ISHPermissionKit

ISHPermissionKit provides a polite and unified way of asking for permission on iOS. It also provides UI to explain the permission requirements before presenting the system permission dialog to the user. This allows the developer to postpone the system dialog. The framework provides no actual chrome, leaving the developer and designer in charge of creating the views.

While you can use ISHPermissionKit to ask for a user's permission for multiple categories at the same time and out of context, you should continue to ask for permission only when the app needs it. However, there might be occassions when multiple permissions are required at the same time, e.g., when starting to record location and motion data.

This framework also provides explicit ways to ask for the user's permission where the system APIs only provide implicit methods of doing so.

Supported permission categories:

• Calendar: Events and Reminders
• Contacts
• Location: Always and WhenInUse
• Motion: Activity data (step counting, etc.)
• HealthKit
• Microphone
• Music Library
• Notifications: Local and Remote
• Photos: Library and Camera
• Social: Facebook, Twitter, SinaWeibo, TencentWeibo
• Siri
• Speech Recognition

The library compiles with the iOS 11 SDK and later and deploys back to iOS 9. Permission categories that were added later than the deployment target will be skipped on unsupported versions.

All permission categories relate to sensitive user information. If your app binary contains code to access this information, it has to comply with special review guidelines and other requirements to pass binary validation in App Store Connect and app review. Therefore, you must specifically enable the categories you need with build flags, everything else will not be included in the framework. Please read the installation instructions carefully.

ISHPermissionKit verifies that the required usage descriptions are provided in your app's Info.plist. If the DEBUG preprocessor macro is set, it will assert and explain which keys need to be added. Other requirements for each permission category are mentioned in the header documentation in ISHPermissionCategory.h.

In contrast to other libraries, ISHPermissionKit allows you to present custom view controllers, ask for several permissions in a sequence, provides a unified API through subclasses, and is iOS 10 compatible.

Recommended reading: The Right Way to Ask Users for Mobile Permissions

Roadmap

Missing features:

1. Resetting state correctly when device is reset
2. Permission monitoring and NSNotifications upon changes

Please file an issue for missing permissions.

How to Use

Sample App

In order to demonstrate all steps that are required to use ISHPermissionKit, the sample application has a separate repository.

The sample app uses the dynamically-linked framework.

Installation

Build Flags

Your variant of ISHPermissionKit will only include the permission categories you actually need. We use preprocessor macros to ensure any unused code is not compiled to save you from suprising App Store rejections, as some privacy guidelines apply to all apps that contain code to access user data, regardless of whether or not the code is ever called in your app. How to enable the categories you need depends on how you install ISHPermissionKit (see below).

Static Library

Add this Xcode project as a subproject of your app. Then link your app target against the static library (ISHPermissionKitLib.a). You will also need to add the static library as a target dependency. Both settings can be found in your app target's Build Phases.

You must provide a build configuration manually.

Use #import <ISHPermissionKit/ISHPermissionKit.h> to import all public headers. The static library version is recommended if you are concerned about app launch times, as a high number of dynamic libraries could increase the latter.

Dynamically-Linked Framework

Add this Xcode project as a subproject of your app. Then add the framework (ISHPermissionKit.framework) to the app's embedded binaries (on the General tab of your app target's settings). On the Build Phases tab, verify that the framework has also been added to the Target Dependencies and Link Binary with Libraries phases, and that a new Embed Frameworks phase has been created.

You must provide a build configuration manually.

You can use Carthage to fetch and build the framework. You will still have to provide a build configuration manually.

The framework can be used as a module, so you can use @import ISHPermissionKit; to import all public headers. Further reading on Modules: Clang Documentation

Providing a Build Configuration

When building the static or dynamic library, ISHPermissionKit will look for a file named ISHPermissionKitAppConfiguration.xcconfig in the same directory as ISHPermissionKit's root directory (not within the root directory), and two levels further up the directory hierarchy. Configuration files in either location allow you to set preprocessor flags that will be used when compiling the framework.

We strongly recommend to start with a copy of the template config provided in this repository, ISHPermissionKitAppConfiguration.xcconfig. It includes a list of all supported flags, and you can easily specify which features you need by commenting or uncommenting the respective lines.

You will have to use the same configuration file to build your app, else the category-specific symbols will not be available. In your project settings, you can select a configuration file for each target:

If you already use a configuration file, you can pick one and include the other in it. Ensure to always use $(inherited) when setting preprocessor macros.

Required Frameworks

ISHPermissionKit uses system frameworks to accomplish its tasks. Most of them will be linked automatically unless you have disabled "Enable Modules" (CLANG_ENABLE_MODULES) and "Link Frameworks Automatically" (CLANG_MODULES_AUTOLINK) in your app target's build settings.

Unfortunately, some framework are not weakly linked automatically which will cause your app to crash at launch on older systems that don't support the respective framework. These frameworks must be explicitly linked in your app, and set to "Optional". Feel free to duplicate rdar://28008958 (https://openradar.appspot.com/search?query=28008958).

This is currently required for the Speech framework, and only if you enable the speech permission category.

Cocoa Pods

You can use CocoaPods to install ISHPermissionKit as a static or dynamic library. Each permission category requires a separate (sub)pod. The following sample Podfile includes all available pods – you should pick only those that you are actually using in your app.

target 'MyApp' do
  use_frameworks! // remove this line if you want to link your pods statically
  pod 'ISHPermissionKit/Motion'
  pod 'ISHPermissionKit/Health'
  pod 'ISHPermissionKit/Location'
  pod 'ISHPermissionKit/Microphone'
  pod 'ISHPermissionKit/PhotoLibrary'
  pod 'ISHPermissionKit/Camera'
  pod 'ISHPermissionKit/Notifications'
  pod 'ISHPermissionKit/SocialAccounts'
  pod 'ISHPermissionKit/Contacts'
  pod 'ISHPermissionKit/Calendar'
  pod 'ISHPermissionKit/Reminders'
  pod 'ISHPermissionKit/Siri'
  pod 'ISHPermissionKit/Speech'
  pod 'ISHPermissionKit/MusicLibrary'
end

Providing a build configuration manually is not required when you use CocoaPods, and you can also ignore the Required Frameworks section.

See the official website to get started with CocoaPods.

ISHPermissionsViewController

You can request permission for a single category or a sequence of categories. The following example presents a ISHPermissionsViewController for Activity and LocationWhenInUse permissions if needed.

NSArray *permissions = @[
    @(ISHPermissionCategoryLocationWhenInUse),
    @(ISHPermissionCategoryActivity)
    ];
ISHPermissionsViewController *vc = [ISHPermissionsViewController permissionsViewControllerWithCategories:permissions dataSource:self];

if (vc) {
    UIViewController *presentingVC = [self.window rootViewController];
    [presentingVC presentViewController:vc
                               animated:YES
                             completion:nil];
}

The designated constructor returns nil if non of the categories allow a user prompt (either because the user already granted or denied the permission, does not want to be asked again, or the feature is simply not supported on the device).

You can set a completionBlock or delegate (both optional) that will be notified once the ISHPermissionsViewController has iterated through all categories. If you do not set a delegate, the view controller will simply be dismissed once finished, and if set, the completion block will be called. If you do set a delegate, the delegate is responsible for dismissing the view controller.

The dataSource is required and must provide one instance of a ISHPermissionRequestViewController for each requested ISHPermissionCategory.

The ISHPermissionRequestViewController provides IBActions to prompt for the user's permission, ask later, and don't ask. It does not however provide any buttons or UI. Your subclass can create a view with text, images, and buttons etc., explaining in greater detail why your app needs a certain permission. The subclass should contain buttons that trigger at least one of the actions mentioned above (see the header for their signatures). A cancel button should call changePermissionStateToAskAgainFromSender:. If your subclass overwrites any of these three actions, you must call super.

ISHPermissionRequest

The ISHPermissionRequest can be used to determine the current state of a permission category. It can also be used to trigger the user prompt asking for permissions outside of the ISHPermissionsViewController.

You must use the additional (...+All.h) method +requestForCategory: to create the appropriate request for the given permission category.

Here is how you check the permissions to access the microphone:

ISHPermissionRequest *r = [ISHPermissionRequest requestForCategory:ISHPermissionCategoryMicrophone];
BOOL granted = ([r permissionState] == ISHPermissionStateAuthorized);

The same example for local notifications:

ISHPermissionRequest *r = [ISHPermissionRequest requestForCategory:ISHPermissionCategoryNotificationLocal];
BOOL granted = ([r permissionState] == ISHPermissionStateAuthorized);

How to Contribute

Contributions are welcome. Check out the roadmap and open issues. Adding support for more permission types is probably most rewarding, you can find a few hints on how to get started below.

Adding Support for New Permissions

You will need to create a new subclass of ISHPermissionRequest and add an ISHPermissionCategory (make sure to use explicit values as these may be persisted). Don't change existing values. Finally, wire it up in ISHPermissionRequest+All by returning your new subclass in +requestForCategory:.

Subclasses must implement at least two methods:

1. - (ISHPermissionState)permissionState
2. - (void)requestUserPermissionWithCompletionBlock:(ISHPermissionRequestCompletionBlock)completion

What these methods actually do depends on the mechanism that the system APIs provide. Ideally, permissionState should check the system authorization state first and return appropriate internal enum values from ISHPermissionState. If the system state is unavailable or is similar to kCLAuthorizationStatusNotDetermined then this method should return internalPermissionState. You should try to map system provided states to ISHPermissionState without resorting to the internalPermissionState as much as possible.

When requesting the permission state you should only store the result in internalPermissionState if the state cannot easily be retrieved from the system (as is the case, e.g., with activity monitoring from the designated co-processor).

Before a new permission can be added, you must introduce a new build flag and ensure the library compiles with and without it. Please update this document accordingly, add the new build flag to the template configuration file (ISHPermissionKitAppConfiguration.xcconfig), and create a new CocoaPods subspec.

Attribution

ISHPermissionKit icon designed by Jason Grube (CC BY 3.0) from the Noun Project

More OpenSource Projects by iosphere

ISHHoverBar - A floating UIToolBar replacement as seen in the iOS 10 Maps app, supporting both vertical and horizontal orientation

ISHPullUp - Vertical split view controller with pull up gesture as seen in the iOS 10 Maps app

Apps Using ISHPermissionKit

If your app uses ISHPermissionKit, let us know and we will include it here.