Opening files from iPad in Excel? - ios

I have an iPad app that creates XML files and saves them to the iPad's Documents Directory. I would like to get these files to excel, but I am fairly certain I cannot just launch excel > open > then navigate through the iPads directory.
What's the best way to get these files? Are there any windows applications that allow you to access the iPad's directories ? Or will I have to use iTunes ?

You might want to check out "CloudOn":
Excel on my iPad
http://site.cloudon.com/

For your needs, I have the habit of going through the Beesy application: http://www.beesapps.com/management-productivity/import-excel-files-on-ipad/. I can import/export such a file in my iPad and if I need to make changes, I can make notes in the margins of the doc to complete thereafter.

Related

Transfer file from iOS app to computer while debugging

For a native iOS application we are integrating a C++ library which is writing some logs to disk to json file.
During debugging, we would like to access to this logs, but currently we can only do it by downloading the whole app container to the macOS machine and searching for the file there.
Since this a very time consuming operation we were hoping that there would be some solution that would allows us to get this file quickly. I did take a look to the lldb commands, but none of them seem to let you extract a file from the phone.
Is there anyway to do this in a quick way?
Thank you
Couple options...
1 - Add debug-only code in your app to share the log file (via AirDrop would probably be a good option).
or
2 - During debug, set these two keys (in project settings / info) to Yes:
Application supports iTunes file sharing
Supports opening documents in place
Once you've done that, you can open / copy files from your app's Documents directory (assuming that's where the logs are being written) from Finder on your Mac.

How to search all directories? Objective C

I know how to search a directory for a file(s) using NSFileManager. But I want to search all directories in iphone to find files with some extension (let's say .txt). How can I do that?
The files that an app can access are those in the app's sandbox. This means you can access only those files that originated(directly or indirectly) from your app. Complete unrestricted access to the iOS file system is not possible as of now.
However I think it is worth noting that iOS 11 has introduced some changes that do allow you to view the document directories of other apps. This is possible only if those apps have made their documents directory public using the 'UISupportsDocumentBrowser'key in their info.plist. Again this depends on how the other apps are coded and might not be of help in your case.

Files security in XCode project

I am trying to build an iOS application which has a PDF file emdebbed in it, and I don’t want the user to access or find it by unpacking the IPA file. I found that if I UNCHECK the “Add to Target” check box (when I drag and drop the PDF file into my project), the PDF file will be hidden and no one can see it after showing the IPA contents.
My question is, should I be worry from this case, in another word, if I unchecked this option, will I face any issue in publishing my application or in deploying/supporting any of my targeted devices, or should I be worry from any issue may face the users in reading this PDF through my application?
I did some research regarding this point, but I couldn’t find any good or clear answer, I appreciate any help in this.
If you uncheck the "Add to target" button it means that the .pdf file will not be packed to the .ipa file and it will not be accessible at all when someone downloads your app. So this is definitely not an option for what you want to achieve. It is better to encrypt the pdf file and decrypt it on runtime if you dont want it to be accessed when someone unpacks the .ipa file.
How important is your security? You could just zip it, then name the file something other than "*.zip".
However that would not stop someone who was determined. You would be advised then to use real encryption.
But even that would not stop a truly-determined attacker, who might use a jailbroken device to capture your PDF while it was loaded in your program's memory.
You can make it difficult to get at your PDF, but if you can get at it from your App, then I myself could get at it if I downloaded your app to my device.

Editing files contained in iPad app directly from PC without jailbreaking the iPad

I have some CSS in my hybrid iPad app files that I would like to edit. I came across iFunBox and iExplore, which allows me to move the file between iOS and macOS. But I cannot edit the files directly. I am doing the following:
Open and Edit the file in TextWrangler by clicking on the file in iFunBox UI
Reveal the file in finder
Copy the file to iPad by dragging it to iFunbox
It appears that it should be easy iFunBox or similar to automate this process and hance make the file editable directly.
Anyone aware of an app which achieves this?
Attached is a screenshot of my cluttered Desktop, showing the iExplore, TextWrangler and Finder window. Ideally, I would like to see an Edit option alongwith Open and Quick Look options.
Wait, do you just want to be able to edit files via FTP? If so use, Gusto

Where to save downloaded data that can't be recreated?

I created magazine reader app that uses png images as pages. When user downloads magazine, all png images are downloaded and stored in Caches folder.
Problem with Caches is that files in there can be apparently deleted anytime. Since app is designed to be used in offline mode as well, re-downloading of missing pages is impossible.
I tried to save it into Documents folder but my app got rejected, this apparently is not proper place for them.
So my question is, where can I put them to make that iOS won't delete them? I don't need them to be backed up to itunes or synced or anything like that, I just need them to stay there until I remove them.
I tried looking into the documentation but I could not find a category that would fit my needs, am I missing something trivial?
EDIT: I need to support iOS 4 as well
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/FileSystemProgrammingGUide/FileSystemOverview/FileSystemOverview.html
Put it in the Libary Folder
Handle support files
—files your application downloads or generates and can recreate as needed—in one of two ways:
In iOS 5.0 and earlier, put support files in the /Library/Caches directory to prevent them from being backed up
In iOS 5.0.1 and later, put support files in the /Library/Application Support directory and apply the com.apple.MobileBackup extended attribute to them. This attribute prevents the files from being backed up to iTunes or iCloud. If you have a large number of support files, you may store them in a custom subdirectory and apply the extended attribute to just the directory.
Apple has a tech note that addresses this at http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#qa/qa1719/_index.html
It shows sample code for setting a no-backup attribute on files.

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