InterApp

InterApp is a small library which provides a simple interface for inter-application communication and a bit more. The approach is based on services and provides an unified way to call services in-app and inter-app using URL-schemes. No URL-parsing is needed, the library parses the URL and calls the appropiate selectors on the appropiate target.

Usage

Register services:

/// In App A
[[IAServiceManager sharedManager] registerService:self forSelector:@"alert://show"];

/// In App B
[[IAServiceManager sharedManager] registerService:masterViewController forSelector:@"todo://list"];

Call a service (from app A):

/// App B will be started using URL scheme.
[[[IAServiceManager sharedManager] proxyToService:@"todo://list"] addItem:self.textField.text]; 

/// Will be handled locally.
[[[IAServiceManager sharedManager] proxyToService:@"alert://show"] presentAlert:self.textField.text]; 

Some details

proxyToService:serviceSelector returns a proxy instance which records all selectors called on it (except invoke), and finally on the proxy's dealloc or on explicitly called invoke the recorded sequence will be invoked.

The invocation will be handled either - locally if there is any matching service recorded - or by forming an appropiate url and passing the request to any other installed application which registered the used URL scheme and can handle the request.

Restrictions

• All published service methodes must have only object-type parameters, and return values.
• Inter-app calls can handle only JSON-convertable objects specified for NSJSONSerialization

Note

See the working sample applications and the library code for more details.

Planned Features

• handling returned values using block-based callbacks.