iOS list document from directory download? - ios

I want to allow users of my app to send PDF which is in the device.
The problem is, I don't see how to do that...
First, where are the files downloaded ? In which directory ? And how to list these files ?
I see there is NSfileManager but I don't understand how to use that.
I want something like DocumentPicker. (but available for iOS 7)

There is no common central directory in iOS that stores PDF files in way you describe. Nothing.
Each app has its own Documents folder, and apps have absolutely no way to see each others docs folder. So you, as a new pdf manager custom written app will not be able to look into other apps docs folder.
NSFileManager is a standard Cocoa class the handles files in a generic manner.

Related

Working with custom user files

I'm currently studying swift and came up with such a question:
What are best practices to work with custom user files like .pdf, .doc?
For instance, I have application, that loads different files from server like .pdf, .ppt, .zip and so on, how to present them inside my app?
While googling I came up with solutions mainly for images, but nothing particular for other file types.
For now, what I have is - downloading files from server using Alamofire and saving them to documents directory.
Could anyone please recommend how to present this files inside my app after I saved them?
Possible solution that comes to my mind is web view, but what about zip? Is there some kind of universal solution? I know that there is Files App in iOS 11, but what about iOS 10?
Many thanks for your attention!

UIDocumentPickerViewController Limitations, Multiple Files selection at once

In order to be able to access iCloud Drive from the application,
I think that we want to use UIDocumentPickerViewController from the application.
but i found following problems when i use UIDocumentPickerViewController.
Cannot upload multiple files at once.
Cannot Download multiple files at once.
When pushViewController from navigationController then display
become strange.
I want to avoid above problems, So is there any another way to get files information from iCloudDrive without using UIDocumentPickerViewController?
like Send some request or query.
I have searched lot and didn't find any query or request to get Files ,Upload files and download files from iCloudDrive.
if you have any idea about this please tell me.
Thanks,
I don't think there's any straightforward alternative, but you could think of...
...using iCloud directly (not iCloud Drive), but then users will only have access to their files from your application
...using Google Drive's sharing extension which supports uploading multiple files at once (the Dropbox SDK probably supports that, too, but their sharing extension doesn't)
...zipping all files before uploading them
...changing the file format so that it's a bundle of multiple files, if you are in control of the file format
...file a radar/feature request, and possibly wait forever ;)
Not sure if that helps, but I don't think you have much of a choice here.

iOS storing files rules - Storing audio files on iOS app

I need to be sure I am doing the right thing:
In my app the user can download audio files from the server. I don't want those big file to be backed up as he can re download them when ever he needs to.
My app is addressed for iOS 4.0 and above.
So as I understand I need to store the files is the documents directory and set a flag for the directory to not back up ?
Am I correct ?
Instead of putting them into the "Documents" directory (which gets backed up to the cloud), why not put your audio files into a "Cache" directory (specifically "/Library/Cache", which does not get backed up)?
Here's another question here on Stackoverflow that may help give a further answer to your question.
You can also prevent files to backed up:
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/qa/qa1719/_index.html

Download FTP directory contents to ios

I have a website, let's say it's "http://www.jwilkthings.com/stuff"
I have a bunch of .txt files stored on this website, i.e. "http://www.jwilkthings.com/stuff/text1.txt"
What I'm wanting to do is find a way in iOS to download all of those text files without knowing what the document name is. I can already retrieve them manually as long as I have a file name, but I would rather just get all of them at once and put them in the documents directory if possible. I currently use FileZilla to upload all of the text files, so I can use FTP if needed.
The correct way to solve this problem is to not use FTP (riddled with performance and security issues), and to configure your web server to expose a table of contents directory listing that your client can parse.
But that's not an answer to your question.
If you really want your iOS app to speak FTP, take a look at the SimpleFTP sample project from Apple.
It's old, but I just got it to build on iOS 5. The ListController.m file has the code you're looking for.

iOS file browser example

Does anyone have some sample code demonstrating how to make a "file browser" view? I'd like to be able to navigate through directories and drill-down the sub-directories and see files located within the various folders. I want the user to be able to create new directories/files and even select an existing file. Is there sample code out there already available to do this?
I don't know about sample code, but this wouldn't be too complicated to achieve using NSFileManager and a UITableView.
You can obtain arrays of directory contents using the subpathsOfDirectoryAtPath:error and associated methods of a file manager. These arrays in turn can populate a UITableView. It would be fairly easy to put together a navigation controller that could display a series of table views showing a file hiearchy.
Bear in mind, however, that you'll only be able to access the directories inside your application sandbox, unless you're running on a jailbroken device.
The iOS programming guide says that
You should never present users with the list of files in this directory and ask them to decide what to do with those files. Instead, sort through the files programmatically and add files without prompting.
This is assuming you are trying to implement file browse feature for your documents directory.
I'm an author of FileExplorer which is a file browser for iOS and fulfills most of your requirements.
Here are some of the features of my control:
Possibility to choose files or/and directories if there is a need for that
Possiblity to remove files or/and directories if there is a need for that
Built-in search functionality
View Audio, Video, Image and PDF files.
Possibility to add support for any file type.
You can find my control here.

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