Share: Share Documents/Files

[jrahma]

Hi,

Please add an option to Share Documents with a Title and URL..

For example, share PDF in Whatsapp or Google Drive or One Drive or DropBox..

Thanks,
Jassim

VS bug #735659

[mattleibow]

This is probably related to the #129 and #416 and some other issues. The basic problem is that sharing files may require access to internal/local app files. I think #416 is to address the initial limitation.

[Redth]

1.1.0 has file sharing!

[xamarin-release-manager]

[VS sync] The field 'Milestone' contains the value '1.1.0' that is not in the list of supported values

[mfeingol]

Nice to see this land! I gave it a spin on Android with code along these lines:

        string filePath = path to a PDF;
        string contentType = "application/pdf";

        ShareFile share = new ShareFile(filePath, contentType);
        ShareFileRequest request = new ShareFileRequest(Path.GetFileName(filePath), share);
        await Share.RequestAsync(request);

It worked, in that a system dialog opened with some apps as options. However, the apps were Gmail, Save to Drive, and Messages, aka generic options. If I use the more traditional approach (e.g. https://www.syncfusion.com/kb/8707/how-to-share-the-pdf-document-in-xamarin-forms-platform), I get PDF-specific options, such as "Drive PDF Viewer".

Is there some setup required before the feature will work as expected?

Thanks.

[jamesmontemagno]

You will need to enable the experimental features:

// Enable currently experimental features
ExperimentalFeatures.Enable(
ExperimentalFeatures.EmailAttachments,
ExperimentalFeatures.ShareFileRequest);

Under the hood it calls:

            var contentUri = Platform.GetShareableFileUri(request.File.FullPath);

            var intent = new Intent(Intent.ActionSend);
            intent.SetType(request.File.ContentType);
            intent.SetFlags(ActivityFlags.GrantReadUriPermission);
            intent.PutExtra(Intent.ExtraStream, contentUri);

            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(request.Title))
            {
                intent.PutExtra(Intent.ExtraTitle, request.Title);
            }

            var chooserIntent = Intent.CreateChooser(intent, request.Title ?? string.Empty);
            chooserIntent.SetFlags(ActivityFlags.ClearTop);
            chooserIntent.SetFlags(ActivityFlags.NewTask);
            Platform.AppContext.StartActivity(chooserIntent);

            return Task.CompletedTask;

Which looks pretty much identical to what is in that article, so should work.

[mfeingol]

@jamesmontemagno: I spent a little more time on this. Ultimately, it's a question of intent. :-)

My app currently does the following:

            Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ActionView);
            intent.SetDataAndType(contentUri, contentType);
            intent.SetFlags(Android.Content.ActivityFlags.ClearWhenTaskReset | Android.Content.ActivityFlags.NewTask | Android.Content.ActivityFlags.GrantReadUriPermission);
            Android.App.Application.Context.StartActivity(intent);

This results in the following system dialog:

Using the ActionSend intent as the code does above results in the following system dialog, which is indeed identical to the one from Xamarin.Essentials.Share.RequestAsync:

I have no basis for judging which of the two intents is preferable for an abstraction that involves sharing files. My particular use case is to launch an external viewer, and ActionView clearly works better for that. So for Xamarin Essentials, perhaps a different abstraction is needed for launching files, or perhaps some kind of selector on ShareFileRequest to specify the precise intention?

[jamesmontemagno]

Ahhhhh yes, this makes sense! Good call. The API is still not final so we can easily play around with this. I think we can add an intention on it. Or we can have "ShareFileRequest" and "ViewFileRequest".. @Redth

The question is... is it different in UWP and iOS at all?

[jamesmontemagno]

Re-opening for now since we are reving the API

[mfeingol]

UWP distinguishes between launching a file (Windows.System.Launcher.LaunchFileAsync) and sharing a file (Windows.ApplicationModel.DataTransfer.DataTransferManager.ShowShareUI).

[xamarin-release-manager]

[VS sync] The field 'Milestone' contains the value '1.1.1' that is not in the list of supported values

[sarthak199526]

Hi friends for android version > 24 you need to use fileProvider class

use : Uri uri = FileProvider.getUriForFile(MainActivity.this, BuildConfig.APPLICATION_ID + ".provider",fileImagePath);

InsteadOf : Uri uri = Uri.fromFile(fileImagePath);

Just Implemented On my app

Reference : https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38200282/android-os-fileuriexposedexception-file-storage-emulated-0-test-txt-exposed

[mattleibow]

@jamesmontemagno, maybe this is where we should be using the launcher to open files and the share to share? This may mean we have to extend the launcher apis

[RhomGit]

Agreed with @mattleibow above.
I see this has been open for roughly 9 months but is slated for 1.1.1 … which itself is 22 days overdue. Just to be sure (I have clients requiring this functionality asap) does this mean that it can be expected "soon" or perhaps I should implement an alternative solution until some unknown future date?

I don't want to appear rude (I am grateful for all of the effort on this project) and I would prefer to use a Xamarin.Essentials function for opening files but its hard to make decisions without knowing a little more. Is work already underway on this?

[jamesmontemagno]

@RhomGit the ability to share is already integrated into 1.1.0 and we re-opened this to expand to opening the file. We are working on new features and bug fixes regularly.

[jamesmontemagno]

Closing now as API is in 1.2.0-pre shipping soon :)