Today we're continuing our hunt for hidden gems in UIKit with UIVideoEditorController.

It's a cousin to UIImagePickerViewController that exposes just the basic video editing functionality from that class in a standalone, dedicated video editing view controller.

Let's give it a try.

First, we'll need a video file to edit. We'll use this one which is part of a freely available collection.

We'll download the video, rename it to something simple, and drag it into Xcode. We'll check the box next to our app in the dialog that appears, so it gets copied to our app target.

Now, let's write some code.

First, we'll make sure our video can be found:

guard let path = Bundle.main.path(forResource: "video", ofType: "mp4") else { return }

...and that UIKit knows how to edit it:

guard UIVideoEditorController.canEditVideo(atPath: path) else { return }

Nice. Next, we can create a new video editor view controller and configure a few things on it:

let editor = UIVideoEditorController()

editor.videoPath = path
editor.videoMaximumDuration = 10.0
editor.videoQuality = .typeIFrame1280x720

Here we've told it our path, and given it a 10 second max duration. (Pro Tip: Default is 10 minutes, set to 0 for no max).

From here we can simply present it like any other view controller:

present(editor, animated: true, completion: nil)

Neat!

The best part is all the functionality is self-contained inside the view controller.

The user can scrub through:

Trim the edges:

Then save the video back to the videoPath we set earlier:

Note: The documentation mentions UIVideoEditorController "only supporting Portrait" orientations, but it seems to work fine in all orientations.

Last but not least, we can (optionally) set a delegate on our UIVideoEditorController to get notified when the user saves or cancels (or a save fails):

editor.delegate = self

extension SomeViewController : 
    UIVideoEditorControllerDelegate, 
    UINavigationControllerDelegate {

  func videoEditorController(_ editor: UIVideoEditorController, 
    didSaveEditedVideoToPath editedVideoPath: String) {

    print("saved!")
  }
}

That's all for today. Know of an interesting UIKit B-side?

Send it on over!