Using UIImagePicker in a tabbed UIPopover

Question

I am developing an iPad app that needs to have multiple image sources, on the device/Photo Albums, remote and some included with the app. Now the ideal situation would be to have a UIPopover controller with 3 tabs for each source. The only problem is I can't seem to figure out how to have a UIImagePicker be in its own tab. What I am trying to do is very similar to Apple's Keynote for iPad. The photo icon's popover has tabs and the far left tab called media for sure has a UIImagePicker in there. I have no idea how they did that, is it possible for me to do something like that? I think the main issue is that the Image Picker is it's own navigation controller and it cannot be pushed on to another navigation controller. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

check out this - https://github.com/key1jp/ELCImagePickerController

you can implement it with custom asset library

Answer 2

Are you not using UITabBarController for your tabs? You should be able to add a UIImagePickerController directly to viewControllers. I'm not sure whether that is a supported use of the image picker, though; the documentation only mentions displaying it modally or displaying it in a UIPopoverController.

It's not usually useful to look at an Apple app to find out what you can do with various built-in controls, as Apple allows themselves to use private APIs.

Answer 3

The built-in image picker is no good.

Create your own image picker and add it to your navigation controller as a normal view. Start from either the Matt Tuzzolo or the MyImagePicker from the WWDC 2010 sample code. Note that you probably want to add image and video preview - I copied the image viewer from MyImagePicker and added a 'add' or 'remove' button to it, and the same for video.

Your image picking is in two steps, one for selecting the group, and one for selecting the assets within the group. I recommend dividing the first step into a two - if there is only one, then go directly to that group, i.e. when you have found the first group, check whether that group was the last (block stop argument). Then push the right view controller.

Obiously modify the size of the thumbnails also, they are iPhone size now. Adding a line of metadata (icon and duration) looks much nicer and is more informative for video.

I also recommend adding a 'click-and-hold' function for extended information after like 2 seconds.

Handle different sources by creating a protocol which gives you what you want, i.e.

-(BOOL)isImageAtIndex:(NSInteger)index;
-(UIImage*)thumbnailForUndex:(NSInteger)index;
-(void)setSelectedAtIndex:(NSInteger)index;

Creating a source which handles local files, included resources and assets is perfectly possible - I use NSURLs and check on the url scheme.