Sharing extension points to allow an application to share content via a sharing extension

A non-transitory machine-readable medium having instructions stored therein, which when executed by a data processing system, cause the data processing system to perform operations comprising:

• receiving, by the data processing system, a request to share content displayed by a host application executing on the data processing system, the request including a representation of the content to be shared;
• transmitting, by the host application, a share command to a sharing application that has been previously installed and registered with the computing system, wherein the sharing application is associated with an extension, wherein the host application and the extension are each separately sandboxed processes, and wherein the host application and the extension communicate through an extension point via inter-process communication such that the host application and the extension do not communicate directly with each other;
• generating, by the sharing application, a share sheet view including a representation of the content;
• injecting, by the sharing application, the share sheet view into the host application, wherein the host application displays a preview of the content to be shared by the extension associated with the sharing application, the extension executing on the data processing system, wherein the share sheet view includes an option to post the content to a website;
• in response to the host application receiving a command, transmitting, by the host application, to the extension, the content to be shared;
• and
• receiving, by the extension, the content from the host application and posting the content to the website.

A computing system, comprising:

• a set of one or more processors;
• and
• a memory coupled to the set of one or more processors storing instructions, which when executed from the memory, cause the set of one or more processors to perform operations, the operations comprising:
• receiving, by the computing system, a request to share content displayed by a host application executing on the computing system, the request including data representing the content to be shared;
• transmitting, by the host application, a share command to a sharing extension that has been previously installed and registered on the computing system, wherein the sharing extension is associated with a sharing platform, wherein the host application and the sharing extension are each separately sandboxed processes, and wherein the host application and the sharing extension communicate through a sharing extension point via inter-process communication such that the host application and sharing extension do not communicate directly with each other;
• generating, by the sharing extension, a share sheet view including a representation of the content to be shared;
• injecting, by the sharing extension, the share sheet view into the host application, wherein the host application displays a preview of the content to be shared on the sharing platform with the sharing extension, and wherein the preview includes an option to send the content to the web site;
• in response to the host application receiving a command, transmitting, by the host application to the sharing extension, the content to be shared;
• and
• receiving, by the sharing extension, from the host application, the content to be shared by the sharing extension, and sending the content to the sharing platform.