UIActivity activityViewController being presented modally on iPad instead of in popover

Question

When using a customer UIActivity subclass in iOS 6, it\'s possible to specify a custom view controller that will be displayed when your action is chosen from the initial UIA

Answer 1

I had the same problem in iOS 7. The solution to show the custom view in the popover is to create and show it in the -(void)performActivity method instead of returning it in -(UIViewController *)activityViewController.

You can see example code in my question/answer under this link:
iOS 7 custom UIActivity as popover

Answer 2

I just had the same problem but solved it by setting the ViewController to:

[yourViewController setModalPresentationStyle:UIModalPresentationPageSheet];

in

- (UIViewController *)activityViewController

hope this helps

Answer 3

As we are talking about the UIActivityViewController, which is the view showing the available activities to the user. Apple state the following...

Your app is responsible for configuring, presenting, and dismissing this view controller. Configuration for the view controller involves specifying the data objects on which the view controller should act. (You can also specify the list of custom services your app supports.) When presenting the view controller, you must do so using the appropriate means for the current device. On iPad, you must present the view controller in a popover. On iPhone and iPod touch, you must present it modally.

I took the last line as a sign that you have to handle how the view is presented, so I check whether the code is running on iPad and use a UIPopover accordingly. As you can sere here... https://github.com/bufferapp/buffer-uiactivity/blob/master/BufferUIActivity/Views/FirstViewController.m within the following method.

-(IBAction)openUIActivityView:(id)sender {

    NSString *text = @"Hello world";
    NSString *url = @"http://bufferapp.com";


    NSArray *activityItems = @[text, url];

    BufferUIActivity *bufferActivity = [[BufferUIActivity alloc] init];

    UIActivityViewController *activityView = [[UIActivityViewController alloc] initWithActivityItems:activityItems applicationActivities:@[ bufferActivity ]];


    if (UI_USER_INTERFACE_IDIOM() == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPhone) {
        [self presentViewController:activityView animated:YES completion:^{

        }];
    } else {
        // Change Rect to position Popover
        self.popup = [[UIPopoverController alloc] initWithContentViewController:activityView];
        [self.popup presentPopoverFromRect:CGRectMake(self.view.frame.size.width/2, self.view.frame.size.width/2, 100, 100) inView:self.view permittedArrowDirections:UIPopoverArrowDirectionAny animated:YES];
    }

}

Answer 4

I think the issue with the activity view controller not showing in a popover is a bug and the docs reflect the correct intent. However, I don’t know of a way to workaround this atm.

The part about dismissing the view controller, however, is a different issue. You are not supposed to dismiss the view controller that you return from -[UIActivity activityViewController], but you are responsible for dismissing the popover that you have presented, which in turn will also remove your custom view controller from the hierarchy. (And because it works this way, I’m inclined to believe that the custom view controller would normally have to be shown in the popover.)

Here’s an example with code from your example app:

UIActivityViewController *vc = [[UIActivityViewController alloc] initWithActivityItems:activityItems
                                                                 applicationActivities:applicationActivities];

vc.completionHandler = ^(NSString *activityType, BOOL completed){
  [self.activityPopoverController dismissPopoverAnimated:YES];
};