A launcher is something similar with desktop shell in Windows, I think. You should know most app will leave its package information in the database of launcher when installed. So we can dive into the database of launcher and pull the specific information out. The figures below shows the database of MIUI launcher in my MIUI ROM. You can find the database in path /data/data/com.miui.home/databases/launcher.db.
Figure 1. tables in launcher.db
Figure 2. records in the table "favourites"
Figure 3. record of app named "SwipePad"
In "Figure 3", the field "intent" is very important for us. We can launch app with "am start" command in Android shell. You can type "am start" command in shell to get detailed help of this command.
Figure 5. "am start" command help
We can launch specific app with "am start" command when we extract useful intent information from corresponding "intent" field.
Here is one of my AutoVoice task which aimed to launch app from speech:
Task: LaunchApp
A1: Run Shell [ Command:sqlite3 /data/data/com.miui.home/databases/launcher.db "SELECT intent FROM favorites WHERE intent IS NOT NULL AND title LIKE '%%avcommnofilter%' LIMIT 1;" Timeout (Seconds):0 Use Root:On Store Output In:%intent Store Errors In: Store Result In: ]
A2: If [ %intent Is Set ]
A3: Variable Search Replace [ Variable:%intent Search:#Intent;action= Ignore Case:On Multi-Line:Off One Match Only:Off Store Matches In: Replace Matches:On Replace With:am start -a ]
A4: Variable Search Replace [ Variable:%intent Search:;category= Ignore Case:On Multi-Line:Off One Match Only:Off Store Matches In: Replace Matches:On Replace With: -c ]
A5: Variable Search Replace [ Variable:%intent Search:;launchFlags= Ignore Case:On Multi-Line:Off One Match Only:Off Store Matches In: Replace Matches:On Replace With: -f ]
A6: Variable Search Replace [ Variable:%intent Search:;component= Ignore Case:On Multi-Line:Off One Match Only:Off Store Matches In: Replace Matches:On Replace With: -n ]
A7: Variable Search Replace [ Variable:%intent Search:;end Ignore Case:On Multi-Line:Off One Match Only:Off Store Matches In: Replace Matches:On Replace With: ]
A8: Run Shell [ Command:%intent Timeout (Seconds):0 Use Root:On Store Output In: Store Errors In: Store Result In: ]
A9: Else
A10: Music Play [ File:Tasker/Notify/Dialog/sorry.wav Start:0 Loop:Off Stream:3 ]
A11: End If
Note:
1. Records are case-sensitive in SQLite database. My former task can not process this situation.
2. Few apps can't show on desktopof launcher, and even can't be found in launcher.db. You can't launch it in this way.
3. Although I talked here with taking the MIUI launcher as example, I think the principle will be same with other launcher. Maybe databases differ!
4. If you want do it with a separate app, you can try AutoLaunch(paid).
5. Some useful files for all packages installed: /data/system/packages.list /data/system/packages.xml
6. A useful command to list packages: "pm list packages -f"
