Detect app launch from WidgetKit widget extension

Question

Tapping a WidgetKit widget automatically launches its parent application. How can I detect if my application was launched from its WidgetKit widget extension?

I'm unable to find any documentation on capturing this in the applications AppDelegate and/or SceneDelegate.

Answer 1

To detect an app launch from a WidgetKit widget extension where the parent application supports scenes you'll need to implement scene(_:openURLContexts:), for launching from a background state, and scene(_:willConnectTo:options:), for launching from a cold state, in your parent application's SceneDelegate. Also, add widgetURL(_:) to your widget's view.

Widget's View:

struct WidgetEntryView: View {
    
    var entry: SimpleEntry
    
    private static let deeplinkURL: URL = URL(string: "widget-deeplink://")!

    var body: some View {
        Text(entry.date, style: .time)
            .widgetURL(WidgetEntryView.deeplinkURL)
    }
    
}

Parent application's SceneDelegate:

// App launched
func scene(_ scene: UIScene, willConnectTo session: UISceneSession, options connectionOptions: UIScene.ConnectionOptions) {
    guard let _: UIWindowScene = scene as? UIWindowScene else { return }
    maybeOpenedFromWidget(urlContexts: connectionOptions.urlContexts)
}

// App opened from background
func scene(_ scene: UIScene, openURLContexts URLContexts: Set<UIOpenURLContext>) {
    maybeOpenedFromWidget(urlContexts: URLContexts)
}

private func maybeOpenedFromWidget(urlContexts: Set<UIOpenURLContext>) {
    guard let _: UIOpenURLContext = urlContexts.first(where: { $0.url.scheme == "widget-deeplink" }) else { return }
    print("🚀 Launched from widget")
}