Integrating Facebook and Twitter in Xcode Scenes Swift iOS - ios

Question

I have developed a game in Xcode using sprite kit, and scenes. Now I am trying to integrate the functionality to post high scores to twitter and Facebook. I've looked around, and most people say to use SLComposeServiceViewController which is fine, until I try and present it. Because my app really only uses scenes, they never have the member function "presentViewController(....)". Thus, I am unable to ever present it. Anyone know any way around this?
override func touchesBegan(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event: UIEvent?) {
let touch:UITouch = touches.first!
let touchLocation = touch.location(in: self)
let touchedNode = self.atPoint(touchLocation)
if (touchedNode.name == "tryAgain") {
let nextScene = Scene_LiveGame(size: self.scene!.size)
nextScene.scaleMode = self.scaleMode
self.view?.presentScene(nextScene, transition: SKTransition.fade(withDuration: 0.5))
}
else if (touchedNode.name == "share") {
if SLComposeViewController.isAvailable(forServiceType: SLServiceTypeFacebook) {
let fShare = SLComposeViewController(forServiceType: SLServiceTypeFacebook)
self.presentViewController(fShare!, animated: true, completion: nil)
//^This is where my problem is. Xcode is telling me that self has no member function presentViewController which I totally understand, because its a scene and thus doesn't share those functions. But every resource online has shown me this is the only way to do it
}
}

Answer 1

Your are getting this error because you need to present a UIViewController from another UIViewController. So
self.presentViewController(...)
will not work because self (SKScene) is not a UIViewController. To present from a SKScene you would have to say this
view?.window?.rootViewController?.presentViewController(fShare!, animated: true, completion: nil)
I would recommend that you do not use those APIs anymore. Its better to use a UIActivityViewController for your sharing needs. This way you only need one share button in your app and you can share to all sorts of services (email, Twitter, Facebook, iMessage, WhatsApp etc).
Create a new Swift file and add this code.
enum ShareMenu {
static func open(text: String, image: UIImage?, appStoreURL: String?, from viewController: UIViewController?) {
guard let viewController = viewController, let view = viewController.view else { return }
// Activity items
var activityItems = [Any]()
// Text
activityItems.append(text)
// Image
if let image = image {
activityItems.append(image)
}
/// App url
if let appStoreURL = appStoreURL {
let items = ActivityControllerItems(appStoreURL: appStoreURL)
activityItems.append(items)
}
// Activity controller
let activityController = UIActivityViewController(activityItems: activityItems, applicationActivities: nil)
// iPad settings
if UIDevice.current.userInterfaceIdiom == .pad {
activityController.modalPresentationStyle = .popover
activityController.popoverPresentationController?.sourceView = view
activityController.popoverPresentationController?.sourceRect = CGRect(x: view.bounds.midX, y: view.bounds.midY, width: 0, height: 0)
activityController.popoverPresentationController?.permittedArrowDirections = UIPopoverArrowDirection.init(rawValue: 0)
}
// Excluded activity types
activityController.excludedActivityTypes = [
.airDrop,
.print,
.assignToContact,
.addToReadingList,
]
// Present
DispatchQueue.main.async {
viewController.present(activityController, animated: true)
}
// Completion handler
activityController.completionWithItemsHandler = { (activity, success, items, error) in
guard success else {
if let error = error {
print(error.localizedDescription)
}
return
}
// do something if needed
}
}
}
// MARK: - Activity Controller Items
/**
ActivityControllerItems
*/
private final class ActivityControllerItems: NSObject {
// MARK: - Properties
/// App name
fileprivate let appName = Bundle.main.infoDictionary?["CFBundleName"] as? String ?? "-"
/// App store web url
fileprivate let appStoreURL: String
// MARK: - Init
/// Init
fileprivate init(appStoreURL: String) {
self.appStoreURL = appStoreURL
super.init()
}
}
// MARK: - UIActivityItemSource
/// UIActivityItemSource
extension ActivityControllerItems: UIActivityItemSource {
/// Getting data items
/// Placeholder item
func activityViewControllerPlaceholderItem(_ activityViewController: UIActivityViewController) -> Any {
return ""
}
/// Item for actity type
func activityViewController(_ activityViewController: UIActivityViewController, itemForActivityType activityType: UIActivityType) -> Any? {
return URL(string: appStoreURL) ?? appName
}
/// Provide info about data items
/// Subject field for services such as email
func activityViewController(_ activityViewController: UIActivityViewController, subjectForActivityType activityType: UIActivityType?) -> String {
return appName
}
}
Than when the share button is pressed you can call it like so
ShareMenu.open(
text: "Can you beat my score?",
image: UIImage(...), // set to nil if unused
appStoreURL: "your iTunes app store URL", // set to nil if unused
from: view?.window?.rootViewController
)
Bear in mind that the image and appStoreURL will not show up everywhere, it depends on the sharing service.
You can also use your score value from your scene and add it to the text e.g
ShareMenu.open(
text: "Can you beat my score \(self.score)?",
...
)
Hope this helps

Answer 2

I will not go into SLComposeViewController related code. I will just show you two techniques aside from what crashoverride777 proposed. So the first technique would be using notifications, like this:
GameScene:
import SpriteKit
let kNotificationName = "myNotificationName"
class GameScene: SKScene {
private func postNotification(named name:String){
NotificationCenter.default.post(
Notification(name: Notification.Name(rawValue: name),
object: self,
userInfo: ["key":"value"]))
}
override func touchesBegan(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event: UIEvent?) {
self.postNotification(named: kNotificationName)
}
}
Here, you post a notification by tapping the screen. A desired view controller class can listen for this notification, like this:
import UIKit
import SpriteKit
class GameViewController: UIViewController {
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(
self,
selector: #selector(self.handle(notification:)),
name: NSNotification.Name(rawValue: kNotificationName),
object: nil)
if let view = self.view as! SKView? {
// Load the SKScene from 'GameScene.sks'
if let scene = GameScene(fileNamed: "GameScene") {
// Set the scale mode to scale to fit the window
scene.scaleMode = .aspectFill
// Present the scene
view.presentScene(scene)
}
}
}
func handle(notification:Notification){
print("Notification : \(notification)")
}
}
Here, we add self as an observer for this notification - means that when notification happens, an appropriate handling method will be called (and that is our custom handle(notification:) method. In that method, you should call your code:
if SLComposeViewController.isAvailable(forServiceType: SLServiceTypeFacebook) {
let fShare = SLComposeViewController(forServiceType: SLServiceTypeFacebook)
self.presentViewController(fShare!, animated: true, completion: nil)
}
Actually, I will write another example for delegation, to keep things clean :)

Answer 3

As I said, this can be done using notifications, like in this answer, or you can go with delegation:
First you should declare the MyDelegate protocol which defines one method called myMethod().
protocol MyDelegate:class {
func myMethod()
}
That method is a requirement that every class must implement if it conforms to this protocl.
In our example, you can look at the scene as a worker, and a view controller as a boss. When the scene finishes its task, it notifies its boss (delegates responsibilities to him) about job completion, so that boss can decide what is next. I mean, I could say : "The scene is a boss, and it delegates responsibilities to his employee, the view controller..." But it doesn't really matter who you consider as a boss... The delegation pattern matters.
So, the view controller, should conform to this protocol, and it will implement the myMethod() (that will be called by the scene later):
class GameViewController: UIViewController, MyDelegate {
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
//MARK: Conforming to MyDelegate protocol
if let view = self.view as! SKView? {
// Load the SKScene from 'GameScene.sks'
if let scene = GameScene(fileNamed: "GameScene") {
// Set the scale mode to scale to fit the window
scene.scaleMode = .aspectFill
scene.myDelegate = self
// Present the scene
view.presentScene(scene)
}
}
}
func myMethod(){
print("Do your stuff here")
}
}
And here is a code from the GameScene where you define the myDelegate property that we use to communicate with our view controller:
import SpriteKit
class GameScene: SKScene {
weak var myDelegate:MyDelegate?
override func touchesBegan(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event: UIEvent?) {
self.myDelegate?.myMethod()
}
}
To find out when to choose delegation over notifications and vice-versa take a look at this article (or just search SO, there are some nice posts about that).