I'm working on adding the ability to use the share button to allow users to save files for use with my main application. Multiple file types (image, video, audio, pdf, etc) need to be supported.
A general use case would be:
The user takes a picture with the standard Camera app or audio recording using the Voice Memos app.
User clicks the Share button and selects my extension from the share list.
Dialog opens up giving the user to opportunity to give a description for the file.
File is saved to where my main app (the containing app) can later access and process it.
I've been able to get to the point where I am prompted to share the file, but I have not been able to find a location to successfully save to that my main app can later read from. Is this even possible? Is there a better way to handle this scenario?
I am currently doing this using Xamarin so debugging is not supported (and logging is minimal). If someone has an answer in Objective C, that would at least help point me in the right direction.
There are a few things that you need to do.
First, your app and your app extension should belong to the same app group:
https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/Miscellaneous/Reference/EntitlementKeyReference/Chapters/EnablingAppSandbox.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40011195-CH4-SW19
Then you can access the shared storage with something like this:
var groupUrl = NSFileManager.DefaultManager.GetContainerUrl ("stackoverflow.com.mygroup")
Now you can access files in the directory pointed by groupUrl.
Xamarin's guide to creating Share extensions for iOS: http://developer.xamarin.com/guides/ios/platform_features/introduction_to_extensions/
Related
Is there any way to make work that part of the whatsapp document interaction API:
Alternatively, if you want to show only WhatsApp in the application list (instead of WhatsApp plus any other public/*-conforming apps) you can specify a file of one of aforementioned types saved with the extension that is exclusive to WhatsApp:
images - «.wai» which is of type net.whatsapp.image
videos - «.wam» which is of type net.whatsapp.movie
audio files - «.waa» which is of type net.whatsapp.audio
When triggered, WhatsApp will immediately present the user with the contact/group picker screen. The media will be automatically sent to a selected contact/group.
I don't really ask for a code example as I almost tried eveything, but more if someone ever successfully opened the whatsapp application WITHOUT passing through the share menu (with messenger tile, whatsapp, notepad...) ?
FYI: As I went through a lot of tests with this, I couldn't find any solution yet.
Whatsapp recognize the file extension, but cannot even read it. Once shared, when you click on it, it's written ".whatsapp audio file", nothing more (And it's not even shared directly).
I sent a email to whatsapp developper team, they said they have others problem to fix currently, so it's not even on their to do list.
Wait & see..
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.
I'm wondering if it's at all possible to access features in the main app using a today extension in iOS 8. For example, can a media player send commands from its extension to the main app without opening the app (I know there is a framework for this but it's just an example)? The only solution I can see is using URIs but the problem is that it will open the app which isn't the behavior I'm looking for.
So for a complete example using the media player:
There is an extension in the today screen that allows you to play/pause using a button.
The user presses the button and the app plays/pauses in the background without leaving the notification center.
Any way to achieve this behavior?
Code can be shared using an embedded framework, however there are some backwards compatibility issues.
Data can be shared using shared user defaults.
Both are explained in the apple docs.
I know this is a very basic question, but something I'm never quite sure of, is how do you get images from say your email, or from your desktop (say a Mac) into your iOS app?
Let's say I develop an app and I want people to be able to put their company's logo into it, how would they do that? I presume they don't have their company logo in their phone, so how would they get it from another source into the app? If they linked to it on the web, wouldn't that just open a UIWebView to show it? i.e it wouldn't load the actual .png from the web direct to be used by the app or would it?
So, to avoid long comments, I'm putting my answer here, although this is a very general question.
The common thing with all the apps that want an image input, is that they require the user either take a photo with their phone camera, or grant access to the photo library, so that the user can select an image and upload it to the app. If you have used any of the photo-involved apps these days, you should be familiar with this. Example is Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, etc.
However if you really really want to let the user download it off the internet through your app, then you should embed a web browser in your app, allowing the user type in a URL and save the file in that URL to the documents/downloads folder in your app, and then allow them access those folders to browse and upload stuff. A good example of this kind of app, is "NuageApp" which is actually a client for the Cloud App. It's really handy to deal with file sharing the way NuageApp (funky name, huh?!) does, however it's far more complicated to implement that, than the access to the photo library.
I am curious if it is possible to make an app that adds a functionality to an existing app on ipad, say safari. If yes, which function would add a button to safari?
My question is based on 2 app advertisements I saw, one added a button to safari, the other created an app itself. I didnt buy them yet, so I dont know if they really do what thet say.
Thanks
As far as I'm aware, I think the closest you get to adding functionality to an existing app would be creating a new app that allowed interaction with certain document types.
For example, you might create an app that can open and read PDF documents. On installing this app, you would then find that interacting with a PDF document on any app (such as in an email attachment, or opening a PDF in Safari) would show a new option to open the PDF in your app. This kind of interaction is achieved via the UIDocumentInteractionController class.
Beyond that, I believe you would have to create your own app from scratch based on an existing one in order to extend functionality (so, create the 'MyBrowser' app to behave like Safari, except with additional controls and features).
I'd love to be proven wrong, however.