Confused with IOS Deep linking - objective-c

I'll just want to ask if someone here know the step by step process of creating a deep link for an IOS app? I've tried to read some articles but it did not give me absolute answers. Thank you :)

Deep linking is basically just setting up url to your app so that other apps can launch it with information. The can launch to certain parts of the app if you set it up so that your app reacts to certain urls. So there are a few things that you have to do. For this example I will use two apps. If you are trying to integrate with an existing app you just have to find out what their url schemes are. So for this example I will use 'Messages' as one app and 'Schedule' as another.
First: in the 'Messages' app we will need to setup the schemes our Schedule app to call.
So open up your first app we need to add schemes so other apps can open it. Go to your info.plist click the little + and type URL types hit the triangle to expand and hit the + type URL Schemes and within that one add an item and put your apps name in it. Also add URL identifier along with $(PRODUCT_BUNDLE_IDENTIFIER) as the value. `
Then we just have to add the apps that we can open so hit the top level + again and add LSApplicationQueriesSchemes This whitlists the apps so we can evaluate weather or not they are installed on the device.
Now we can jump over to the other app and create a way to call this. For this example lets make it happen when we press a button.
IBAction launchMessagesApp() {
let url = NSURL(string: "Messages://") where UIApplication.sharedApplication().canOpenURL(url) {
self.launchAppWithURL(url, name: "Messages")
}
The canOpenURL(url) checks to see if the application is on the device. If you wanted to you could launch the app store to your app if that retuned false. then launchAppWithURL actually launches it. That is the basic setup you may also want to have multiple things happen so you may have multiple url schemes that launch the same app but take it to different parts of the app. In the app delegate of the app in the function
func application(app: UIApplication, openURL url: NSURL, options: [String : AnyObject]) -> Bool {
print(url)
//Any customizations for the app here
}
You can do anything you can imagine.

Have you checked out Turnpike? It's an open source tool for enabling deep linking in iOS apps. http://urxtech.github.io/#GettingStarted

If you want to create a deeplink you might need to do some server code to detect the user device/browser and do some actions based on this.
I've created a tool that simplify this process, you can check it here:
http://www.uppurl.com/
It's mainly a short link tool that checks for user device and give him the right url based on his devices. With this tool you don't need to write any server code and it also takes care of different devices, operating systems and browsers.

Related

Can I create a Whitelist for Safari using OpenUrl in Xamarin.Forms?

I am working on a project using Xamarin.Forms as a container app. This app includes several webviews that link to restricted web content. One of these links our Sharepoint site. The Sharepoint site has a link that allows our users to go to a 3rd party site(Cornerstone) to view training videos. When using the stock UIWebView, WKWebView, or SFSafariViewController the popup that displays the video is not shown. The only way that I can get this video to play in my app is to use OpenURL to open the Sharepoint site in Safari. The problem is that this is an Enterprise solution where we don't want to allow the employees free reign with the browser.
Is there a way to create a whitelist or to have some control over the searchbar or read the url that they are linking to and block it or redirect the user?
Unfortunately as it's farming out the URL Navigation external to your application there's not a lot you can do from within your app to restrict what they do after the fact, 'openURL' only returns a Boolean value as to it's success, and the only parameters that you can send to it are:
application - Reference to this application
(UIApplication.SharedApplication).
url - The NSUrl specified by the
calling application.
sourceApplication - The bundle ID of the calling
application.
annotation -Optional property-list data passed by the
calling application.
You can only access these if you override the 'openURL' method within your 'AppDelegate.cs' class, there is a set of options you can pass through as an override but again none of those allow you to restrict what the user does after the browser has opened.
If the devices are managed using something like 'meraki' or some other software to control the use of managed devices, then you would likely set up a 'group policy' styled set of restrictions however that's not really a Xamarin issue, and should be discussed with the network administrators.
That being said, I don't see any reason why you can't use the WebView1, that way you can handle it all within your application. Or alternative utilize custom renderers and pass in the direct video urls and commit to opening up the devices media player for streaming the content2.
1 Playing videos in WebView
2 Using the media manager plugin.

How do I notify users of new content available in tvOS apps from the home screen?

Push notifications have been left out of tvOS (understandably so) but the docs seem to contradict themselves in alerting users to the fact that there is something new available in your tvOS app.
Here it seems to say that you can add an app badge: https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/tvos/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/Chapters/WhatAreRemoteNotif.html
Here it says they've been removed from UIKit: https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/tvos/releasenotes/General/tvOS90APIDiffs/Objective-C/UIKit.html
Removed UIApplication.applicationIconBadgeNumber
Assuming the badge approach is not supported in this release, does anyone know the best practice for alerting a user that there is new content in your app without the user taking an explicit action? ie focusing on the app and showing them something in TopShelf?
I encountered the same problem and dived into this. Probably your best way is to update the topshelf with latest items, which is my way to solve this for now. You can use network calls to update the topshelf with content from your backend.
This depends on the type of application. E.g. showing the latest top movies for a movies app.
You can trigger an update of the topshelf after your network call completed using the following code:
NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().postNotificationName(TVTopShelfItemsDidChangeNotification, object: nil)
Make sure to implement the TVTopShelfProvider which should be clear using the following documentation:
This protocol is adopted by the principal class of an app’s TV Services extension. Apps that implement this extension can provide dynamic content to the Top Shelf element rather than having the system use the static image submitted with the app. The topShelfStyle property specifies the interface style you want, and the topShelfItems property specifies the content items to display. Whenever you change the content provided by the extension, post a TVTopShelfItemsDidChangeNotification notification to prompt the system to reload your content.
Icon badges are removed for app icons, push notifications as well (except for silent push notifications).

How can I determine if my Cocoa Desktop application is on the list of apps to be opened at login?

I am developing a SandBoxed Cocoa Application. I have successfully implemented the Launch at login feature by using the Core Foundation function:
SMLoginItemSetEnabled
I have based the implementation on This tutorial
But now I need a way to determine if my app is set to be launched at login, so that I can show the button in the appropriate position upon launch. I would expect a similar Core Foundation function to find out if a bundle identifier is on the list of login items, but I didn't find it.
Another problem is that, by using this Core Foundation approach, although it is recommended by Apple, my app is still inconsistent with the "Open at Login" tick in my application dock menu.
You can do it using the functions in the LSSharedFileList.h header, which is in LaunchServices.framework, which is in CoreServices.framework. As far as I can tell, Apple hasn't documented this stuff except in the header comments, but that's probably enough. The basic outline is that you first create a LSSharedFileListRef using the function LSSharedFileListCreate for the list type kLSSharedFileListSessionLoginItems. Then copy a snapshot of the list (which is a CFArrayRef) using LSSharedFileListCopySnapshot. Then for any item in the array, you can get its URL using LSSharedFileListItemCopyResolvedURL. That last function requires Mac OS X 10.10 or later, while I think the others date back to 10.5.
By the way, the docs on SMLoginItemSetEnabled say that it's for setting an embedded helper app as a login item, but it sounds like you're talking about a freestanding app.
Apple's sandbox documentation says:
With App Sandbox, you cannot create a login item using functions in the LSSharedFileList.h header file. For example, you cannot use the function LSSharedFileListInsertItemURL.
But maybe you can still use the shared file list functions on a read-only basis.

IOS - How to create a modal user/password outside the UIApplication?

I am not sure this can be done at all...
Background: I am constructing an in-house application which means it does not get into appstore so i am not limited by the appstore guidelines.
I have a dylib which loads before the main application. It is a kind of augmenting library for applications. I am using the constructor __attribute__ to load my stuff. In there i would like to put an alertview or any kind of popup which will receive a user/password question. If the password is correct than the user is allowed to continue into the original application.
Since this is in the dylib i do not yet have a UIApplication and i do not want to interfere in the original application or sources.
Suggestions, tips are welcome...
Thanks.
This is how i've done very similar thing in my application:
0) Intercept applicationDidFinishLaunching message, add your own code, run original implementation.
1) Make opaque fullscrean UIWindow (for example, black).
2) Set its windowLevel to UIWindowLevelAlert + 1 So it hides every other window in app.
3) Add fields for user and password to this UIWindow.
I'm pretty sure you can't show a UIAlertView without having initialized the UIApplication and UIWindow instance.
Only the iOS itself can show alerts outside the application, for example when it asks for permissions or in case of iTunes or game center login ...
As a workaround you can:
make a login view inside the application
create a web application for the login process. The web app could launch the native app with a custom URL scheme and pass parameters like 'user' and 'password' to the app.
You should create a View for the Login then if you pass the login you can go on using the app otherwise you just make the app shut itself.
You could start a thread when loading your dylib and make it listen for your UIApplication to become available, then display the alert on the main thread.

Swap the application in Objective-C?

I'm developing iPad application I need to integrate third party project(Source code) with my code like i have a button in my code, when i click on the button it landed to third party application page then navigate around and vice verrsa. what is the best way to swap the app?
Regards,
Sri
Use the url schema.
See add custom URL Schema using http://
Every Application can have customer url schemas. Like ...
yourapp://someting?withparams=1.
To get they running you have to change your Info.plist to inform the iOS that your app is handling that url schema. See the SO post above.
When another App calls that URL your app gets opened and you get a hook on your app delegate.
check http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/iPhoneURLScheme_Reference/Introduction/Introduction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007899
and:
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UIKit/Reference/UIApplicationDelegate_Protocol/Reference/Reference.html#//apple_ref/occ/intf/UIApplicationDelegate
Also look here:
http://wiki.akosma.com/IPhone_URL_Schemes