How do I learn more about coding for "Open URL"

[Peter_Borg]

I’ve just discovered that the Open URL option in the new buttons feature is much more powerful than I realised. E.g open up your local email client with a prepopulated email. Even prepopulated forms.

But it assumes you know how to code URLs. Which I don’t.

Can anyone suggest some simple references please. I see from the Airtable Help samples you can send stuff to Google Mail / Calendar or Twitter or anything I guess. So would all these products publish somewhere what their own URL formats need to be? What should I search for?

For example, one of the Help samples is:

“mailto:” & ENCODE_URL_COMPONENT(Email) & “?subject=” & ENCODE_URL_COMPONENT(Subject) & “&body=” & ENCODE_URL_COMPONENT(Body)

But what language is that? Where can I learn more?

[Justin_Barrett · Accepted solution]

Peter_Borg:

what language is that? Where can I learn more?

What you’re building is a URL query string, which is defined by the URL standard. If you want to dig deep on the general topic of URLs, including query strings, this is one resource I found:

https://url.spec.whatwg.org/

Peter_Borg:

So would all these products publish somewhere what their own URL formats need to be? What should I search for?

You might search a given service’s API (if it has one) for query string hints, or just search for “[service name] query string”. Some services might publish info on their own. You might find other resources where folks have figured out query string options through trial and error. It’s likely to be a mixed bag of stuff, though.

[Peter_Borg]

Thanks Justin, great leads. I’ll chase up.