Open in + UIDocumentInteractionController : how to

Question

Since the new SDK was release (iOS 6), the delegate method documentInteractionController:canPerformAction: of the UIDocumentInteractionControllerDelegate is deprecated.

Using that method you were able to prevent default actions like print: and copy: to appear.

The method is being called in the current version of iOS 6, but in future versions this method will not be called and my app will show actions that I don't want to support.

I read the available documentation for the UIDocumentInteractionController and its delegate and I'm not able to find a another way to do what I do in the canPerformAction method.

Any ideas?

As a plus, it would be great to be able to filter apps like mail or twitter (that appears by default) but I guess that this is not possible.

Answer 1

Agreed on the fact that deprecating 'canPerformAction' in the delegate is troublesome, we lost the fine grain control we used to have.

However, if all you want is to allow a document to be opened in another app, and wanted to remove Copy, Print and even Mail, I guess you are better off using OpenIn version of method to present the UIDocumentInteractionController?

i.e. for your UIDocumentInteractionController use presentOpenInMenuFromBarButtonItem:animated: or presentOpenInMenuFromRect:inView:animated:

(instead of presentOptionsMenuFromBarButtonItem:animated: or presentOptionsMenuFromRect:inView:animated:)

This way, by default, it will only show apps that can open your document, and hides Mail, Copy and Print.

Answer 2

I think it is because Apple wants you to use the new UIActivity control.

Here it's the documentation:

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UIKit/Reference/UIActivity_Class/Reference/Reference.html

Here it's a custom control developed to support many third party apps:

http://www.cocoacontrols.com/platforms/ios/controls/uiactivitycollection

And this question solves how could you make your own UIActivity:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/12766330/736384

So, if you don't want the user can use copy: and print: methods just pass this activities to the UIActivityViewController, like this:

[activityView setExcludedActivityTypes:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:UIActivityTypeCopyToPasteboard, UIActivityTypePrint, nil]];

All the default activities are listed at the bottom of the Apple's documentation link.