How would I create an app for a website that does not have an API and uses ASP.NET? - ios

Basically what I'm looking to do is to create an native interface for a website that does not have any sort of API. This would be a 3rd party app that would provide all the same functionality of the website, just optimized for iOS. The real problem I run into is in sending and getting user-entered data to the website as it is using ASP.NET which I am not at all familiar with and the user would need to log-in to the website.
This is kind of a convoluted question, but I am sitting at square one and not even really sure where to go from here.

It sounds like you are asking if you can create an iOS app that can interact with another website that doesn't have an API? If my understanding is correct, then there's really only one option I can think of.
You would have to make your iOS app make HTTP(S) calls to the ASP.NET based website and simulate GET/POST requests as if it were a "real" user. You would do this by using one of the native iOS HTTP clients (NSURLSession, for example) and would have to strip and parse the HTML you received back from the website in order to get the raw "data" required for your iOS app.
The situation you are describing is pretty complex and very brittle (you have to make a change to your iOS app every time any change is made to the ASP.NET website) and I would avoid this method of integration at all cost.

Related

Open other applications with their Deeplinks in Swift

I am learning to have deep links in my application.
I would like to have my users link their social media, blog, or other site in my application.
But, it should attempt to open a link by detecting the site and attempt to open that site's application (at least for mainstream social media etc).
I was attempting to use https://github.com/BranchMetrics/Roots-iOS but their own demo does not even work it seems and I could not get my application to work(I am also using swift so I am not used to reading Obj-C too much).
Does anyone know how to do this?
Although it is not quite what i needed, the library https://github.com/SwiftKitz/Appz is pretty close.
It launches to an external application, with a web fall back. It is also pretty easy to add code to pass a url and detect the base application and parse it out into that applications deeplinking scheme (which was info I didn't have before.)
Sorry for the trouble on this.

Can a Meteor web app serve data to an iOS app?

Pretty straight forward question i think. I have created a web app in meteor and its using mongoDB storage. I have UI to update the data in the backend through the web app.
The question then becomes, I have designed an iOS app that i would really love for it to read the data being served to the web app from the mongoDB. As it stands, the app takes a url to a JSON file that i update regularly and serializes it accordingly. I want to pass on the tasks of updating the backend but exposing company employees to the potential mess of JSON backend, where missing/deleting a bracket / brace causes the app to break is out of the question.
My question is, since the meteor web app stores data as JSON documents, is there a way i can access the same JSON from the iOS app? It would really help because then, the person updating the backend only deals with UI, not code. I know this is a pretty broad question, but any pointers would be fantastic. Links, tutorials, frameworks to learn... anything. I've been googling around but can't seem to find anything solid.
Thanks!
You'll want to look into using one of the many iOS based DDP clients, like this one. With these libraries you can connect native iOS apps to the backend of any deployed Meteor app.
As far as I understand, you are looking for a way to get/update the data of your meteor server from the IOS app.
To do that, you can expose an API, like a REST one. Basically, your IOS app will call your Meteor server via HTTP and send/receive JSON data. Like that, you can get your collections, update, add, delete their items as well. There is a lot of literature around REST.
I used a very old one that I do not recommend because it is not maintained anymore, I will put the link anyway Old Rest API.
I invite you to have a look at atmosphere, the meteor package library: Atmosphere. I did a quick search on it and I found this package that looks promising: Simple Rest.
Have a look at the packages on Atmosphere, you can use 'rest' as keyword and pick the one that fits your needs. I am especially thinking of security ;).

String saved in IOS app, accessible from web browser. Best method?

As the title says, I'm looking for a string to be input in an IOS app and stored in a way that it would be accessible from a web browser.
Both editable and readable from web and the app.
From initial googling, I've come across Dropbox Datastore API but it is being deprecated.
What would be a good alternative for this?
Your intentions are quite scant. However, I assume you want a little more than just reading and writing a string. Inferring a bit more context, you should look at Apple's CloudKit.
It has API for iOS, OS X, and apparently now javascript. See this link for more details.
You need some code running on a server and a database to save the string, with an API to access this string from a client.
FireBase is probably the simplest drop in solution since it gives you a very basic example and a web based UI for testing (plus it updates in realtime)

how to use external API with rails

After making a bunch of CRUD-like apps, I've decided to venture out a bit and play with APIS. The Riot game API seems pretty simple to implement, as it is just a link follow by my API key.
ex: https://na.api.pvp.net/api/lol/na/v1.4/summoner/by-name/RiotSchmick?api_key=<key>
after googling for quite a while yesterday, I am still at lost how I can integrate this information.
Where should I put the above link, how do I store the information from the JSON, and how exactly does the MVC structure fit into this?
If I'm not storing any data (no users, just instant display of info based on API) Do I even need a database?

UIImagePickerController modular replacement

I am looking for a replace to UIImagePickerController that allows custom extensibility for local pictures, public API's like Facebook/Flickr/Tumblr/Picasa/SmugMug, and custom proprietary picture collections (local or abroad).
Solutions I have found so far, and problems with them:
http://picture.io/photopickerplus
This is almost perfect, except I am forced to use the 3rd party service from getchute.com - what happens if this site goes dark, permanently? And all permissions dialogs list "Chute" as the application name. My app uses the Facebook SDK elsewhere, so I would like to use my existing APP id/key. When I add it via the chute app control panel, I get the Facebook API error "Invalid redirect_uri:Given URL is not allowed by the Application configuration". Which I can fix with the Facebook API, however if A. I knew what the URL was (I don't), and B. I really was OK with having a middle man with the API requests (I'm not).
It is also very ARC hostile which is a PITA to get running.
https://github.com/arturgrigor/AGImagePickerController
Very nice replacement for UIImagePickerController, that includes multi select. No built modularity to support Facebook or other API's.
https://github.com/jeena/JPImagePickerController
Simple replacement for just UIImagePickerController - doesn't seem to have navigable views. No apparent modularity.
https://github.com/facebook/three20/
Looks complicated. For obvious reasons won't play well with non-Facebook services.
https://github.com/mrdavenz/CaptureSessionManager has example code of to create your own photo picker with AVCamera. You could use this as a starting point. See the blog at http://www.musicalgeometry.com/?p=1297

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