I have an application with chat feature.
In this, the user is able to attach a document using the app for which I am using UIDocumentPickerViewController. But I read that it requires iCloud capability to be enabled along with an iCloud Container.
The app does not create any document on iCloud, but just provides an option to attach and existing document along with a chat message.
I want to know whether enabling iCloud is really needed for this use case. Also, the app does not require the document to be on iCloud, it is fine even if the app is able to access only local documents.
I did read here: Implement Document Picker in swift (iOS) that iOS 14 does not require any capabilities but could not find any official document to support this claim.
No, you do not need iCloud capability to be enabled for UIDocumentPickerViewController. It doesn't require any capabilities actually.
Related
I need some clarification and Microsoft documentation is only confusing me more.
I want to save a txt file in iCloud so the user doesn't loose some data that belongs to them.
This db document is some information I am retrieving from a local database and storing in a text file. I have seen two ways of doing this.. however all the posts on this topic are very outdated and I don't know which way might be best or if they are even doing what I trying to do.
All I would like is to be able to have the user backup this particular file to their iCloud account, so they can still keep this info even if they change phones or delete the app and want to restore from iCloud.
Microsoft's documentation points me to this page https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/ios/data-cloud/introduction-to-icloud
I began setting up the provisioning profiles and setting the iCloud options on the entitlements page etc. However the documentation when sideways for me when they began creating a monkey page UI Document and having the user manager the ubiquity documents (which I don't want) I actually don't want the user even seeing this Txt file. However this option shows how to check if the iCloud is even turned on on this user's phone.
Now this other option I think is more straight forward and I read the documentation on it here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/ios/app-fundamentals/file-system using something like this to store and retrieve a document:
var libraryPath = Path.Combine(Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal), "..", "Library");
However what if iCloud is turned off? Is this an automatic backup option?
Any type of explanation is helpful.
The iCloud storage API in iOS 5 allows applications to save user documents and application-specific data to a central location and access those items from all the user's devices.
About the definition of iCloud, you will know that it will save your data to cloud server. And it can be used in all the user's device if turn on the iCloud.
However what if iCloud is turned off?Is this an automatic backup option?
Therefore, if iCloud is turned off, you could backup the data in device although it will not be used for other user's devices. You could save it in Application directories. This should be a good chooice to backup your data. And you also can get the data when you need them.
In addition, you also can use other cloud server APIs to backup your data. Such as Azure Storage, Firebase Storage etc.
I need to create an integration between my app and apps by another developer. There are several ways to store data for an app, some that allow only your app to access it, some that allow other apps by the same developer to access it. But is there an iOS API that allows you store data publicly on the device so that any other app can access it? This data is not secure and cannot be used maliciously.
May not work for your specific needs, but note you can share documents between apps using UISupportsDocumentBrowser. See also here.
UISupportsDocumentBrowser (Boolean - iOS) Specifies that the app is a document-based app and uses the UIDocumentBrowserViewController class.
If this key is set to YES, the user can set the document browser’s default save location in Settings. Additionally, the local file provider grants access to all the documents in the app’s Documents directory. These documents appear in the Files app, and in a Document Browser. Users can open and edit these document in place.
This key is supported in iOS 11 and later.
This would violate iOS security policies and is therefore not possible on device. The only way to enable this is on a jailbroken device.
In case of Android when I want to send or attach a document such as a pdf or doc from my application I can easily access all the files in the external storage and share or attach.
But since iOS follows a sandbox approach as well as there is no filesystem so it is not possible to attach or upload in same manner.
In my iOS application right now, I have implemented Open In functionality, wherein in the info.plist file I have specified that my application supports all types of documents so when the user opens any documents he gets an option to Open In my application, then I save that document in the
Documents/Incoming
folder in the application, now when my user clicks to add attachment then he can see the document to attach, since this is a long process I was looking for better ones.
I saw whatsApp allows uploading/sharing from iCloud apart from that what can I do to provide a similar behaviour as Android.
As noted by the Document-Based App Programming Guide, "When the user changes the preference, the application should move all document files in the application sandbox to iCloud or move all files in the other direction, depending on the nature of the change.”
But NSMetaDataQuery does not run when iCloud is disabled, so how can I get the URLs of the user's iCloud documents so I can transfer each to the local directory?
This was under the assumption the docs meant in the iCloud Drive switch. Instead they mean an option in the app's preferences that you add yourself.
In Apple's Document Based App Development Guide, it emphasizes that our app should let users choose either to save all their files to iCloud or save all on local device. Is there reason for this? Can we actually allow users to pick some files to be saved on iCloud and some to be saved locally, like the TextEdit app on mac OS X? Will App Store disapprove iOS apps configured in this way if it is programmatically possible?
Thanks!
Here is a link
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/DataManagement/Conceptual/DocumentBasedAppPGiOS/ManageDocumentLifeCycle/ManageDocumentLifeCycle.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40011149-CH4-SW1
Setting the Preferred Storage Location for Document Files
All documents of an application are stored either in the local sandbox or in an iCloud container directory. A user should not be able to select individual documents for storage in iCloud.
When an application launches for the first time on a device, it should do the following:
If iCloud is not configured, ask users if they want to configure it (and, preferably, transfer them to Launch Settings if they want to configure iCloud).
If iCloud is configured but not enabled for the application, ask users if they want to enable iCloud—in other words, ask if they want all of their documents saved to iCloud. Store the response as a user preference.
Based on this preference, an application writes document files either to the local application sandbox or the iCloud container directory. (For details, see “Moving Documents to and from iCloud Storage.”) An application should expose a switch in the Settings application that enables users to move documents between local storage and iCloud storage.
If it makes sense for your app, there is no reason Apple would care if you save some files locally and some in iCloud. It's not a hard fast rule to be all one way or the other.