Custom printing options using AirPrint and UIPrintInteractionController

Question

I've successfully added printing capabilities to an iPad application that makes use of the UIPrintInteractionController class. Things work well, and a standard document is printed.

There are a couple BOOL properties that can be defined for a print job in my application, however. (Turning on certain features, adding additional layout schemes, etc.)

How can these options be presented/modified by the user using the UIPrintInteractionController? The perfect solution would be to add a couple switch table view cells to the UITableView that is presented in that controller, but this doesn't seem to be allowed by the API.

Edit: This is the view I'm referring to:

Answer 1

It looks like the best bet (so far) is to assign a delegate to the UIPrintInteractionController, and have that delegate implement the method:

- (UIViewController *)printInteractionControllerParentViewController:(UIPrintInteractionController *)printInteractionController

If the delegate returns an instance of a UINavigationController, then instead of being presented modally, it can be pushed from a UITableViewController subclass that provides a list of options.

From the UIPrintInteractionControllerDelegate class reference:

UIKit can push the returned view controller onto the stack if its parent is a navigation controller or present it modally if it isn’t.

UIPrintInteractionControllerDelegate Class Reference

Answer 2

You could try to subclass UIPrintInteractionController, there's no hint in the Class Reference that it's not possible.

Answer 3

Use printInteractionControllerParentViewController, the trick is to declare a UINavigationController *aNav; in .h and then in viewDidLoad do aNav = [self UINavigationController]; this will save the navigationController handle (assuming self is a UITableViewController with UINavigationController setup ok).

Then after invoke the uiprinterinteraction, do aNav.topViewController.viw.backgroundColor = [UIColor redColor]; to change the uiprinterinteraction background color to red.

Lastly, in printInteractionControllerParentViewController do a return aNav;

Now you have successfully change the background color of the AirPrint ui.

By using this aNav, you can do a lot of thing.