Velocity URL Scheme

Our new speed reading app, Velocity, has a couple of awesome features for advanced users that we’ll highlight over the coming days. One of them is the app’s URL scheme. A URL scheme is a way to launch and perform actions in an app simply by typing in a URL or clicking a link in a browser. It’s also how apps on your device communicate with one another. If you’re interested in playing with it, you can already use the URL scheme from Launch Center Pro.

If you’re a developer, we’d love it if you added “Read in Velocity” support in your app, and we’d be happy to help make that easier. Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments, or complaints. And feel free to let us know if you would like us to add more features to the URL scheme.

Here’s how the URL scheme for Velocity works:

General

• velocity://
• Opens the app

Reading

These URLs will immediately read the text or the content of the URL provided.

• velocity://read?text=Text%20goes%20here
• Reads the text: “Text goes here” in Velocity.
• velocity://read?url=http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/movies/gravity-stars-sandra-bullock-and-george-clooney.html
• Reads the text at the given URL in Velocity.

Saving

These URLs will save the text or the content of the URL provided for later reading. They will be saved into the user’s local source (e.g. iPhone).

• velocity://save?text=Text%20goes%20here
• Saves the text: “Text goes here” to the local source in Velocity.
• velocity://save?url=http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/movies/gravity-stars-sandra-bullock-and-george-clooney.html
• Saves the text at the given URL to the local source in Velocity.

Editing

These URLs will save the text or the content of the URL provided for later reading and then allow the user to immediately edit the text. They will be saved into the user’s local source (e.g. iPhone).

• velocity://edit?text=Text%20goes%20here
• Saves the text: “Text goes here” to the local source in Velocity and then displays an editing view.
• velocity://edit?url=http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/movies/gravity-stars-sandra-bullock-and-george-clooney.html
• Saves the text at the given URL to the local source in Velocity and then displays an editing view.

If you’re a developer, we look forward to seeing some of the awesome stuff you make with our URL scheme. If not, is there an app you’d like to see Velocity support?