I have created a Service in Cocoa which grabs the selected Text and sends the result back to my Main App, so i can handle it there ( Couldn't find any other way to get current selection), now that the Service works and appears in the Service Menu, i tried to invoke the Service from my parent App to get current selection, after some goggling around i found this snippet:
NSPasteboard *pboard = [NSPasteboard pasteboardWithUniqueName];
[pboard declareTypes:[NSArray arrayWithObject:NSStringPboardType] owner:nil];
NSPerformService(#"PCB", pboard);
This one works as far as it triggers my Service, the Problem here is it redefines the NSPasteboard, so my service doesn't get the selected text, but a NIL Value Pasteboard which is blank, how can i prevent this?
And does someone know how to convert a .service bundle into an .app bundle that performs itself and sends the data and kills itself after finish?
thx for help
You want to get the text that is selected in another application, right? Probably in the front application, while your app is in the background.
For this to work, you'd have to have the Service be invoked by the front application. If you invoke it from your app in the background, it can't access the front app's text field that contains the selected text. Instead, it'll try to find a text field in your own app's responder chain (I believe – someone correct me if I'm wrong on this detail).
But for your code to run in the app's process, you'll have to inject it somehow, which is - out of security concerns - mostly prohibited by OS X, and especially with sandboxed apps.
There are ways to accomplish code injection, one that 1Password and other popular tools use it through an osax extension. But that's an entirely different topic.
Once you have your code running inside the other app's process, you should be able to copy the selected text (provided it's a Cocoa app) with [NSTextView writeSelectionToPasteboard:types:]. I haven't tested this myself, though, so this is just an assumption.
Related
I'm close to getting my homegrown POS app to work with Square, but I'm missing something simple and can't seem to turn up an answer. I'm using FileMaker Go as the app, but I don't think that that is relevant to my current proof-of-concept issue. It may be relevant to other issues later (callbacks).
In my point-of-sale-api settings, I have:
com.filemaker.go.17
for the Bundle ID, and
create-workflow
for the iOS App URL Schemes, which seems to be the first piece of code that Square allows me to save. Any prefixed item such as shortcuts://create-workflow gives an error without description (I'm hoping that Square will trigger a workflow as a test in this POC).
I'm hoping to just trigger safari or workflow/shortcuts with the callback as filemaker go doesn't directly accept the callback response without a helper application - which I'll eventually try.
Any thoughts on what I'm missing?
Thanks tons!
I am being presented with a very interesting project. The task that I must complete is to figure out a way to allow a partner to be involved in an app without giving up their source code. The code will be included in the main bundle of the app so it is not dynamically stored. The partner has a fully functional app that is needed to be ran in a window within the main app at the appropriate time. I know having the partners create a web app would be ideal so it is treated like a webpage but I am more concerned with codes that must be written natively in iOS.
My question is what is the best way to go about solving this? In theory it is like an App within an App. Is there a way if they gave up their .app file I can include this in the bundle and then run it when I catch a certain event? Should I have the partners create their code in a framework and then import into the shell project? What is the best way to approach this problem?
If your 2nd-party doesn't want to provide you with the source code, why doesn't he compile it to object code then let you simply link it to your app?
By the way, at least on official (non-jailbroken) iDevices, apps can't 'embed' or 'open' one another in such a way - you can open an app programmatically if 1. it's a separate app 2. it has a registered special URL associated to its bundle.
Is there a way if they gave up their .app file I can include this in
the bundle and then run it when I catch a certain event?
No, you'll want to have them create a library instead. You can then include that library in your project.
Creating a library is as simple as:
Choose File->New...->Project... in Xcode.
Select the "Cocoa Touch Static Library" project template.
Add your code.
Build.
The result is a static library that you can add to your application(s). The library will contain the compiled code that you added, but doesn't include the source code. The library developer should provide whatever header files are necessary to use the code in the library.
An App within an App is possible however it requires a common data framework that allows one app to reference the same data without confusing the the source of and destination of the data.
Such a framework allows one app to interact with another app referencing the same data.
I am creating a application UIPasteboard with my app's identifier as a name (e.g. com.example.app.pboard) as suggested in the docs.
All the copying and pasting works, but the damn thing never goes away. I set its persistent property explicitly to NO every time I access it to copy something onto it, and I even call UIPasteboard's +removePasteboardWithName: every time my app starts.
But every time I look at it, the most recent thing I copied onto it is always there, despite app restarts.
What gives?
No idea why what you are trying isn't working, here are two guesses and a possible solution:
Removing the paste board may be expected to be executed on exit from the app, so it doesn't execute until the app is terminated or backgrounded?
Calling remove and then asking for the items may be recreating it again in the same "place" so the items still remain.
You could perhaps solve this by setting the pasteboard's items to nil when leaving or entering the app.
You can set UIPasteboard to persistent. Accord to Apple's document,
setPersistent:
A Boolean value that indicates whether the pasteboard is persistent.
When a pasteboard is persistent, it continues to exist past app terminations and across system reboots. App pasteboards that are not persistent only last until the owning (creating) app quits. The system wide general pasteboard is persistent. Named, app-specific pasteboards are not persistent.
Update: For iOS 10, UIPasteboard set persistence automatically.
Note
Starting in iOS 10, the system sets pasteboard persistence automatically. If you try to set the setPersistent: property on a pasteboard, Xcode issues a deprecation warning.
Instead of named persistent pasteboards, use shared containers, as described in the Overview section of this document.
In our app we need to check if the data is saved when we are in a particular place before navigating away from it. So the user should be able to negate a browser back button request. But by the time that the history value change event is received the url has already been changed. The History class doesn't seem to have a way to restore the url back. Anybody have any ideas?
In GWT 2.1 you get Activities and Places. And activity has a maystop method, which is exactly what you want, if I understand you correctly.
Use a window.onunload or window.onbeforeunload javascript callback to confrim/save state.
onbeforeunload example
I haven't actually implemented this behavior yet, but here is my plan and maybe it will work for you.
1) Each time you receive an onHistoryChanged event and decide to allow it, save the current historyToken in an instance variable somewhere.
2) Keep track of activity on the page that should block navigation. Use a data structure that can keep track of multiple activities, like multiple file uploads, multiple edits, etc.
3) When you receive a new onHistoryChanged event, if your data structure from #2 indicates that it's not safe to navigate, avoid changing the page and restore the historyToken that you saved in #1. I'm assuming that you can do this either by:
a) Calling History.newItem(oldHistoryToken, false) or
b) Calling History.newItem(oldHistoryToken, true) and keeping a flag to force the next onHistoryChanged to be ignored.
Again, I haven't actually implemented this so let me know how it works out.
If you have links that allow the user to leave the app and you want to prevent that as well, you'll need to also add an onbeforeunload.
Have a look at the PlaceManagerImpl class from the gwt-platform framework. Especially the onValueChange() method and the methods dealing with the onLeaveQuestion field.
Hope that helps.
In this issue report, t.broyer explains in his comment that such behavior was planned during design of Places framework. The most important part is:
mayStop was a mistake, or it should have only been called when unloading the app, not for internal navigation within the app.
So probably it's better to not use it at all...
I'm developing an iPhone re-dialer application in which a number is dialed and if the call is waiting then it will once again redial. But my application is exiting when number is dialed. I don't want that, it should automatically return.
Can somebody help me in solving the problem?
Thanks in Advance.
No, this is not possible. You should save your application state when the call is received, so that the user can pick up where he or she left off in your application, after taking the call.
Create a ‘UIWebView‘ that's hidden and use it load a ‘tel:‘ URL request. It will prompt you to make the call but when the call finishes you'll be returned to your app.
File a bug though to make it proper API though.
The Solution which Ashley suggested works well.
I tried it and the control returns back to the app after call is disconnected.
Also using a webView one can use letter like 1-800-CallUS, etc for dialing.
Declare a webview, create a html file with phone# as a link(this link is automatically detected in your app) and import the file in resources and load the html in a string variable , add this subview to your main view.