Handle sharing from other apps (iOS)

[gnprice]

Same thing as #117, but for iOS.

This feature seems to be less commonly requested on iOS than on Android, but will be useful there too -- at least for sharing links.

[borisyankov]

I think #674 will eventually address iOS also. It is just that not yet.
@jainkuniya is using this:
https://github.com/alinz/react-native-share-extension

[gnprice]

One use case a user described in chat today:

• Take an audio recording in some other app.
• Share that with coworkers.

Screenshots in that thread of the existing flow: "share" from the app that has the data; the sharing UI has a bunch of apps in it, including Telegram; on choosing Telegram, a list of contacts to send it to appears (IIUC), still in the sharing UI; then select the destination and send.

[gnprice]

From a quick look at Apple docs, I believe the Telegram flow seen in those screenshots is an example of a "share extension":
https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/ios/extensions/sharing-and-actions/
and/or an "activity view":
https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/ios/views/activity-views/

The main technical documentation for these appears to be
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/General/Conceptual/ExtensibilityPG/Share.html
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uiactivityviewcontroller
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uiactivity

Key terms include UIActivity, UIActivityViewController, SLComposeServiceViewController. (The last name is because it's "social" -- very 2012.)

[alexclaydon]

Hello, is iOS share functionality still expected to be implemented at some point? I was trying to share a file into a stream and found that Zulip does not appear in the iOS share sheet.

[chrisbobbe]

We've just got another report of this, here. I think this will be easier now that #117 is resolved (there's some added React Native code that we should be able to reuse for this, right?), but this will still take some research into how sharing to Zulip should be handled in the iOS native code.

This looks like some design guidelines for sharing: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/ios/extensions/sharing-and-actions/

[gnprice]

Marking as a priority because this is a recurring feature request. Happily we added the corresponding feature on Android just a couple of weeks ago (#117), and yeah, we'll definitely want to reuse that JS-side code here. (Possibly with some refactoring, as needed.)

For Apple documentation on how to implement the platform side of this, see those design guidelines and the other docs linked in my comment above: #3277 (comment)

[gnprice]

Another user request for this feature: #4586 (comment)

[fuzunspm]

Any news about this? It basically kills work flow and very important feature