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.
Related
Update: don't have time yet to test provided answer, but will keep this answer updated as I try different things.
In the iOS 14 Simulator, when I open the share sheet and click their Share Target, the Apple News app is launched immediately and they check if the shared URL has been added to their index.
My question is how are they launching their app immediately without any user interaction?
A gif is worth about 100,000 words: https://giphy.com/gifs/HPzTNyWGDDMVwASQ9z
I would imagine it may be some combination of registering a Universal Link and then programmatically triggering that from the Share Extension View Controller, but I’m wondering if anyone has any better ideas.
A couple of other places I've asked:
Swift Subreddit
iOS Programming Subreddit
This is just an open URL call to a news app. Prior to iOS 14, it was named as copy to app name.
To achieve this you need to specify the supported document type for your application in plist using key CFBundleDocumentTypes.
Refer to apple documentation for more info:
https://help.apple.com/xcode/mac/current/#/devddd273fdd
There is a change in share sheet option listings.
case 1: When your application doesn't support any kind of extension. And have supported document add to plist. Your application will appear in the share sheet for supporting documents. On tap, your application gets an OpenURL call with the URL of the document shared.
case 2: Your application supports share extension or action extension, then your open URL call option for your application will not appear in the share sheet. if the share extension and action extension activation predicate are not satisfied and the document shared is supported by your application that option will appear the same as case 1. (Summary: if share extension or action extension is listed in share sheet then open URL option will not be listed.)
Note: Limitation of openURL call is, it supports only a single URL. For example, you are sharing multiple files, your application OpenURL option will appear. But on tap, your application will receive only one URL.
If your requirement is sharing only a single URL and your application doesn't have a share extension and action extension. Then key CFBundleDocumentTypes is your friend.
I have a customer with an Android app which he wants to be built in iOS. The android app has a feature in which the user can annotate documents. To achieve this the Parent app passes control to a third party Document annotation app, say Adobe reader for example where user annotates the documents and once he is done the control as well as the document is passed back to the Parent app. Is there any way i can achieve the same in iOS i.e pass control to a third party app to annotate documents from within my iOS App.
I have read about URL schemes but that requires the third party app to make changes in their code which i dnt think anybody will agree to. So is there any other way?
I researched all sorts of stuff. So finally the answer is NO.This can't be done in iOS without the third party app making changes in their Appdelegate file to handle the passed URL through URL schemes.
Can I call an app extension (provided from another app) from my app.
Sample Scenario:
I have a photo asset in my app which need to be edited (crop, scale, filter...).
Now I wan't to call an app extension from my app, which supports image editing. The extension starts, the user edit the photo and I get the extension callback with the new image (data or path or something else).
I search around and only the scenarios I found is where someone creates an extension (many tutorials & apple documentations) which can be used in the photos app for example.
Or is it not possible to do that?
Thanks.
I dont think so Inter process communication is not possible in iOS each app is sandboxed
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/
I want to share a link from my app using other applications installed on my iPhone such as Gmail, Facebook, DropBox, WhatsApp etc. In android there is a straight way to do so, just fire an intent and it automatically shows the installed apps through which we can share whatever we want. Is there any such way in iPhone ?
Thanks!
On iOS , app is more separated from each other. The only way to pass data from one app to other is using the URL mechanism. As one example, an app register url scheme "open-me://",you invoked openURL with "open-me://my-link" then that app will launched. That app will define the detail of the URL so it could understand the content.Continue with the example we are using, the text you passed could be either "open-me://A?data=my-link" or "open-me://A?message=my-link". So there are no general solution for all apps.Typically third party app will provide a SDK to make these things easy.
If you don't mind using a kind of large third party library, ShareKit is a good choice. It supports quite some apps.
If you want to know more about this topic,for example sharing files between app. You could start from reading the class reference of UIDocumentInteractionController.This UI component will show a list of app installed on your device which support the URL scheme.