New version of URLCheck (V 3.4.1)

V 3.4.1
- Improve: Updated translations
- Fix: Report error instead of deleting extra json elements in the editor
- Fix: Avoid some errors when using http services
- Internal: Several updates and minor changes

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Oops, almost forgot about posting this!

This update does not include any notable feature or improvement, but there are some changes under the hood that I had to make before continuing with the development, related to the translations. Finally that first part is done...but there is still a second thing to do.

I want to make it these holidays, I really do.

New version of URLCheck (V 3.4)

V 3.4
- Improve: Rewritten VirusTotal integration: use api v3 and show more details (vote third place)
- Improve: Allow app component and/or package in the open automation
- Improve: Allow list of strings on 'regex' and 'excludeRegex' for patterns
- Improve: $REFERRER$ for the webhook body
- Improve: Close url editText on enter
- New: excludeRegex on automations
- New: Toast automation sample
- Fix: bold host display not working with host-only urls
- Fix: non-clickable links on json editor

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This time, I didn't forgot!

This includes the third, and last, voted feature. The VirusTotal v3 integration. Probably not very user-visible, unless you want to check the result of a scan, but still something that had to be done.

The other 'notable' feature is the ability to include arguments on automations. Currently just the package/component for open (plus the toast debug sample), but I want to add some more to others.

Other minor features and a couple fixes...and that's it!

 

I know I've been more absent lately, and probably I'll be even more in the future, but I still love doing this and will continue while I can, whenever I can.

New version or URLCheck (V 3.3.1)

V 3.3.1

- New: Allow multiple referrers on automations

- Fix: Automations other than the first not working

- Fix: Unescaped dots on example patterns

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And I forgot this one too! But just a quick fix, the previous had more changes.

New version of URLCheck (V 3.3)

V 3.3

- New: Configurable dialog width

- New: Automations: 'referrer' and 'stop'

- New: Open&replace text on long-click

- New: Register the app to open some common url intents (thanks ArtikusHG!)

- New: Sample pattern song.link (thanks shalva-an!)

- Improve: Automations: Allow multiple actions

- Improve: Automations and patterns: 'regex' is now optional

- Fix: Custom tabs not working when opening from some apps (like Google search)

- Remove: 'clear' automation (wasn't working)

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I forgot to post this (and it was a notable version)

New version of URLCheck (V 3.2)

V 3.2
- Improve: enhanced JSON editor (vote second place)
- New: upper-case-in-domain default pattern (thanks Bakr-Ali!)
- Fix: 'rejected' urls hide the opened app

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This version includes the second voted feature: an enhanced JSON editor!
It replaces the old dialog-popup with a new full activity, where you can check the documentation while editing (or hide it completely) as well better restore/clear checks.

It contains also a new pattern (which you may need to import manually if you have edited them, sorry) and a fix for rejected urls, which was mostly present when trying to download files from github releases.

Additionally, although not present in the changelog itself, the app is now available on IzzyOnDroid! You can also import it with Obtainium (instruction on github) since the apks are also published on github itself (not sure if I mentioned that in the past... well I'm mentioning it now!). Thanks to PabloOQ for those!

New version of URLCheck (V 3.1)

V 3.1
- New module: Webhook. Thanks to anoop-b!
- New automations: clear and close
- Improve: Allow multiple regex on automations
- Improve: Tweaked style of history module
- Fix: Disable auto-updates after using the Input module

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And...I forgot to create this post...oops!

Anyway, this was a version released at the middle of january. Included one new module originally created by anoop-b (thanks!) as well as some improvements to the automations. A couple fixes too.

URLCheck has now over 1000 stars on Github

Just as the title says, the URLCheck repository on Github had surpassed the 1000 stars limit!

It may or may not be a big achievement, but still I think it's something worth publishing. At least for me it's incredible!

Unfortunately, right now I don't have any new big update planned for the app. But the previous one introduced automations, which I think classifies for it (even if probably that feature helped getting those extra final stars :P ).

In any case, there are still new versions planned, that I'll continue to release from time to time, with new features and improvements.

Thanks to all of you! 

New version of URLCheck (V 3.0)

V 3.0
- New: Automation (vote winner)
- Change: Text input edit mode is now a popup
- Fix: Uri parser should no longer decode twice
- Improve: Updated main screen icons

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Version 3.0...this is in fact a big update, even if the main feature it adds is still very basic.

Presenting: Automation!

This new feature will allow you to perform actions automatically based on predefined inputs. As a first version only basic triggers will be available (when an url matches a regex) and basic actions (basically pressing the ui buttons) but I plan to add more complex triggers and actions in the future (someday!).

With the basic current version you can now, for example, react to urls that match a given regex, and then open automatically the preferred app, or trigger a virus total analysis, or enable incognito, among a few others. Think of this like the regex setting in the status check module (which will be automatically migrated to an automation entry).

This feature was the vote winner, a vote that I setup on Github a couple weeks ago...and I didn't totally forgot to publish here on the blog until writing this...oops (sorry!)

Hopefully this will make some people very happy, even if the setup is a bit complex (requires json).

There are also a couple other improvements, but the only noticeable one is the new popup for the text module edit mode, as with the automation it was very difficult to either trigger everything while writing, after a couple seconds of pause, when losing focus, magically adding an 'apply' button... The popup allows to better edit the url on my opinion anyway (less crowded).

New version of URLCheck (V 2.17)

V 2.17
- Improve: Input Text module display
- Improve: Hosts module will check for subdomains too
- Fix: Avoid crashes when decoding invalid text
- Fix: Avoid crashes with malformed queries
- Fix: Updated invalid lastUpdate of ClearUrl catalog
- Fix: Module enable switches was sometimes reset when the app was sent to the background
- Fix: Double decoding of url parts

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In reality just a small update, but maybe it's useful for someone.

New version of URLCheck (V 2.15)

V 2.15

- New: Animations (can be disabled)

- Fix: Better rejected detection. And allow to disable.

- Fix: Custom tabs should work in more situations (links not opening)

- Fix: Emojis and other non-standard characters on the Uri parts module

- Improvement: Better error message when a module can't be enabled

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Nothing specially interesting, maybe the animations, but a couple important bugs should be fixed now (some links not opening and improved, again, the rejection detection)

New version of UrlCheck (V 2.14)

V 2.14
- New: Backup/restore screen
- Removed support for Android 4.3 and below
- Updated internal versions

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Probably the one with the smaller features/time ratio!

There is only one new feature, but it's not a minor one, and it took me several years of planning, and a couple months of implementation:

Now you can backup/restore the app data.

Yes, that's right, that feature is finally here. This should hopefully allow people to keep a copy for preservation, allow to migrate data between devices, or even switch from different releases (like migrate from play store to fdroid).

The functionality is quite straightforward, but I managed to add a couple toggles to choose which data to backup/restore. The error management is a bit lacking unfortunately, I want to improve it in the future but for now I'll just wait in case bugs are reported.

The downside is that the backup required a functionality only available on a newer api version (for Android 4.4) and I decided to remove support for older versions (4.0.1 - 4.3). Considering that android 4.3 was released on early 2013 (more than 10 years ago), it's reported to run in less than 0.3% of available devices and most (if not all) of apps require android 5.0 at best (usually 8.0), I think it's fair.
Note: I don't like removing support for older devices, but in this case adding custom code to allow using that version required to include almost a full file picker implementation. I'm not using the app-compat library, not even sure if it will help though. If you are still using that version for some reason, you can still use the previous version without issue.

 

Special thanks to Ilithy for the original suggestion and general help.

You still here? I'll tell you a (not very) secret then: the backup file is just a zip! And the contents are mostly txt files! You can open it and check how the data is saved, or even modify and see what happens! (remember to keep a backup just in case...which now you can!)

New version of UrlCheck (V 2.13.1)

V 2.13.1
- New: Custom logic to hide rejected urls. Hide referrer is now disabled by default.
- Fix: Third try to the 'open/share does nothing' bug.
- Fix: Status module no longer decodes the location.

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The important feature is the fix? for the bug on newer android versions where opening or sharing links does nothing.

I wanted to add the backup feature, I really did, but I couldn't find the time to implement this :( hopefully next version.

New version of UrlCheck (V 2.13)

V 2.13
- New module: drawer. Hide modules under a toggleable.
- New module: changelog. Will notify if the app updates.
- Improvement: Limit number of log entries.
- Improvement: Missing 'hidden' status for Ctabs and private buttons.
- Improvement: Try to open more valid urls.

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Took too long, I should try to avoid waiting when there are changes to publish, even if I have little time for them...

New version of UrlCheck (V 2.12)

V 2.12
- New: open Firefox in incognito
- New: enhance share & copy buttons
- New: encode and decode pattern parameters
- Improvement: show referrer on the debug module
- Improvement: keep expanded groups on Uri parts
- Improvement: long tap uri parts to copy to clipboard
- Fix: null optional groups on Android <=10
- Fix: extract links from shared text
- Fix: legacy shortcuts should work now
- Fix: minor crash on Unshorten module

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Mix of both interesting features (like the new incognito option for firefox) and other internal fixes (like the fix for legacy shortcuts, at last).

New version of URLCheck (V 2.11)

V 2.11
- New module: Edit Flags
- New module: Uri parts (substitute of Queries remover)
- New config: excludeRegex field on Pattern Checker module
- Change: modules are now hidden when unused
- Fix: opened apps weren't showing on recents
- Fix: standard shortcuts weren't available
- Fix: keyboard was obstructing the dialog
- Fix: status module wasn't working properly
- Translations: New and updates from symbuzzer and other from Weblate

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A couple new modules, some user improvements, and the UI is now a bit cleaner.

A couple fixes too, main one for the status module.

And some translations updates, now using Weblate.

Note: the standard (legacy) shortcuts are still broken, they will hopefully be fixed soon.

New version of URLCheck (V 2.10)

V 2.10
- New tutorial screen
- New module: Unshortener
- New features and improvements to status module
- New shortcut & tile to open clipboard links
- New chinese translation. Many thanks to Seviche CC!
- Visual fixes

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A new module, improvements to existing ones, and a few other additions (and a new locale!).

This version also includes a new tutorial screen that will be shown on first install (or when updating to this version). Hopefully it will help new users, there has been some requests saying that the app is hard to understand and configure. Any comment or suggestion is welcomed!

New version of URLCheck (V 2.9.1)

V 2.9.1
- New Italian translation. Thanks to dperruso!
- Fixed some uncommon errors when opening links

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A quick update with a new translation to Italian.

New version of URLCheck (V 2.9)

V 2.9
- New module: Hosts labeler
- Hide module titles (can be toggled)
- New settings activity
    - Setup as default browser
    - Change theme
    - Change locale
- Tweaked and cleaned styles and code

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A new module, new settings screen and a couple nice style additions.

Not a very big update, but still with a couple interesting features!

New version of Url checker ⇾ URLCheck (V 2.8)

V 2.8
- Renamed app from 'Url Checker' to 'URLCheck'
- New japanese translation. Thanks to 404potato!
- New Pattern Checker samples and improvements
- New setting to sort apps per-domain
- New setting to close after sharing
- New setting to hide the source app (referrer)
- Allow disabling all modules
- Improved About activity
- Internal tooling improvements

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The app is nicely improving bit by bit.

This update has a few minor new settings to the open module and pattern checker module, as well as other tweaks to the about and general screens.

The main change however is the name change. From 'Url checker' (which was translated in other locales) to 'URLCheck' (not translated). This should help by creating a 'brand' (if I ever need one), hopefully the new name is similar enough to not cause confusion (at least for english).

New version of Url Checker (V 2.7)

V 2.7
- Improved Open module apps sorting
- Improved ClearURL catalog updater
- Added CTabs settings
- Some Android 13 improvements
- Fixed issues with module sorting
- Fixed some links not opening
- Fixes and tweaks to strings
- Fixes and tweaks to styles
- Several internal improvements

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This update have a couple of improvements, but the main work are internal changes and some fixes/tweaks.

The GithHub repository have also been greatly improved, with automation and checks.