Adventures in Swift and iOS App Development
A few months ago, Apple threw out my app Interval Runcalc for being too old. While it wasn't the most innovative, complex or profitable, it was an app I used frequently myself. It was a calculator for time, pace and distance for running not only for straight runs but for the run/walk/run community who use multiple-speed …
A tech author's work is never done. As soon as he or she completes manuscript and gets it published, the manuscript almost immediately becomes obsolete. In my case, Practical Autolayout for Xcode 8 went obsolete a day before I published, but I had no idea about a major change in Xcode 8.1. Until Xcode 8.1, if you …
Modal views are one of the fundamental ways to present view controllers. Some early applications on the iPhone were completely modal views -- some still do. Modals do not do their own housekeeping like navigation controllers or tab controllers, so they are not as efficient for the backbone of your application. They need the user's …
Continue reading "Adding Modal Views and Popovers in Swift 3.0"
Some people don't like Interface Builder and like to code instead. Sometimes your layout is so dynamic you need to lay out in code. In either case, programmatic layout of views becomes the answer instead of auto layout. In Xcode 7 Apple introduced stack views. In an earlier post, I introduced stack views in Interface …
Continue reading "How to Add Stack Views Programmatically and (almost) avoid AutoLayout"
If you hate auto layout, you may be surprised to learn Apple does too. In Xcode 7 Apple introduced a new way to work with constraints called stack views. Stacks are containers that keep views aligned automatically. Originally announced as a lazy man's auto layout, you do need to understand auto layout to use it …
Continue reading "Why Stack Views Are Your Best Friend If You Hate Auto Layout"
Apple messed up big time. They wanted a simple, powerful but flexible system to lay out buttons, labels, images and other objects on the storyboard. They wanted a way to make only one layout and have it work on any iOS device in any orientation. They created Auto Layout and Size classes. Then they messed …
Continue reading "Practical Auto Layout: Are You Ready for iOS 9?"
Once a year, Apple developers get together in San Francisco. Some lucky people in person, most through on-line connections. The event is the World Wide Developer's Confrence (WWDC), the event for those people and companies developing applications for OSX and iOS. As a developer, I look froward to this event every year and have a …
Continue reading "6 Themes to Expect at Apple’s WWDC 2015 No One is Talking About."
Flat User interfaces are a lie. They are not completely flat. One effect continues to be used with them to show depth: Shadows. In flat interfaces it can look like there are some views floating above others by the use of shadows. In this lesson we'll learn to make shadows using the CALayer found in …
Continue reading "Swift Swift: How to Make a Drop Shadow in User Interfaces"
For those who have worked a bit with auto layout, there are two topics that seems to be a real challenge: using a custom UIView, especially when using Core Graphics , and displaying photos either in the foreground or as a background. Both suffer from similar problems. When changing device or changing orientations they are …
Some people want calculator-type buttons. It would be nice to have such buttons for say, an order entry app. In this lesson we'll put together a set of buttons to make a layout for an order entry system. Along the way I'll show how to use a Xib as a modal view in Swift. This …
Continue reading "Swift Swift Tutorials: Calculator Style buttons in an Auto Layout Xib"
