Screenshot Safari from Share Extension - ios

Question

Is it possible to perform a screenshot of the current visible zone of the webview in Safari from a Share Extension? I could use windows, but UIApplication isn't supported on extensions so I can't access to that window.

Answer 1

You can't since UIApplication can't be reached from an extension. You cannot get the first UIWindow, which is the Safari layer, so you have to play with the Javascript preprocessing file that the extensions have. So just create a Javascript file that, when sent to Safari, generates a base64 string with the current visible zone image data. Take that string through the kUTTypePropertyList identifier in your extension. Since that should be NSData, generate the UIImage from there, by using +imageWithData. That is what you're looking for, without having to load the page again, preventing a second load and a bad image if the webpage requires of a login.

Answer 2

As far as I know, you can't unless you invoke the API you need dynamically, and even so you might run into context permission issues and app store approval issues.
An alternative might be passing the current Safari URL to your extension, load it using a hidden UIWebView and render this view into an UIImage but you will loose the current visible zone information...

Answer 3

Edit: So the below works in the Simulator but does not work on the device. I'm presently looking for a solution as well.
You can't get just the visible area of Safari, but you can get a screenshot with a little ingenuity. The following method captures a screenshot from a ShareViewController.
func captureScreen() -> UIImage
{
// Get the "screenshot" view.
let view = UIScreen.mainScreen().snapshotViewAfterScreenUpdates(false)
// Add the screenshot view as a subview of the ShareViewController's view.
self.view.addSubview(view);
// Now screenshot *this* view.
UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(self.view.bounds.size, false, 0);
self.view.drawViewHierarchyInRect(view.bounds, afterScreenUpdates: true)
let image: UIImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
// Finally, remove the subview.
view.removeFromSuperview()
return image
}

Answer 4

This is the approved way to capture the screenshot of a webpage in a share extension:
for (NSExtensionItem *item in self.extensionContext.inputItems) {
for (NSItemProvider *itemProvider in item.attachments) {
[itemProvider loadPreviewImageWithOptions:#{NSItemProviderPreferredImageSizeKey: [NSValue valueWithCGSize:CGSizeMake(60.0f, 60.0f)]} completionHandler:^(UIImage * item, NSError * _Null_unspecified error) {
// Set the size to that desired, however,
// Note that the image 'item' returns will not necessarily by the size that you requested, so code should handle that case.
// Use the UIImage however you wish here.
}];
}
}