iOS 8 custom UIActivity image black background color

Question

I am trying to add a custom UIActivity of type UIActivityCategoryAction to UIActivityController. But in iOS 8, all of them are appearing with a black background.

Is there a way to change this?

Tennyson

Answer 1

There are 3 things to note here:

1. image background,
2. image opaqueness,
3. image size.

---

iOS 7

1. Image background:

Image background should be transparent.

2. image opaqueness

The "visible part" of the icon should be non transparent aka opaque. Note that any color information won't be preserved:

3. image size

Because the image won't be scaled by the system if too small/big, you have to provide appropriately sized image. I found image size 120px x 120px to fit perfectly.

Note: this size also takes icon padding into account.

---

iOS 8+

1. Image background:

Image background should be white to match the system UIAction icons but you can also use an arbitrary color.

2. image opaqueness

Same as in iOS 7, "visible" part of the icon should be non transparent aka opaque, however in iOS 8+ color information will be preserved.

3. image size

I am using image with size 240px x 240px, but you can apply custom sized image because system will automatically scalle-to-fill image if too small/big.

---

Wrap up

That said, if you want to support both iOS 7 and iOS 8+, you have to have 2 versions of custom UIActivity icon image.

For iOS 7 you should use 120px x 120px sized image with transparent background. Note: find the size that best suits your needs.

For iOS 8+ you should use custom sized square image with white background and "visible" part of an arbitrary colour.

Code example

- (UIImage *)activityImage
{
    if ([[[UIDevice currentDevice] systemVersion] floatValue] >= 8.0) {
        return [UIImage imageNamed:@"activity_icon_ios8"];
    }
    else {
        return [UIImage imageNamed:@"activity_icon"];
    }
}

Hope that helps!

Negris

Great answer. Is this documented anywhere? – Among

Any info on the icon displayed next to the activity on tapping "More"? – Penknife

@rkunde Thanks! I haven't been able to find any documentation on this. I believe they will add it in the future. – Negris

@Penknife I see what you mean. I think there is no way of customizing/providing a custom activity icon for "Activities" screen of UIActivityController. At least for now. – Negris

iOS 8 icons do not need to have a white background. I could use any color, such as green. – Candelabra

@Candelabra no one said that you can't use an arbitrary color for background. I said that the background should be white if you want to match the system UIAction icons. – Negris

I tried creating an image in iOS 9 that was 240x240 and it did not auto-scale down. I had to change it to 120x120 – Philippine

@zerotool I just tried and had no problems using 240x240 with iOS 9.2. It scales properly. I was using 240px x 240px PNG as 2x. – Negris

Looks like it auto scales down for UIActivityCategoryShare but not UIActivityCategoryAction – Philippine

For settings image there is a solution here using activitySettingsImage, but it's undocumented at this moment – Concavity