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Posts tagged with "URL Scheme"

PDF Expert 4.4 With PDF Converter Integration→

PDF Expert 4.4 With PDF Converter Integration

PDF Expert by Readdle is my preferred PDF reader app for iPad. It comes with a polished UI, various annotation tools, and, more importantly, Dropbox sync. The latest update to PDF Expert for iPad, version 4.4, features integration with Readdle’s other PDF app, PDF Converter. As Readdle describes it:

Anyone who has already installed Readdle’s PDF Converter on the iPad can easily convert any files into PDFs from within PDF Expert. Once you send a document to convert in PDF (action button -> convert to PDF), it instantly converts to PDF and is saved back in PDF Expert for annotation. So far, users that have .doc, .pages, .ppt now can convert these file in PDFs and annotate them in PDF Expert.

I have tried the feature with .rtf files (which I often receive), and it works as advertised. Essentially, it works with a URL scheme that from PDF Expert can forward a document to PDF Converter (if installed); this is done through a “Convert to PDF” menu available in the upper toolbar of the document viewer. Once pressed, PDF Expert will send the document to PDF Converter, which will convert it and automatically send it back. I have asked Readdle whether this kind of integration was achieved using x-callback-url, but they told me they’re using their own implementation called RDIntegration.

I personally run my own remote PDF converter through Dropbox, but the option in PDF Expert works nicely and it’s entirely automated, so check it out if you’ve been looking for something like this on iOS and Readdle’s apps.

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Open Google Maps Directions With Siri or Launch Center Pro

Here’s a fun experiment to launch the Google Maps app via URL scheme directly into a new Directions view.

As I detailed this morning, the new Google Maps app for iPhone lets you launch specific views and modes using a URL scheme. You don’t need to be a developer to use the URL scheme; this means you’ll be able to launch the Google Maps app from Safari, Launch Center Pro, or any other launcher using the base comgooglemaps:// URL.

Google’s URL has a scheme for directions with addresses and transportation parameters. It lets you specific a starting address with the saddr parameter, and a destination address with daddr.

Further, you can instruct the URL to open a specific directionsmode, such as driving or transit.

With these parameters, it becomes possible to set up a nice automated workflow to launch directions using Siri or Launch Center Pro. Read more

Google Maps SDK For iOS And URL Scheme→

Google Maps SDK For iOS And URL Scheme

Alongside the launch of its official Maps app for iPhone, Google has also released a developer SDK to let third-party apps embed Google Maps directly. As detailed by Andrew Foster at the Google Geo Developers blog, the SDK – which requires signing up for API access – will allow developers to integrate Google Maps with their own apps, displaying embedded 2D or 3D Maps views with markers and info windows. The blog post also confirms that the SDK will work on the iPad; Google has confirmed to The New York Times that a native iPad version of Maps is indeed coming.

The SDK features vector-based maps that load quickly, allowing users to easily navigate 2D and 3D views, rotating and tilting the map with simple gestures inside your app. Developers can also change the Google maps view to include information such as traffic conditions, and control camera positions in 3D.

In the SDK documentation, Google says that the appearance of Maps embedded through the SDK is the same of the Google Maps apps, and that the SDK “exposes many of the same features”.

However, the SDK isn’t the only way for developers to integrate with Google Maps. Using a URL scheme, developers can point to the Google Maps app and launch it from their app into a specific view or map object. Documentation for the URL scheme is available here. Developers can link to Google Maps with specific views, modes (standard or Street View), set zoom levels, and pass directions with the URL scheme.

It’ll be interesting to see how and when Google Maps-compatible apps such as AroundMe or WhereTo will support the new Google Maps SDK. The addition of a URL scheme shouldn’t be underestimated either, as it’ll enable regular users to launch the app using tools like Launch Center Pro.

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From Instapaper and Pythonista To Dropbox and Evernote As PDF

I’ve already expressed my preference for archiving webpages as PDFs rather than simple “bookmarks” on an online service. When I come across a webpage that I know I want to keep for future reference, I like to generate a clean-looking PDF file with selectable text that I can rely on for years to come.

Lately, I have become obsessed with turning longer articles I find on the Internet also into PDFs for long-term archival. For as much as I like Instapaper, I can’t be sure that the service will be around in the next decades, and I don’t want my archive of longform and quality content to be lost in the cloud. So I have come up with a way to combine Instapaper with the benefit of PDFs, Dropbox, and automation to generate documents off any link or webpage, from any device, within seconds.

Yesterday I put together an iOS and OS X workflow to generate PDFs remotely on my Mac, starting from a simple bookmarklet on iOS. On an iPhone or iPad, I can simply hit a button in Safari, and wait for Pythonista to turn a webpage (that’s already been passed through Instapaper’s text bookmarklet) into an .html file in my Dropbox, which is then converted to PDF and added to Evernote. It sounds complex, but in actual practice I can go from a Safari webpage on iOS to a PDF in the Evernote app in around 30 seconds. Hopefully you’ll find this quick solution useful; feel free to modify it and/or send suggestions. Read more

Pinbook 1.2 Gets iPad Support, Editing, Title Auto-Complete

Pinbook by Collin Donnell is my favorite iOS app for Pinboard. From my previous review of version 1.0:

I think there are several additions the developer could make to Pinbook to make it a more complete app with a faster workflow. Firstly, I’d like to have a bookmarklet that sends a page’s URL and title to Pinbook; for as much as Launch Center support is handy, it doesn’t allow me to copy two arguments simultaneously to the iOS clipboard. The great thing about the Pinboard bookmarklet is that it grabs a link’s URL and title automatically, and then offers suggested tags with auto-completion: Pinbook should do the same.

An iPad version and more navigation options would also be welcome. Like I said, I don’t just use Pinboard to add new bookmarks, but also to discover new ones added by someone else. Access to Popular page and user profiles would be a start.

Today, Pinbook has been updated to version 1.2, which introduces a native iPad app and some new features that I really like. The iPad version features a standard Mail-like layout with a sidebar for bookmarks on the left, and website previews on the right. I find Pinbook for iPad to be a much more pleasant experience to sit back and check on saved bookmarks without switching back and forth between lists and multiple views. On the iPad, Pinbook retains the speed and interface polish that led me to write a positive review of version 1.0: the app takes less than 3 seconds to fetch over 500 bookmarks from my account.

The experience of adding new bookmarks has been improved as well. Aside from the tag suggestions of version 1.1, Pinbook can now also auto-complete titles: independently from the way you send a bookmark (from Launch Center Pro, bookmarklet, or by simply pasting a URL), Pinbook will now automatically fetch the title of the webpage and insert it in the Title field of the Add Bookmark screen.

Personally, I either save bookmarks by pasting a URL saved from somewhere else (usually Tweetbot) or by sending directly to Pinbook. I used to rely on a Pythonista script to save items to Pinboard, but now that Pinbook runs on the iPad and has a more reliable URL scheme I prefer to use this rather than Python. Here’s a bookmarklet to send the current page from Safari to Pinbook:

javascript:window.location='pinbook:///add?url='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)

Last, while Pinbook still doesn’t have any social/discovery features for Pinboard – I am not sure whether the API allows this – it does come with bookmark editing now. Simply open a bookmark and tap on the compose button in the toolbar to start editing.

Pinbook 1.2 is available on the App Store, and I recommend it to every Pinboard user looking for a native and great-looking iOS app.

Launch Center: An Action and Shortcut Hub for your iPhone

Shortly before the Christmas holiday, a few apps got a lot of attention in Apple media after being barred from the App Store for inappropriate use of the Notification Center. These apps, App Switcher, Launch Center, and Quickpick, were submitted with the intent of using the Notification Center as a way to access a list of customized commands (shortcuts) that take advantage of Apple’s and third party URL schemes. App Switcher and Quickpick were pulled, and Launch Center simply didn’t get approval. The three apps removed this feature and are now available on the App Store as standalone applications.

If you jailbreak your iOS devices, these apps probably aren’t going to find their way into your standard toolkit. Paid and free utilities available through Cydia will mirror features available on Android through widgets, the lock screen, and the Notification Center. Purists, however, could find some value in automating common tasks and reducing the time it takes to perform custom actions. Jeff Broderick’s Settings is free, but the icons are fixed and I decided I only want access to a few. There’s also Icon Project, but I have no desire to fiddle with making icons. Of the apps noted above, Launch Center looks polished and simply presents a clean list of actions.

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