Does anyone have any ideas how I could package an external interactive slide that could be dynamically loaded by an iOS app? Is it at all possible?
e.g. Imagine having a presentation app on an iPad. There is a set of interactive slides held on the web somewhere, let's say they contain draggable elements.
Can I load one of these slide objects into the app and interact with it? If so, what format would the slide object be?
Thanks,
Mark
Technically it's possible to dynamically load bundles (NSBundle) components in an app. These bundles could even contain executable code, though AppStore guidelines prohibit use of dynamically loaded NSBundles in this way for security reasons.
Additionally you could just use a UIWebView to display some 'slides' on a webpage, though it will be very hard to make the app behave as if it's the same as the native slides - perhaps even impossible (due to how rendering of webpages work compared to native controls, for example).
Ok so lets say you have these "external interactive slides" on a web server somehow. Since you are not saying they are of a certain type (like powerpoint or such) I will just assume that these slides are of some rare format that is probably not supported by any existing apps or the Safari browser.
Then the answer to your question would be: Write your own iOS-app that can read, present and edit these slides. What format are they? Well it doesn't matter. Write an app that can download the slide data from the data and parse it, and present it on the phone.
Then let the user interact with it, and perhaps make the app upload the changes to the server.
You can do anything you like in your app, there are no limits. You just have to write the code for it. If there was some kind of standardised format, lets say you wanted your app to show powerpoint presentations, then you would have 3 choices. Use someone else´s app, or write your own app with a parser for the powerpoint files or make your own app that use some code that someone else wrote to do it (a third part library that you include in your app)
In your specific case, I can not tell if there are any third part librarys to interact with your slides, but my guess is that you will need to do most of it on your own. You could start with looking at how the web services that interact with the slides online works, and if you can interact with them from an iOS-app that you make yourself.
There is nothing stopping you from creating an app, read the slide data into the app, present it in any way you like, let the user change it, save it in your app, or upload the changes to a server. It's all up to you =)
Good luck!
Related
I know this is possible and is something many big apps do, but I can't figure out among UTIs, extensions, UIActivityTypes, etc. which spell I need to use for this in particular. I'm trying to add my app to the list of apps that appear when you hit the export button in the Notes app on iOS because I want to be able to take a bunch of text inside a note and repeatedly and safely send it into my app.
I want my app to appear in this list, exporting directly from Notes. There appear to be duplicates of this question that are very old claiming that "exporting from Notes app is not possible for third party apps", but I think they're either now wrong or answering a different question because as you can see in the above screenshot, Messenger is plainly able to do this.
It does not look like registering UTIs gets this done for me. I went ahead and registered my app to all sorts of UTIs, but all that happens is my app ends up in popups like this one, which appears when trying to open a txt file, which is not what I'm looking for. Unless there is some other UTI that does not conform to public.data or public.content which I need to be using, in which case I'd be happy to hear it.
I used one of my allotted support requests to ask Apple, and after some time and back and forth I was able to get my answer! Here is what they said:
Your project is missing a Share app extension. Start by reviewing the
App Extension Programming Guide:
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/General/Conceptual/ExtensibilityPG/index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014214-CH20-SW1
Information specific to the Share extension point:
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/General/Conceptual/ExtensibilityPG/Share.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014214-CH12-SW1
You don’t need to register the text content type in your
CFBundleDocumentTypes. as you’ve done in your sample. However, you
will need to provide an activation rule for the extension point, such
as the one shown in this section of the document (the section titled
Declaring Supported Data Types for a Share or Action Extension):
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/General/Conceptual/ExtensibilityPG/ExtensionScenarios.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014214-CH21-SW1
See specifically the predicate example that activates the extension if
an attachment with the com.adobe.pdf UTI is present. You will need to
do something similar, to cover the UTIs for content you would like
your share extension to consume. As a starting point, you can consume
text with the public.text UTI. For more common UTIs, please see this
document:
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Miscellaneous/Reference/UTIRef/Articles/System-DeclaredUniformTypeIdentifiers.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009259-SW1
I also found the bits about providing an activation rule to be super confusing, and this answer helped that: How do I set NSExtensionActivationRule predicates?
Since I'm not even sure where and how to start solving my issue I will appreciate every smallest push to the right direction.
So, I need to write an iOS application that would keep track on some events of any or at least some webkit-based browsers, or even integrate my app's "Open with..." item into a browser's context menu.
Is it at least possible?
P.S. yeap, since there's no way to use browser extensions in iOS, I'm trying to find workarounds without need to implement my own browser but rather tiny 3-rd side application working along with some of existing browsers.
Here im hitting my head againt the wall.
My client provided a pdf with buttons(just like buttons,when user tap on button,it will load next page and previous page etc.).
This buttons will work only when we open it in adobe reader.
I tried the QLpreviewview,quickview but it is not working,all what i can do is just to load the pdf in the webview.
Can anyone please help me in how to load an interactive pdf in iOS.
Thanks in advance.
Have a look at PSPDFKit, it is the most advanced framework I've found for PDFs in iOS. They have an impressive list of customers as well.
It is a bit pricy though, but you have the option to get the Source Code too if you need to modify anything. Could be worth it if your client need that kind of performance and other features as well.
(I am not in any way affiliated with PSPDFKit)
The limitations are due to the capabilities (or non-capabilities) of the PDF viewer used.
Currently the leading PDF viewer on iDevices is PDFExpert by Readdle. Adobe Reader for iDevices is weaker, but can deal to some extent with form elements.
For page navigation etc. you might use links instead of button fields (as far as you can live with the capabilities of links, and not use JavaScript). Links are said to be handled properly with many PDF viewers.
You may have to require certain PDF viewers on instructional level, because you don't have control over the viewer used by the actual user. And, as you noticed, many PDF viewers are simply too dumb do deal with active elements.
Another approach would be looking at PDF-to-HTML5 converters, and serve HTML5 from a server.
I am looking for a replace to UIImagePickerController that allows custom extensibility for local pictures, public API's like Facebook/Flickr/Tumblr/Picasa/SmugMug, and custom proprietary picture collections (local or abroad).
Solutions I have found so far, and problems with them:
http://picture.io/photopickerplus
This is almost perfect, except I am forced to use the 3rd party service from getchute.com - what happens if this site goes dark, permanently? And all permissions dialogs list "Chute" as the application name. My app uses the Facebook SDK elsewhere, so I would like to use my existing APP id/key. When I add it via the chute app control panel, I get the Facebook API error "Invalid redirect_uri:Given URL is not allowed by the Application configuration". Which I can fix with the Facebook API, however if A. I knew what the URL was (I don't), and B. I really was OK with having a middle man with the API requests (I'm not).
It is also very ARC hostile which is a PITA to get running.
https://github.com/arturgrigor/AGImagePickerController
Very nice replacement for UIImagePickerController, that includes multi select. No built modularity to support Facebook or other API's.
https://github.com/jeena/JPImagePickerController
Simple replacement for just UIImagePickerController - doesn't seem to have navigable views. No apparent modularity.
https://github.com/facebook/three20/
Looks complicated. For obvious reasons won't play well with non-Facebook services.
https://github.com/mrdavenz/CaptureSessionManager has example code of to create your own photo picker with AVCamera. You could use this as a starting point. See the blog at http://www.musicalgeometry.com/?p=1297
Can you tell me if Apple accepts an application that opens an embedded browser with most of the functionality living on a web application on the internet?
I have read contradicting opinions on this, and I have even seen several apps that seem to use an embedded browser for the main functionality of the app. Still I couldn't confirm this.
This way we could correct problems on the application functionality on the server with no need to submit another version of the app, while keeping the ease of release through the app store and the home screen shortcut.
Thanks!
I can't get the exact quote from the guidelines, but I know that Cordova apps are allowed, and updating the web files dynamically without going through a new native app version is also allowed, as long as:
* The updated code runs with the Safari Webkit engine (true for Cordova)
* The main functionality of the app is not changed
You say this is a bad idea because the user can save a bookmark on their home screen. This doesn't seem to me like a reason for something being a bad idea to me. If this is the only drawback then I would say go ahead and do it. Why should I care if someone wants to bookmark to my site? The app will not work very well outside the app anyway. If you have an actual logical reason why this is a bad idea instead of some emotional response then please bring it up.
I am doing this too in my application. I am under the impression that as long as you are pointing to a secure site then it should be okay. Please enlighten me: is there some good reason why Apple forces people to develop applications the hard way? A web application is hard enough without having to deal with some monolithic organisation imposing ridiculous rules on you.