Serialization

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PhotoEditor SDK for iOS supports serialization and deserialization, allowing your users to save and revise their work at any time.

For the sake of this example, we create a photo from a URL and present the photo editor in a modal. Note, that we have to make the current class the delegate of the PhotoEditViewController in order to handle export and cancellation there.

Save serialization#

In order to obtain a Data object, of all edits that have been applied to the exported photo, simply call serializedSettings on the photoEditViewController. You can optionally convert these settings to a JSON string or JSON dictionary. For details on the JSON structure you can download our schema.

For further processing you can save the data to the local file system (compare Save Photo to File System) or upload it to a remote server (compare Save Photo To Remote Server) to make the editor state available on other devices as well.

The next section explains how to restore the editor state by deserializing these settings.


import PhotoEditorSDK
import UIKit

class PhotoSerializationSwift: Example, PhotoEditViewControllerDelegate {
  override func invokeExample() {
    // Create a `Photo` from a URL to an image in the app bundle.
    let photo = Photo(url: Bundle.main.url(forResource: "LA", withExtension: "jpg")!)

    // Create and present the photo editor. Make this class the delegate of it to handle export and cancelation.
    let photoEditViewController = PhotoEditViewController(photoAsset: photo)
    photoEditViewController.delegate = self
    photoEditViewController.modalPresentationStyle = .fullScreen
    presentingViewController?.present(photoEditViewController, animated: true, completion: nil)
  }

  // MARK: - PhotoEditViewControllerDelegate

  func photoEditViewControllerShouldStart(_ photoEditViewController: PhotoEditViewController, task: PhotoEditorTask) -> Bool {
    // Implementing this method is optional. You can perform additional validation and interrupt the process by returning `false`.
    true
  }

  func photoEditViewControllerDidFinish(_ photoEditViewController: PhotoEditViewController, result: PhotoEditorResult) {
    // The image has been exported successfully and is passed as an `Data` object in the `result.output.data`.
    // To create an `UIImage` from the output, use `UIImage(data:)`.
    // See other examples about how to save the resulting image.

    // To get a `Data` object of all edits which have been applied to an image, you can use the following method.
    // You can decide whether the serialized settings should also contain the JPEG-encoded image data or not.
    let serializedSettings = photoEditViewController.serializedSettings(withImageData: false)

    // Optionally, you can convert the serialized settings to a JSON string if needed.
    let jsonString = String(data: serializedSettings!, encoding: .utf8)
    print(jsonString!)

    // Or to a `Dictionary`.
    let jsonDict = try? JSONSerialization.jsonObject(with: serializedSettings!, options: [])
    print(jsonDict! as Any)

    // You can use either `serializedSettings`, `jsonString`, or `jsonDict` for further processing, such as
    // uploading it to a remote URL or saving it to the filesystem. See `SavePhotoToRemoteURLSwift` or
    // `SavePhotoToFilesystemSwift` to get an idea about the approach to take for this.

    // For loading serialized settings into the editor, please take a look at `PhotoDeserializationSwift`.

    // Dismiss the editor.
    presentingViewController?.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
  }

  func photoEditViewControllerDidFail(_ photoEditViewController: PhotoEditViewController, error: PhotoEditorError) {
    // There was an error generating the photo.
    print(error.localizedDescription)
    // Dismissing the editor.
    presentingViewController?.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
  }

  func photoEditViewControllerDidCancel(_ photoEditViewController: PhotoEditViewController) {
    // The user tapped on the cancel button within the editor. Dismissing the editor.
    presentingViewController?.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
  }
}