I'm totally new in iOS development. I'm developing an app processing some strings in UItextview. After the process, I want show "Open In.." menu with all applications can receive text values.
To explain more. What I mean is like this in Android http://developer.android.com/training/sharing/send.html
I took a quick look at the link you posted.
Apple enforces a "sandbox" around apps which greatly limits what you can do.
Off the top of my head here are a few ways to do it:
Define a custom URL scheme in each of your apps. One app would open a URL using the other app's URL scheme, and that would open the other app and pass it the URL.
For a family of apps from the same company you should also be able to set up a common base "bundle ID" and use that to read and write shared entries to the keychain. The keychain is limited to fairly short bits of data however. (It's intended for password strings and the like.)
I haven't used it before, but you should also be able to use the UIDocumentInteractionController class to pass a copy of a document between apps. As I understand it, the sending app presents a document and asks the user to pick an app with which to open the document. When the user picks a target app, the system creates a copy of the document in the target app's documents directory and then tells the target app to open it.
Related
We use an LMS calles Canvas by instructure. Our students access the LMS via the iOS app, however we would like to be able to call out from this app to another app (e-book reader).
We just want to be able to select a link which will redirect us to the app.
We have a coder in our staff, and we would really appreciate any advise on how to achieve the above.
You can communicate with URL Schemes between apps Apple Inter-App Communication
And here is Tutorial explaining URL Schemes implementation.
If you have access to the e-book reader app's codebase, this is simple to achieve by specifying a URL Scheme this app may respond to (or, alternatively, if you happen to know what URL Schemes this app supports). Then it will be as simple as calling out a URL of a corresponding format from within the iOS app your students use.
Alternatively, if your app provides access to the documents of some sort, you could look into UIDocumentInteractionController that can add "Open in..." functionality to your app, allowing app users to open a document in an arbitrary app that supports this file format.
Is it possible to read the contents of another application installed on an iPhone? What about from an extension or keyboard?
I'm trying to come up with something that 'checks' other apps to see if they have any deep links (like Twitter's Twitter://timeline that takes users straight to the timeline in the Twitter app).
Is there any smart way to check a given app for deep links?
Is it even possible to peek at another app's contents from within my app? I suspect no.
If no, what about making a keyboard or extension of some sort that I can access from an app like Twitter and see its contents, such as a URL deep link?
You don't have much options, you may use -canOpenURL:, but, since iOS9, must include special credentails listing all the custom schemes you want to check.
You can't read other app's contents on a non-rooted device unless this app is sharing a keychain (so it can exchange data via the shared keychain). The same thing goes with extensions.
iOS has some high bars on security, so, don't expect much or even, anything.
Something you may want is IntentKit. Also there are ideas around the web about standard url query format like MobileDeepLinking.
For example, if you open a PDF in Safari, you have the option to open in iBooks - I believe a number of apps have this ability.
How does one "register" the ability of your app to handle such files, and is it possible so that by "long pressing" a link in Safari, you can get the option to open the URL in your app instead of in Safari?
Yes, it is possible.
look at the documentation on "Registering the File Types Your App Supports"
here is a link: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/DocumentInteraction_TopicsForIOS/Articles/RegisteringtheFileTypesYourAppSupports.html
For the first part, you are going to want to take a look at Registering Your Support of File Types to add your app to the system list of apps that can open specific document types. That is handled by the system.
For the second part, I could be mistaken, but I don't believe you will be able to get that "long press" functionality as it would require changing Safari. If you control the content of the web page however, you could add a Custom URL Scheme to your app which would allow you to launch it from a web page.
I am trying a simple web app which downloads files from internet and saves on iPad. Theses files are of .pdf,.xls,.doc, etc format. Now, I want to assign a default application to open a specific file type. (Say Adode reader for pdf file, Some image viewer app for image files etc). I dont want my app/os to decide which app the file should open in. Instead, if assigned app doesnt exists then it should give me a message that no such app found. Is it possible to do?
With a web app you cannot do such things.
If you go native, you can use Custom URL Schemes (see http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#DOCUMENTATION/iPhone/Conceptual/iPhoneOSProgrammingGuide/AdvancedAppTricks/AdvancedAppTricks.html)
But with Custom URL Schemes, you only are able to pass a view parameters. If you want more, UIPasteboard is recommended.
Apps are sandboxed. You cannot access other apps, nor their data!!!
But on native apps you can pass over data with pasteboard, call a custom url handler, pass a few parameters to cause the other apps to process your data.
Often App developers, like camera+ offer a documentation for the usage of their custom url schemes (Camera+ URL Schemes API)
I am writing an iOS application that performs conversion of a file saved by another application on the same device to another format. How can I transfer files from one application to another in the same device? Note that the files are non-textual files.
UIDocumentInteractionController is your friend.
Basically it works like this:
App 1 registers as being able to handle files of type XYZ
App 2 implements UIDocumentInteractionController and will give users the options to "send the file to App1" (I believe this has to be user activated)
App 1 implements -(BOOL)application:openURL:sourceApplication:annotation: and deals with the transferred file which will be saved in your Documents/Inbox directory. From there you can copy the file elsewhere and then manipulated it, making sure you clean up by getting rid of the original one saved on the Inbox folder.
Class reference available here
Document interaction programming guide available here
If you are developing both apps, you can store shared information in the keychain as long as your bundle identifiers conform to the same bundle seed id. See here for more info. Of course, if you are making both applications, you can use a URL scheme to pass in base64 encoded data as well.
Update: As rog said below, UIDocumentInteractionController is great, but it is only available for 4.2 and up, so you are cutting out a major portion of your users if you want to use it.