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androidandroid-intentyoutubeadbraspbian

Launch a youtube search from ADB

I'm trying to launch a youtube search from ADB (from another device on raspbian).

So I want to launch youtube app then launch a search "test"

I can launch youtube app using this : shell monkey -p com.google.android.youtube.tv -c android.intent.category.LAUNCHER 1

But I couldn't find how to launch the search. I guess it is using intent.action.search...

What would be the right code ? And do you have any link explaining how to use the adb and intent ?

I couldn't find any explaining it easily,

Thanks,

Solution

  • 1st approach
    As I don't have the android tv and hence youtube tv app. I will tell it with the help of the youtube app that comes preinstalled in mobile.

    Intent used to open search on com.google.android.youtube which comes preinstalled on android phones is

    com.google.android.youtube.action.open.search

    You can find this intent in android manifest of the app. Please take extra care to look at android:exported in manifest.

    Here is the complete command syntax to open the app and open search bar.

    adb shell am start -a [intent action name] -n [activity name]

    To get the activity name in any app, go to that app and click on that activity and then run this

    adb shell dumpsys window windows | grep -E 'mCurrentFocus|mFocusedApp'

    Here is what I got in my case

    mCurrentFocus=Window{a4d41d0 u0 com.google.android.youtube/com.google.android.apps.youtube.app.WatchWhileActivity}
mFocusedApp=AppWindowToken{31adc14 token=Token{c0a51f0 ActivityRecord{c314a33 u0 com.google.android.youtube/com.google.android.apps.youtube.app.WatchWhileActivity t283}}}

    In my case the activity is 

    com.google.android.youtube/com.google.android.apps.youtube.app.WatchWhileActivity

    Hence to open the search bar I will type 

    adb shell am start -a com.google.android.youtube.action.open.search -n com.google.android.youtube/com.google.android.apps.youtube.app.WatchWhileActivity

    Then to type in anything there are many options, one of them is by sending keys through virtual keyboard like

    adb shell input text "hello"

    To know about more option, you can type

    adb shell input text help


    2nd Approach
    There is another approach which is based on clicking the search bar after you open your activity using am start.
    Here first you need to know the coordinates of the search bar by clicking on the search bar and capturing its coordinates using

     adb shell getevent -l

    and then send touches using 

    adb shell input tap [x_coordinate] [y_coordinate]



    Here is documentation about adb and intent. Hope this helps.