebook, MySpa ...

supports Web Intents by their sharing tools regardless of browser support.AddThis blog: A Step for Open Sharing: AddThis Integrates Web Intents
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History

Paul Kinlan of

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

announced the Web Intents project in December 2010. He soon released a prototype

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, co ...

. In August 2011 Google announced that

Chrome Chrome may refer to: Materials * Chrome plating, a process of surfacing with chromium * Chrome alum, a chemical used in mordanting and photographic film Computing * Google Chrome, a web browser developed by Google ** ChromeOS, a Google Chrome- ...

would support Web Intents. Google and

Mozilla Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, w ...

have started co-operating to unify Web Intents and Mozilla's Web Activities (which tries to solve the same problem) into one proposal.Mozilla Labs: Web Apps Update – experiments in Web Activities, App Discovery
In November 2012, Greg Billock of

announced that experimental support of Web Intents had been removed from

References

{{Reflist, 30em

External links

Web Intents introduction

Web Intents code on GitHub

Web Intents demos

Linux Weekly News: Differing intentions towards Web Intents

Mozilla's Web Activities
Google Web applications