On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 5:06 PM, Brian Nicholson <[email protected]> wrote:
... It's also worth mentioning that there's an existing third-party > library called IntentKit [3] that includes a number of application > schemes that can be triggered by certain actions (e.g. "open in > browser"). Essentially, it attempts to recreate Android's intent > system. Adding ourselves to this library will make us compatible with > existing projects that use it, so I've filed a bug for this once we > release v1 [4]. If we promote IntentKit as the recommended method for > adding browser support, our third-party project might not need to be > fleshed out as much since IntentKit does that grudge work for us. > > Personally, I'm pushing for the IntentKit route, so I'm not as > concerned with creating and maintaining an SDK with dependency manager > support. I know there are other opinions, though! > I think we should do all options for max coverage. But, I have a strong preference for an SDK. (Note that SDK is a big word for something that is distributed in a single source file and has a two method API.) There are a number of projects like IntentKit. I have the same kind of problems with all of them: * If I am the author of an app like say TweetBot, and I just want people to choose their preferred web browser, I don't want to include a large third-party framework that is a kitchen sink. Instead I would probably just prefer to include the single FirefoxController.swift in my project and use a two line API to enable that choice via my own UI. * IntentKit (and other projects) provides a Custom UI for share actions. Most of these projects were started before iOS 7 where Apple started to include a standard UI for sharing. Since iOS7 people have been using the OS provided share menu and they expect actions to be right there. IntentKit cannot display and show the actions that other apps make available, the ones that show in the OS provided menu, so now there are two places to share to other apps. I don't think this is practical or good UI design. The good news is that we can provide people with code to include a 'Open in Firefox' action that apps can include so that it appears in the OS provided menu, right where people expect it. Note that this is also what pretty much all apps do currently. Custom share UI is on its way out for a while. * IntentKit (and similar projects) are not the way forward since it will break with iOS9 where Apple is more strict about what apps can open what other apps. You basically have to whitelist things on both sides. I think Univeral Links may be the alternative? See WWDC 2015 security session. I think all libraries like IntentKit, which also includes ShareKit for example, are a complete dead end. And honestly I have not yet seen a single popular app using them in the real world. S.
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