Inter-application communication on mobile platforms

• US 9,141,444 B2
• Filed: 09/11/2014
• Issued: 09/22/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Partridge, Brian, Dhurvasula, Harish
• Primary Examiner(s): Ho, Andy
• Application Number:
  US14/483,642
• Publication Number:
  US 20150040145A1
• Time in Patent Office: 376 Days
• Field of Search: 719/310, 719/313
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/00 Interconnection of, or transfer of information or other signals between, memories, input/output devices or central processing units interface circuits for specific input/output devices G06F3/00 ; multiprogram control therefor G06F9/46; multiprocessor systems G06F15/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/541 via adapters, e.g. between incompatible applications
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/547 Remote procedure calls [RPC]; Web services

Abstract

Applications executing in a mobile device utilize a protocol for inter-application communication to overcome restrictions of a sandboxed environment. Applications advertise their exposed capabilities using structured definition files, which are consumed by other applications. Applications can invoke the advertised capabilities by exchanging inter-application communication (IAC) messages in the form of URLs or other platform-specific mechanisms. URL messages are formatted according to parameters and URL schemes specified by the provided definition files.

Claims

1. A method for inter-application communication on a mobile device having an operating system that provides a sandboxed environment, the method comprising:

retrieving, at a first application executing on the mobile device, a definition for functionality provided by another application executable on the mobile device;

generating a first URL string based on the retrieved definition for the functionality; and

invoking functionality of a second application installed on the mobile device by opening the first URL string using a system call of the operating system of the mobile device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the functionality provided by the second application comprises virtual machine management functionality.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first application is a dashboard application configured to provide an overview of one or more virtualized computing resources in a data center, and wherein the second application is a virtual machine management application.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

registering a URL scheme for the first application with the operating system of the mobile device; and

receiving a request, from the operating system, to handle a second URL string comprising the registered URL scheme for the first application, wherein the second URL string opened by the second application.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the retrieving the definition for the functionality provided by the another application further comprises:

retrieving a structured file specifying a plurality of integration point definitions from a central repository accessible to the first application and to the second application.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first URL string comprises a task identifier parameter associated with invocation of the functionality and assigned by the first application.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first URL string comprises a plurality of callback URLs to be open upon successful invocation of the functionality of the second application.

8. A method for inter-application communication on a mobile device having an operating system that provides a sandboxed environment, the method comprising:

transmitting, at a first application executing on the mobile device, a definition for functionality provided by the first application, wherein the definition specifies a URL scheme associated with the first application;

receiving a request, from the operating system, to handle opening a first URL string generated by a second application installed on the mobile device; and

executing a handler method associated with the functionality of the first application.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the functionality provided by the first application comprises virtual machine management functionality.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the first application is a virtual machine management application, and the second application is a dashboard application configured to provide an overview of one or more virtualized computing resources in a data center.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the definition for the functionality provided by the first application specifies a URL scheme associated with the first application, and wherein the first URL string comprises a URL scheme associated with the first application and registered with the operation system of the mobile device.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the transmitting the definition for the functionality further comprises:

transmitting a structured file specifying a plurality of integration point definitions to a central repository accessible to the first application and the second application.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the first URL string comprises a task identifier parameter associated with the invocation of the functionality and assigned by the second application.

14. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

determining the first URL string comprises a plurality of callback URLs;

determining a next URL of the plurality of callback URLs;

generating a second URL string based on the next URL, wherein the second URL string comprises a parameter specifying the plurality of callback URLs excluding the next URL; and

opening the second URL string using a system call of the operating system of the mobile device.

15. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed in a computing device, for providing inter-application communication on a mobile device having an operating system that provides a sandboxed environment, by performing the steps of:

retrieving, at a first application executing on the mobile device, a definition for functionality provided by another application executable on the mobile device;

generating a first URL string based on the retrieved definition for the functionality; and

invoking functionality of a second application installed on the mobile device by opening the first URL string using a system call of the operating system of the mobile device.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the functionality provided by the second application comprises virtual machine management functionality.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the first application is a dashboard application configured to provide an overview of one or more virtualized computing resources in a data center, and wherein the second application is a virtual machine management application.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the steps further comprise:

registering a URL scheme for the first application with the operating system of the mobile device; and

receiving a request, from the operating system, to handle a second URL string comprising the registered URL scheme for the first application, wherein the second URL string opened by the second application.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the step of retrieving the definition for the functionality provided by the another application further comprises the step of:

retrieving a structured file specifying a plurality of integration point definitions from a central repository accessible to the first application and to the second application.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the first URL string comprises a task identifier parameter associated with invocation of the functionality and assigned by the first application.