I have a folder structures inside the Documents Folder of iOS App. I am creating folder for each date and storing data related to the date inside the particular folder. Now i released the new version and i got a feed back from the user saying that when he updated the app his datas are lost. I am storing the png files inside the folders. Is there any way that when the user updates the app these document folder structure remains same ?
Related
Photos Framework provides an API to move to folders. But, is there a way to change the status of an image to hidden, and thereby move it to the iOS Hidden folder and hiding it from the main photo gallery?
If you want to save some data privately so no other app could access it you probably need to save it into the app data container. This could be a /Documents folder for example. Take a look at FileManager class to work with file system.
Use this directory to store user-generated content. The contents of this directory can be made available to the user through file sharing; therefore, his directory should only contain files that you may wish to expose to the user.
The contents of this directory are backed up by iTunes and iCloud.
File system documentation
I am working on an app that saves files to the documents directory, and then saves an absolute path for each of those files in an entity using core data. The issue is that each time I rebuild and run my app on my device, the app is saved in a different generated directory, and those file paths are now incorrect. However, my documents directory is still preserved.
I have three questions about this:
If an app is updated on the store, does it then go in a different generated directory, thus invalidating any absolute paths that could be saved in the documents directory?
This is extremely unlikely but is there any way to specify in Xcode to build the app to the same directory the previous build was in?
Is there a way to specify in Xcode that you would like all documents and data wiped with each new build you load on the device?
Thanks everyone!
You said:
"I am working on an app that saves files to the documents directory, and then saves an absolute path for each of those files in an entity using core data."
Don't do that. Ever. The path to your documents directory will be different on different devices, and different if you delete your app and reinstall it. Absolute paths are pretty much guaranteed to fail.
Use paths relative to the sandbox directory in question (documents directory, temp directory, etc)
I recently had my application rejected, by Apple for:
"Your app has the UIFileSharingEnabled key set to true in the Info.plist, but files and folders not intended for file-sharing are contained within its Documents folder..."
I am storing my application data in the documents directory, images and the core data database. This is a very simple progress, that allows the user to backup and import data. Below are the major steps:
The user can backup the data, which zips the folder.
The user can then use iTunes file sharing to take out the backup.
The user can import, the zip file which overwrites the data in the documents directory.
Has anyone else experienced similar issues? It seems like I am using this correctly.
You should put the zip file in the Documents folder, not any other files. The fact that you also put your core-data files (and some of the other files the user shouldn't see) in the Documents folder is why it was rejected.
You can store any files that the user shouldn't see in another folder such as the Application Support folder.
I am working on a Vegetable gardening application. Apart from the vegetable name and description I also have vegetable image. Currently, I have all the images in the Supported Files folder in the Xcode project.
But later on I want to update the application dynamically without having the user download a new version. When the user updates the application or downloads new data from the server that data will include the images. Can I store those images in the supporting file folder or somewhere where they can be references by just the name.
RELATED QUESTION:
I will also allow the user to take pictures of their vegetables and then write notes about the vegetables like "just planted", "about to harvest" etc. What is the recommended approach for storing pictures/photos. I can always store them in the user's photo library and then store the reference in the local database and then fetch and display the picture using the reference. The problem with that approach might be that if the user accidentally deletes the picture from the library then it will no longer be displayed in my application.
The only way I see if to store the picture in the app local database as a BLOB.
No you can't put the downloaded images with the others inside the supporting file folder. Also I would suggest you put the images inside an Images or Resources folder instead... If you want to download any data after the app is compiled, then they will not be in the bundle. It is the bundle you are referring to when talking about the Supported Files folder in Xcode. This is read only for your application.
Just to be clear, once compiled, there are no folder structures for your application, these "folders" are just groups in the Xcode project to keep things tidy.
If you download say a zip file containing a set of images, it's up to you to write them to disk after you download them. You should put these images in either the tmp, the cache or the documents directory.
But then you'll have to build your path before loading the images. You won't be able to just provide the name of the file such as:
[UIImage imageNamed:#"something.jpg"];
Because this will look in your bundle. Instead you must do something like this to load your image from the Documents directory for example.
Your challenge is that you will end up in a state where you'll have some images in the Bundle (the ones from when you uploaded your app), and the newer ones in the documents directory. You must them check the bundle first and if there is no image there, check the documents directory.
For user generated data, I suggest also saving the images in the Documents directory, and maintaining an SQLite database of the users data, so you can map an image name to an entry in the database. You don't want to save the images as BLOB because this will inevitably slow down the performance of your queries and add extra unnecessary load on the CPU to convert to UIImage and back.
You don't want to save their images to the gallery for 2 reasons, first this means you'll be saving in 2 places because keeping a reference in your database to an external image is very fragile and you're just asking for trouble, and secondly, once the image isn't under your wing, you don't control it anymore, the user will delete it at some point, if they go back to your app they expect to see it there.
What happens when I update an app that has some files stored in the Documents folder? I need those files to be kept in that folder so the updated app will be able to use them. But it doesn't seem to happen. Is there anyway I can manage to save all my files?
Your documents will stay where they are - unless the user deletes the app before updating (but that wouldn't be an update..).