Tag: iOS

Categories
iOS Swift

Most visited posts in 2018

It is this time of the year when to look back. In total I published 22 blog posts and had 2765 views by 1632 people. Together with 3 posts from the 2017 I now have 25 blog posts.

In the end of the July I posted Sharing UI code with protocol extension what marked the beginning of the biweekly schedule. Since then I have tried to find a topic for every second week and write a concise post with sample code. The aim is to share the knowledge in a compact format and have some ready to use sample code what can be used in your projects. I would like to remind that all the source code is under MIT license so feel free to use as you would like to.

Top 3

My hope is that at least some people found those posts useful and they learned something new. Feel free to contact me on Twitter @toomasvahter. Thank you for reading.

Categories
iOS Swift UIKit

Observing keyboard visibility on iOS

Almost every app needs a way of inserting information using keyboard. When keyboard shows up, we do not want to keep content behind the keyboard hidden and instead, allow user to see it. UIResponder contains several notifications we can use to adjust the layout.

Keyboard change notifications

UIResponder contains a list of notifications and user info keys. We have notifications for reacting to visibility and frame changes (for example when rotating device). Notification’s userInfo contains a variety of information about the change. What makes this API a little bit difficult to use is parsing the user info every time we need to use those notifications. If we need to observe keyboard in several view controllers then the amount of code of setting up observation and doing type casting starts to build up. Therefore it makes more sense to have an object handling the observation and type casting user info keys.

extension UIResponder {
public class let keyboardWillShowNotification: NSNotification.Name
public class let keyboardDidShowNotification: NSNotification.Name
public class let keyboardWillHideNotification: NSNotification.Name
public class let keyboardDidHideNotification: NSNotification.Name
public class let keyboardWillChangeFrameNotification: NSNotification.Name
public class let keyboardDidChangeFrameNotification: NSNotification.Name
public class let keyboardFrameBeginUserInfoKey: String // NSValue of CGRect
public class let keyboardFrameEndUserInfoKey: String // NSValue of CGRect
public class let keyboardAnimationDurationUserInfoKey: String // NSNumber of double
public class let keyboardAnimationCurveUserInfoKey: String // NSNumber of NSUInteger (UIViewAnimationCurve)
public class let keyboardIsLocalUserInfoKey: String // NSNumber of BOOL
}
view raw UIResponder.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Using a KeyboardObserver

KeyboardObserver is a lightweight object observing keyboard related notifications and calling the changeHandler when any of the notifications is received. User info and notification type information is represented with struct Info. Before looking into how it is implemented, let’s take a look on the example.

final class ViewController: UIViewController {
@IBOutlet weak var scrollView: UIScrollView!
private var keyboardObserver: KeyboardObserver?
override func viewWillAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
super.viewWillAppear(animated)
keyboardObserver = KeyboardObserver(changeHandler: { [weak self] (info) in
guard let self = self else { return }
switch info.event {
case .willShow:
self.scrollView.contentInset.bottom = info.endFrame.height
case .willHide:
self.scrollView.contentInset.bottom = 0
default:
break
}
})
}
override func viewDidDisappear(_ animated: Bool) {
super.viewDidDisappear(animated)
keyboardObserver = nil
}
}
view raw ViewController.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Here we can see that setting up observer is straight-forward and accessing end frame of the keyboard does not require any type casting. Compare it with adding observers to those notifications and then using conditional casts for getting relevant information in the view controller. 

Creating a KeyboardObserver

But let’s now take a look on how it is implemented and see how much less code we need to write in the future. KeyboardObserver is initialised with a changeHandler closure like seen in the previous paragraph. Initialiser retains the handler and sets up observers for all the relevant notifications. For simplicity, we are observing all the notifications but it would also be possible to have an extra argument defining a set of Events and then observing only the notifications we really want to react to.

Type casting relies completely on promises made by UIKit. As UIKit promises that user info always contains those values, we can avoid having any optional values in the Info struct. Therefore it is simpler to use the struct later on as no unwrapping is required.

final class KeyboardObserver {
enum Event {
case willShow, didShow, willHide, didHide, willChangeFrame, didChangeFrame
}
struct Info {
let animationCurve: UIView.AnimationCurve
let animationDuration: TimeInterval
let isLocal: Bool
let beginFrame: CGRect
let endFrame: CGRect
let event: Event
}
let changeHandler: (Info) -> ()
init(changeHandler: @escaping (Info) -> ()) {
self.changeHandler = changeHandler
let notifications: [Notification.Name] = [UIResponder.keyboardWillShowNotification,
UIResponder.keyboardDidShowNotification,
UIResponder.keyboardWillHideNotification,
UIResponder.keyboardDidHideNotification,
UIResponder.keyboardWillChangeFrameNotification,
UIResponder.keyboardDidChangeFrameNotification]
notifications.forEach { (notification) in
NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(KeyboardObserver.keyboardChanged(_:)), name: notification, object: nil)
}
}
@objc private func keyboardChanged(_ notification: Notification) {
guard let userInfo = notification.userInfo else { fatalError() }
let event: Event = {
switch notification.name {
case UIResponder.keyboardWillShowNotification: return .willShow
case UIResponder.keyboardDidShowNotification: return .didShow
case UIResponder.keyboardWillHideNotification: return .willHide
case UIResponder.keyboardDidHideNotification: return .didHide
case UIResponder.keyboardWillChangeFrameNotification: return .willChangeFrame
case UIResponder.keyboardDidChangeFrameNotification: return .didChangeFrame
default:
fatalError("Unknown change notification \(notification).")
}
}()
changeHandler(Info(event: event, userInfo: userInfo))
}
}
fileprivate extension KeyboardObserver.Info {
init(event: KeyboardObserver.Event, userInfo: [AnyHashable: Any]) {
self.event = event
animationCurve = {
let rawValue = userInfo[UIResponder.keyboardAnimationCurveUserInfoKey] as! Int
return UIView.AnimationCurve(rawValue: rawValue)!
}()
animationDuration = userInfo[UIResponder.keyboardAnimationDurationUserInfoKey] as! TimeInterval
isLocal = userInfo[UIResponder.keyboardIsLocalUserInfoKey] as! Bool
beginFrame = userInfo[UIResponder.keyboardFrameBeginUserInfoKey] as! CGRect
endFrame = userInfo[UIResponder.keyboardFrameEndUserInfoKey] as! CGRect
}
}
view raw KeyboardObserver.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Summary

We took a look on how to avoid observing multiple notifications and type casting notification user info values on the view controller level. Instead, we created a separate object handling observing and type casting and gives us a simple and concise API to work with.

If this was helpful, please let me know on Mastodon@toomasvahter or Twitter @toomasvahter. Feel free to subscribe to RSS feed. Thank you for reading.

Example project

KeyboardObserver Xcode 10.1, Swift 4.2

References

UIResponder (Apple)

Categories
Generics iOS Swift UIKit

Navigating using flow controllers and responder chain on iOS

Every app consists of different flows for achieving a specific goal. For example, there is a sequence of views for sign up. When sign up flow ends, we need to move to so called main view what represents the main functionality of the app. There are definitely a lot of different ways how to handle app navigation and each of the approach have their own pros and cons. With this in mind, the approach I am going to demonstrate this time, is how to use flow controllers and using responder chain to connect flows to each other.

Navigating from flow to flow

Flow controller is a UIResponder coordinating a single flow in an app. It handles showing views, injecting dependencies and storing intermediate values required to pass from one view controller to another. Navigation from one flow to another happens using responder chain. This also enables us to use sending actions to nil first responder in story boards and xib files. Using responder chain adds extra flexibility when restructuring an app or changing flows a lot. There is only a little code needed to set up new flows. It is a kind of lightweight approach to coordinator pattern where delegation is replaced with responder chain.

Setting up protocols

As a first step we define two protocols: one for defining entry points and the second one for accessing flow controllers from any responder in responder chain. Flow controllers are going to conform to specialised presenting protocol and responders (typically view controller), which trigger navigation, conform to one of the controlling protocols. FlowPresenting protocol is going to define a single function what is used for presenting a first view in the flow. I find examples to be the best way of learning new approaches, therefore let’s build a sample app with three flows: app, login and main flow.

protocol FlowControlling {}
protocol FlowPresenting {
func showInitialView()
}
view raw FlowControlling.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Controlling app flow

AppFlowController is the controller handling presenting new flows. It conforms to AppFlowPresenting protocol what defines entry points to all the different flows. In addition, it handles inserting active flow to responder chain which enables easy access to flow controller from any presented view controller. Finding a flow controller from responder chain is implemented using a generic function. This enables implementing new getters for other flow controllers with just one line.

protocol AppFlowControlling: FlowControlling {
var appFlowController: AppFlowPresenting { get }
}
protocol AppFlowPresenting: FlowPresenting {
func showMainView()
}
extension AppFlowControlling where Self: UIResponder {
var appFlowController: AppFlowPresenting {
return flowController()
}
}
extension UIResponder {
func flowController<T>() -> T {
var current: UIResponder? = self
repeat {
if let presenter = current as? T {
return presenter
}
current = current?.next
} while current != nil
fatalError()
}
}
view raw AppFlowController+Protocols.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

In the current sample app, AppFlowController is going to handle representing all of the flows in the app. This is because all the current flows are consisting of one branch in a so called tree of flows. If we would have a more complex application, other flow controllers would handle their own subset of flows and would insert those flows into responder chain (like AppFlowController is inserting LoginFlowController and MainFlowController into responder chain). This kind of architecture allows creating a tree like structure of flows and separating them from each other – there is not going to be a single controller handling all the flows.

final class AppFlowController: UIResponder, AppFlowPresenting {
private let dependencyManager: DependencyManager
private let window: UIWindow
init(window: UIWindow, dependencyManager: DependencyManager) {
self.dependencyManager = dependencyManager
self.window = window
}
// MARK: Presenting Flows
func showInitialView() {
let controller = LoginFlowController(window: window)
controller.showInitialView()
activeFlow = controller
}
func showMainView() {
let controller = MainFlowController(window: window, dependencyManager: dependencyManager)
controller.showInitialView()
activeFlow = controller
}
// MARK: Managing the Responder Chain
var activeFlow: FlowPresenting? = nil
override var next: UIResponder? {
return activeFlow as? UIResponder
}
}
view raw AppFlowController.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

In the example app we do not use storyboard for initialising the first view (“Main Interface” field in target settings is empty). Instead, we set up a window ourself and use AppFlowController for presenting the first view. In addition, we inject a manager storing a set of dependencies view controllers might require. Having approach like this, we do not need singletons and instead, flow controllers insert dependencies into view controllers. Using dependency injection keeps the overall dependency graph nice and clean.

final class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {
var window: UIWindow?
private var appFlowController: AppFlowController?
private let dependencyManager = DependencyManager()
func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {
let window = UIWindow(frame: UIScreen.main.bounds)
window.rootViewController = UINavigationController()
self.window = window
appFlowController = AppFlowController(window: window, dependencyManager: dependencyManager)
appFlowController?.showInitialView()
window.makeKeyAndVisible()
return true
}
override var next: UIResponder? {
return appFlowController
}
}
view raw AppDelegate.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Creating login flow controller

LoginFlowController has similar set up as AppFlowController with exception of not inserting a subsequent flow into responder chain. In the sample app, login flow does not branch into several other login related flows. At the end of login flow, AppFlowController is used to present main content view. Due to generic function we added to UIResponder extension, login flow controller accessor consists of a single line.

final class LoginFlowController: UIResponder, LoginFlowPresenting {
let window: UIWindow
init(window: UIWindow) {
self.window = window
}
func showInitialView() {
let viewController = UIStoryboard.main.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "login")
(window.rootViewController as? UINavigationController)?.setViewControllers([viewController], animated: false)
}
func showSignUp() {
let viewController = SignUpViewController()
(window.rootViewController as? UINavigationController)?.pushViewController(viewController, animated: true)
}
func showAccountDetails() {
let viewController = UIStoryboard.main.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "accountdetails")
(window.rootViewController as? UINavigationController)?.pushViewController(viewController, animated: true)
}
}
protocol LoginFlowPresenting: FlowPresenting {
func showAccountDetails()
func showSignUp()
}
protocol LoginFlowControlling: FlowControlling {
var loginFlowController: LoginFlowPresenting { get }
}
extension LoginFlowControlling where Self: UIResponder {
var loginFlowController: LoginFlowPresenting {
return flowController()
}
}
view raw LoginFlowController.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Let’s see how view controllers in the login flow trigger navigation. LoginViewController conforms to LoginFlowControlling. This makes loginFlowController accessor available and we can use it for triggering navigation. It should be noted that loginFlowController accessor returns an object conforming to LoginFlowPresenting and does not explicitly declare the type of LoginFlowController. This means that LoginViewController does not know about LoginFlowController, instead, it just knows that the returned object implements methods listed in LoginFlowPresenting protocol. Less coupling makes it easier to test and restructure app in the future.
Another important point to note here is that it is so easy to add navigation capability to any other view controller. Flow controller does not need to be injected and in the end, we just need to make two changes in the whole view controller – protocol extension takes care of adding getter to the interface and triggering navigation is just a single line of code.

final class LoginViewController: UIViewController, LoginFlowControlling {
@IBAction func createAccount(_ sender: Any) {
loginFlowController.showSignUp()
}
}
view raw LoginViewController.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Navigating from login to main view

AccountDetailsViewController is the last view controller in the login flow and it should trigger navigation to the main flow. As seen in previous paragraph, triggering navigation requires only two changes. This is also the case here.

final class AccountDetailsViewController: UIViewController, AppFlowControlling {
@IBAction func goToFirst(_ sender: Any) {
appFlowController.showMainView()
}
}
view raw AccountDetailsViewController.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Summary

This time we took a look on how to use flow controllers and responder chain to easily manage navigation from one view to another. In the end we implemented a scalable architecture where adding navigation trigger points just require a few changes. Scalability comes from the fact that flows can be arranged into tree like structure and there is no requirement to have a single object managing all the flows. Moreover, we added a dependency injection capability to flow controllers which make it so much easier to test components separately and not worrying about singletons.

If this was helpful, please let me know on Mastodon@toomasvahter or Twitter @toomasvahter. Feel free to subscribe to RSS feed. Thank you for reading.

Example Project

FlowController (GitHub) Xcode 10.1, Swift 4.2.1

References

Using Responders and the Responder Chain to Handle Events (Apple)
Generics (Swift)
Tree (data structure) (Wikipedia)

Categories
iOS Swift UIKit

Text input in UITableView

This time we are going to take a look on how to create a form with text input using UITableView. Displaying static text in UITableView is easy but for enabling text input in UITableView and propagating the change back to a model object requires a couple of steps.

Introduction

In this example project we are going to create a table view what consists of several rows with text input. The content of the table view is defined by an object Form. Form’s responsibility is to define the items table view displays and also propagating changes back to a model object. In the end we will have a table view where user can edit properties of a model object.

Creating a model object

Model object what we are going to use is an object representing a note. It just has two properties: topic and title. Whenever topic or title changes, it is logged to the console which is enough for verifying updates to model.

final class Note {
init(topic: String, text: String) {
self.topic = topic
self.text = text
}
var topic: String = "" {
didSet {
print("Topic changed to \(topic).")
}
}
var text: String = "" {
didSet {
print("Text changed to \(text).")
}
}
}
view raw Note.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Creating a Form

Like mentioned before, form is going to dictate the content of the table view by defining sections and items. In this simple case, we just have one section with two rows.

final class Form {
let sections: [FormSection]
init(sections: [FormSection]) {
self.sections = sections
}
}
final class FormSection {
let items: [FormItem]
init(items: [FormItem]) {
self.items = items
}
}
protocol FormItem {}
view raw Form.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

TextInputFormItem represents a single row with editable text field. It defines text, placeholder and change handler. Text is used as initial value and if there is no text, table view cell will display placeholder string instead. When user changes the text in the table view row, change handler is called with the new value. This is where we are going to update the model object with a new value.

struct TextInputFormItem: FormItem {
let text: String
let placeholder: String
let didChange: (String) -> ()
}
view raw TextInputFormItem.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Setting up table view

FormViewController is a UITableViewController subclass and it glues Form and table view together. It uses Form for determining how many sections and items table view has. In addition, based on the item type, it chooses appropriate table view cell for it. In this simple project, we only have items of one type but it is simple to expand it further to support more cell types.

final class FormViewController: UITableViewController {
// MARK: Creating a Form View
let form: Form
init(form: Form) {
self.form = form
super.init(style: .grouped)
}
required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented")
}
// MARK: Managing the View
private enum ReuseIdentifiers: String {
case textInput
}
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
tableView.rowHeight = 44
tableView.register(TextInputTableViewCell.self, forCellReuseIdentifier: ReuseIdentifiers.textInput.rawValue)
}
// MARK: Providing Table View Content
private func model(at indexPath: IndexPath) -> FormItem {
return form.sections[indexPath.section].items[indexPath.item]
}
override func numberOfSections(in tableView: UITableView) -> Int {
return form.sections.count
}
override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, numberOfRowsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
return form.sections[section].items.count
}
override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {
let object = model(at: indexPath)
if let textRow = object as? TextInputFormItem {
let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: ReuseIdentifiers.textInput.rawValue, for: indexPath) as! TextInputTableViewCell
cell.configure(for: textRow)
return cell
}
else {
fatalError("Unknown model \(object).")
}
}
}
view raw FormViewController.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Adding editable text field to UITableViewCell

For text input we are going to use a custom cell. This cell adds an editable text field to its contentView. Secondly, it handles touches began event for moving the first responder to the editable text field when users taps on the row and finally calls change handler when text in the editable text field changes.

final class TextInputTableViewCell: UITableViewCell {
// MARK: Initializing a Cell
override init(style: UITableViewCell.CellStyle, reuseIdentifier: String?) {
super.init(style: style, reuseIdentifier: reuseIdentifier)
contentView.addSubview(editableTextField)
NSLayoutConstraint.activate([
editableTextField.centerYAnchor.constraint(equalTo: contentView.centerYAnchor),
editableTextField.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: contentView.layoutMarginsGuide.leadingAnchor),
editableTextField.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: contentView.layoutMarginsGuide.trailingAnchor)
])
}
required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented")
}
// MARK: Reusing Cells
override func prepareForReuse() {
super.prepareForReuse()
changeHandler = { _ in }
}
// MARK: Managing the Content
func configure(for model: TextInputFormItem) {
editableTextField.text = model.text
editableTextField.placeholder = model.placeholder
changeHandler = model.didChange
}
lazy private var editableTextField: UITextField = {
let textField = UITextField(frame: .zero)
textField.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
textField.addTarget(self, action: #selector(TextInputTableViewCell.textDidChange), for: .editingChanged)
return textField
}()
// MARK: Handling Text Input
override func touchesBegan(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event: UIEvent?) {
editableTextField.becomeFirstResponder()
}
private var changeHandler: (String) -> () = { _ in }
@objc private func textDidChange() {
changeHandler(editableTextField.text ?? "")
}
}
view raw TextInputTableViewCell.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Creating form for model object

Finally it is time to create a Form. We’ll just have one section with two items: one item for Note’s topic and the other one for Note’s text. Whenever text is edited in table view, we’ll get the change callback and then we can propagate the change back to the Note.

extension FormViewController {
convenience init(note: Note) {
let form = Form(sections: [
FormSection(items: [
TextInputFormItem(text: note.topic,
placeholder: "Add title",
didChange: { text in
note.text = text
}),
TextInputFormItem(text: note.text,
placeholder: "Add description",
didChange: { text in
note.text = text
})
])
])
self.init(form: form)
}
}
view raw FormViewController+Note.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Summary

We created a table view with editable text field by subclassing UITableViewCell and adding UITextField to it. Then we created Form and used it to decouple model object from table view. Form’s items provide content for table view cells and handle propagating changes back to the model object.
editing_form_final

If this was helpful, please let me know on Twitter @toomasvahter. Thank you for reading.

Example Project

UITableViewCellTextInput (GitHub) Xcode 10.1, Swift 4.2.1

References

UITableViewCell (Apple)
UITableViewController (Apple)

Categories
iOS Swift UIKit

Creating persistent data store on iOS

Storing data persistently on iOS is something what is needed quite often. In this post, we are going to look into how to build a persistent data store and how to store image data.

Initialising the persistent data store

Persistent data store is an object managing a folder on disk. It allows writing and reading data asynchronously.
Firstly, we need to create a folder where to store all the files. As every instance of the data store should manage its own folder, we will add an argument name to the initialiser. Then we can create a folder in user’s documents folder with that name. As writing and reading data is an expensive operation, we are going to offload the work to a concurrent DispatchQueue. Concurrent dispatch queue allows us to read multiple files at the same time (more about it a bit later).

final class PersistentDataStore {
let name: String
private let dataStoreURL: URL
private let queue: DispatchQueue
init(name: String) throws {
self.name = name
queue = DispatchQueue(label: "com.augmentedcode.persistentdatastore", qos: .userInitiated, attributes: .concurrent, autoreleaseFrequency: .workItem)
let documentsURL = try FileManager.default.url(for: .documentDirectory, in: .userDomainMask, appropriateFor: nil, create: false)
dataStoreURL = documentsURL.appendingPathComponent(name, isDirectory: true)
try FileManager.default.createDirectory(at: dataStoreURL, withIntermediateDirectories: true, attributes: nil)
}
}
view raw PersistentDataStore+Creation.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Storing data asynchronously

Method for storing data on disk consists of closure, identifier and completion handler. This allows us to create a closure what transforms object to data. For example, it could transform UIImage to Data. Secondly, this transformation, possibly slow operation, can be offloaded to the same thread writing the data into a file. Using closure gives us a flexible API what we can extend with convenience methods.

typealias Identifier = String
enum Result {
case failed(Error)
case noData
case success(Identifier)
}
func storeData(_ dataProvider: @escaping () -> (Data?), identifier: Identifier = UUID().uuidString, completionHandler block: @escaping (Result) -> ()) {
queue.async(flags: .barrier) {
let url = self.url(forIdentifier: identifier)
guard let data = dataProvider(), !data.isEmpty else {
DispatchQueue.main.async {
block(.noData)
}
return
}
do {
try data.write(to: url, options: .atomic)
DispatchQueue.main.async {
block(.success(identifier))
}
}
catch {
DispatchQueue.main.async {
block(.failed(error))
}
}
}
}
// Example (adding data to data store with unique identifier):
persistentStore.storeData({ () -> (Data?) in
return image.jpegData(compressionQuality: 1.0)
}) { (result) in
switch result {
case .success(let identifier):
print("Stored data successfully with identifier \(identifier).")
case .noData:
print("No data to store.")
case .failed(let error):
print("Failed storing data with error \(error)")
}
}
view raw PersistentDataStore+Storing.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Identifier is internally used as a filename and default implementation creates unique identifier. Therefore, when data store consumer would like to replace the current file, it can supply an identifier, otherwise new file is created.
Completion handler contains a Result enum type. Result enum consists of three cases: success, transformation failure and data writing failure. Success’ associated value is identifier, failure contains error object and transformation failure is equal to noData.
Important to note here is that the work item has barrier specified. Barrier means that when DispatchQueue starts to handle the work item, it will wait until all the previous work items have finished running. Meaning, we will never try to update a file on disk when some other request is busy reading it.

Loading data asynchronously

Load data is generic method allowing the data transformation closure to return a specific type (e.g. transforming Data to UIImage). Shortly, load data reads file from disk and transforms it into a different type. As transformation can be a lengthy task, it is yet again running on the background thread and will not cause any hiccups in the UI.

func loadData<T>(forIdentifier identifier: Identifier, dataTransformer: @escaping (Data) -> (T?), completionHandler block: @escaping (T?) -> ()) {
queue.async {
let url = self.url(forIdentifier: identifier)
guard FileManager.default.fileExists(atPath: url.path) else {
DispatchQueue.main.async {
block(nil)
}
return
}
do {
let data = try Data(contentsOf: url, options: .mappedIfSafe)
let object = dataTransformer(data)
DispatchQueue.main.async {
block(object)
}
}
catch {
print("Failed reading data at URL \(url).")
DispatchQueue.main.async {
block(nil)
}
}
}
}
// Example
persistentStore.loadData(forIdentifier: "my_identifier", dataTransformer: { UIImage(data: $0) }) { (image) in
guard let image = image else {
print("Failed loading image.")
return
}
print(image)
}
view raw PersistentDataStore+Loading.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Removing data asynchronously

Removing a single file or all of the files is pretty straight-forward. As we are modifying files on disk, we will use barrier again and then FileManager’s removeItem(at:) together with contentsOfDirectory(at:includingPropertiesForKeys:options:).

func removeData(forIdentifier identifier: Identifier) {
queue.async(flags: .barrier) {
let url = self.url(forIdentifier: identifier)
guard FileManager.default.fileExists(atPath: url.path) else { return }
do {
try FileManager.default.removeItem(at: url)
}
catch {
print("Failed removing file at URL \(url) with error \(error).")
}
}
}
func removeAll() {
queue.async(flags: .barrier) {
do {
let urls = try FileManager.default.contentsOfDirectory(at: self.dataStoreURL, includingPropertiesForKeys: nil, options: [])
try urls.forEach({ try FileManager.default.removeItem(at: $0) })
}
catch {
print("Failed removing all files with error \(error).")
}
}
}
view raw PersistentDataStore+Removing.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Extension for storing images

It is easy to extend the PersistentDataStore with convenience methods for storing a specific type of data. This allows us to hide the technical details of transforming image to data and vice-versa. Moreover, calling the method gets easier to read as data transformation closure is not visible anymore.

extension PersistentDataStore {
func loadImage(forIdentifier identifier: Identifier, completionHandler block: @escaping (UIImage?) -> (Void)) {
loadData(forIdentifier: identifier, dataTransformer: { UIImage(data: $0) }, completionHandler: block)
}
func storeImage(_ image: UIImage, identifier: String = UUID().uuidString, completionHandler handler: @escaping (Result) -> ()) {
storeData({ image.jpegData(compressionQuality: 1.0) }, identifier: identifier, completionHandler: handler)
}
}
// Examples:
persistentStore.storeImage(image) { (result) in
print(result)
}
persistentStore.loadImage(forIdentifier: "my_identifier") { (image) -> (Void) in
guard let image = image else {
print("Failed loading image.")
return
}
print(image)
}
view raw PersistentDataStore+Image.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Summary

We created a persistent data store what is performant and has a flexible API. API can be extended easily to support any other data transformation. In addition, it uses thread-safe techniques for making sure data never gets corrupted.

Playground

PersistentDataStore (GitHub) Xcode 10, Swift 4.2

References

DispatchQueues (Apple)
dispatch_barrier_async (Apple)

Categories
iOS Swift

Random unification in Swift 4.2

In the beginning of this year I blogged about how to generate random float and integers. Meanwhile, SE-0202 “Random Unification” got implemented in Swift 4.2 making my additions unnecessary. Let’s take a look how to use new API for getting random numbers.

Random integers, floats and booleans

In my own implementation I was extending range with a function named random(). Swift 4.2 took different path. Instead, it adds functions like static func random(in range: Range, using generator: inout T) -> UInt64 where T : RandomNumberGenerator to FixedWidthInteger, BinaryFloatingPoint and Bool. By default, SystemRandomNumberGenerator with cryptographically secure implementation is used as a generator. But for example if it is required to seed the generator, custom type needs to be created. This might be useful in testing where every execution should produce the same results.
In addition to getting random numbers, there is now API for shuffling a collection or getting a random element. As collections can be empty, the randomElement() function returns optional.

let double = Double.random(in: -1.2...4.5)
let integer = Int.random(in: .min ... .max)
let unsignedInteger = UInt.random(in: 4...9)
let bool = Bool.random()
var generator = SystemRandomNumberGenerator()
let double2 = Double.random(in: 1.0..<4.2, using: &generator)
let array = ["Cat", "Cow", "Dog", "Sheep"]
if let element = array.randomElement() {
print(element) // e.g Dog
}
let shuffled = array.shuffled()
print(array, shuffled) // e.g ["Cat", "Cow", "Dog", "Sheep"] ["Dog", "Cow", "Sheep", "Cat"]
view raw RandomUnification.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Seeded random number generator

As I mentioned before, sometimes it is needed to seed random number generator. Creating a generator what uses a seed is quite simple. First, we need a random number function what supports seeding. Therefore arcrandom() and arcrandom_uniform() are not usable in this use case. What we can use is srand48() for seeding and drand48() for getting a random double in range of 0 to 1. Using this, we can implement the required method in the RandomNumberGenerator protocol.

struct SeededRandomNumberGenerator: RandomNumberGenerator {
init(seed: Int) {
srand48(seed)
}
func next() -> UInt64 {
return UInt64(drand48() * Double(UInt64.max))
}
}
var seededGenerator = SeededRandomNumberGenerator(seed: 5)
let random = Int.random(in: -5...5, using: &seededGenerator)
view raw SeededRandomNumberGenerator.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Summary

We took a look at convenient and flexible APIs for getting and using random numbers in Swift 4.2. In addition, we created a seeded random number generator what might be useful in testing.

Playground

RandomUnification (GitHub) Xcode 10, Swift 4.2

References

SE-0202 (Apple)
RandomNumberGenerator (Apple)
srand48 (linux man pages)

Categories
iOS Swift

Taking photos on iOS

This time we will take a look on how to take photos and browse them on iOS.

Using UIImagePickerController

Creating user interface for taking photos consists of presenting an instance of UIImagePickerController. Controller needs a delegate and source type what defines if we are going to take a photo or pick a photo from the library. But even before creating the controller it is required to call isSourceTypeAvailable(_:) class method and verifying if the source type is available. For example, it returns false if picker’s sourceType is set to UIImagePickerController.SourceType.photoLibrary and the library is empty. Makes sense, as there are no photos to pick from.

@IBAction func takePhoto(_ sender: Any) {
openPhotoPicker(withSource: .camera)
}
@IBAction func choosePhoto(_ sender: Any) {
openPhotoPicker(withSource: .photoLibrary)
}
@discardableResult private func openPhotoPicker(withSource source: UIImagePickerController.SourceType) -> Bool {
guard UIImagePickerController.isSourceTypeAvailable(source) else { return false }
let picker: UIImagePickerController = {
let picker = UIImagePickerController()
picker.delegate = self
picker.sourceType = source
return picker
}()
present(picker, animated: true, completion:nil)
return true
}
view raw UIImagePicker.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

UIImagePickerControllerDelegate contains two methods we need to implement for handling interactions in image picker. Firstly, consuming taken or picked images and secondly, dismissing the picker. Info dictionary in imagePickerController(_:didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo:) contains quite a many values from images to metadata. All the possible keys can be seen here. As a bare minimum we need to handle editedImage and originalImage keys. If it is required to add the image to photo library, then this can be done by calling UIImageWriteToSavedPhotosAlbum(). This starts an asynchronous operation for adding the image to library. And if needed, it is possible to specify callback when this operation finishes.

extension ViewController: UIImagePickerControllerDelegate, UINavigationControllerDelegate {
func imagePickerController(_ picker: UIImagePickerController, didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo info: [UIImagePickerController.InfoKey : Any]) {
let handleImage: (UIImage?) -> () = { (image) in
self.imageView.image = image
self.imageView.isHidden = (image == nil)
if let image = image {
UIImageWriteToSavedPhotosAlbum(image, nil, nil, nil)
}
}
if let image = info[.editedImage] as? UIImage {
handleImage(image)
}
else if let image = info[.originalImage] as? UIImage {
handleImage(image)
}
else {
handleImage(nil)
}
dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
}
func imagePickerControllerDidCancel(_ picker: UIImagePickerController) {
dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
}
}
view raw UIImagePickerDelegate.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Privacy statements

Before going ahead and presenting the image picker it is required to add privacy statements to info.plist. Privacy - Camera Usage Description (NSCameraUsageDescription) is required for using the camera and Privacy - Photo Library Additions Usage Description (NSPhotoLibraryUsageDescription) when using UIImageWriteToSavedPhotosAlbum() for storing photos. Values of those keys are localised descriptions which are shown when app requests to use the camera or when adding the photo to the library.

Summary

Setting up user interface for taking photos is quite easy thanks to UIImagePickerController. All in all it was a three step process: configure picker, add privacy statements and handle images.

Sample app

PhotoTaker (GitHub) Xcode 10, Swift 4.2

References

UIImagePickerControllerDelegate (Apple)
NSCameraUsageDescription
NSPhotoLibraryUsageDescription

Categories
CoreAnimation iOS Swift UIKit

Custom non-interactive transition in iOS

In iOS view transitions can be interactive and non-interactive. In this post we are going to take a look on how to implement a custom non-interactive transition.

Setting up a custom transition

For setting up a custom non-interactive transition it is needed to create an animator object defining the transition and feeding it into UIKit. Before view controller is presented, we’ll need to change the UIModalPresentationStyle to custom, set delegate and with delegate method providing the custom animator to UIKit.

final class ViewController: UIViewController, UIViewControllerTransitioningDelegate {
@objc func showView() {
let presentedViewController = PresentedViewController()
presentedViewController.modalPresentationStyle = .custom
presentedViewController.transitioningDelegate = self
present(presentedViewController, animated: true, completion: nil)
}
private let transition = CustomTransition()
func animationController(forPresented presented: UIViewController, presenting: UIViewController, source: UIViewController) -> UIViewControllerAnimatedTransitioning? {
return transition
}
}
view raw PresentingView.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Custom animator

Custom animator object needs to conform to UIViewControllerContextTransitioning. It is required to implement a method defining the duration of the transition and method performing the transition. UIKit calls those methods and provides a UIViewControllerContextTransitioning object what gives contextual information about the transition (e.g. view controllers related to the transition). It is important to check isAnimated property for seeing if the transition should be animated at all. Secondly, it is required to call completeTransition() when transition has finished.
Let’s take a look on an example implementation of custom transition. In this particular case Core Animation is used for implementing animations. Several animations run in an animation group, and when it finishes, completeTransition() is called. Core Animation is used because of the need to rotate the presented view which is easy to do with CABasicAnimation. Just for keeping in mind that most of the simpler animations might be easier just to implement with UIView’s animate(withDuration:delay:options:animations:completion:).

final class CustomTransition: NSObject, CAAnimationDelegate, UIViewControllerAnimatedTransitioning {
func transitionDuration(using transitionContext: UIViewControllerContextTransitioning?) -> TimeInterval {
return 1.0
}
func animateTransition(using transitionContext: UIViewControllerContextTransitioning) {
guard let toViewController = transitionContext.viewController(forKey: .to) else { return }
transitionContext.containerView.addSubview(toViewController.view)
if transitionContext.isAnimated {
toViewController.view.frame = transitionContext.finalFrame(for: toViewController)
let opacity: CABasicAnimation = {
let animation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: "opacity")
animation.duration = transitionDuration(using: transitionContext)
animation.fromValue = 0.0
animation.timingFunction = CAMediaTimingFunction(name: .easeIn)
animation.toValue = 1.0
return animation
}()
let rotation: CABasicAnimation = {
let animation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: "transform.rotation")
animation.duration = transitionDuration(using: transitionContext)
animation.fromValue = 0.0
animation.toValue = 2.0 * 2.0 * Double.pi
animation.timingFunction = CAMediaTimingFunction(name: .easeIn)
return animation
}()
let scale: CABasicAnimation = {
let animation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: "transform.scale")
animation.duration = transitionDuration(using: transitionContext)
animation.fromValue = 0.1
animation.toValue = 1.0
animation.timingFunction = CAMediaTimingFunction(name: .easeInEaseOut)
return animation
}()
let group: CAAnimationGroup = {
let group = CAAnimationGroup()
group.animations = [opacity, rotation, scale]
group.delegate = self
group.duration = transitionDuration(using: transitionContext)
return group
}()
self.transitionContext = transitionContext
toViewController.view.layer.add(group, forKey: "rotateScaleGroup")
}
else {
toViewController.view.frame = transitionContext.finalFrame(for: toViewController)
transitionContext.completeTransition(true)
}
}
private var transitionContext: UIViewControllerContextTransitioning? = nil
func animationDidStop(_ animation: CAAnimation, finished isFinished: Bool) {
transitionContext?.completeTransition(isFinished)
transitionContext = nil
}
}
view raw CustomTransition.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Here is the end result.
CustomViewTransitionExample

Summary

In this blog post we took a look on how to use custom transitions when presenting a view controller. It was a matter of setting presentation style to custom and creating and providing an animator object to UIKit using a delegate.

Playground

CustomViewTransition (GitHub) Xcode 10, Swift 4.2

References

UIViewControllerContextTransitioning (Apple)

Categories
iOS SpriteKit

Adding an animating glow to SKSpriteNode

Having a glow behind a sprite can give game a move lively environment. In this blog post I am going to present a way of adding a glow to SKSpriteNode using an instance of SKEffectNode.

Node Tree

First of all let’s take a look on the node tree needed for achieving the end result.

GlowingSpriteNodeTree

SKSpriteNode (root)

Displays a texture what needs a glow.

SKNode

Enables running actions on the glow without causing to render the glow again. Running an action on the SKEffectNode would cause it to redraw although it is rasterizing its content. Also note that the zPosition of the node should be -1 as the glow should be rendered behind the root node.

SKEffectNode

Applies gaussian blur filter to the child node what in this case is a SKSpriteNode displaying the same texture as the root node. It is important to cache the content by setting shouldRasterize to true. Otherwise the glow gets re-rendered in every frame and therefore uses computing power unnecessary.

SKSpriteNode

Uses the same texture as the root node what is rendered together with the filter SKEffectNode provides.

SKSpriteNode Extension

import SpriteKit
extension SKSpriteNode {
/// Initializes a textured sprite with a glow using an existing texture object.
convenience init(texture: SKTexture, glowRadius: CGFloat) {
self.init(texture: texture, color: .clear, size: texture.size())
let glow: SKEffectNode = {
let glow = SKEffectNode()
glow.addChild(SKSpriteNode(texture: texture))
glow.filter = CIFilter(name: "CIGaussianBlur", withInputParameters: ["inputRadius": glowRadius])
glow.shouldRasterize = true
return glow
}()
let glowRoot: SKNode = {
let node = SKNode()
node.name = "Glow"
node.zPosition = -1
return node
}()
glowRoot.addChild(glow)
addChild(glowRoot)
}
}
view raw GlowingSprite.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Download Playground

Please check out the playground demonstrating rendering the glow in code: GlowingSprite (GitHub)

Categories
iOS SpriteKit

Drawing gradients in SpriteKit

SpriteKitGradientTexture

I was working on an upcoming game in SpriteKit only to discover that adding a simple gradient is not so straight-forward as one would expect. Therefore I created an extension to SKTexture.

extension SKTexture
{
convenience init(radialGradientWithColors colors: [UIColor], locations: [CGFloat], size: CGSize)
{
let renderer = UIGraphicsImageRenderer(size: size)
let image = renderer.image { (context) in
let colorSpace = context.cgContext.colorSpace ?? CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB()
let cgColors = colors.map({ $0.cgColor }) as CFArray
guard let gradient = CGGradient(colorsSpace: colorSpace, colors: cgColors, locations: UnsafePointer<CGFloat>(locations)) else {
fatalError("Failed creating gradient.")
}
let radius = max(size.width, size.height) / 2.0
let midPoint = CGPoint(x: size.width / 2.0, y: size.height / 2.0)
context.cgContext.drawRadialGradient(gradient, startCenter: midPoint, startRadius: 0, endCenter: midPoint, endRadius: radius, options: [])
}
self.init(image: image)
}
convenience init(linearGradientWithAngle angleInRadians: CGFloat, colors: [UIColor], locations: [CGFloat], size: CGSize)
{
let renderer = UIGraphicsImageRenderer(size: size)
let image = renderer.image { (context) in
let colorSpace = context.cgContext.colorSpace ?? CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB()
let cgColors = colors.map({ $0.cgColor }) as CFArray
guard let gradient = CGGradient(colorsSpace: colorSpace, colors: cgColors, locations: UnsafePointer<CGFloat>(locations)) else {
fatalError("Failed creating gradient.")
}
let angles = [angleInRadians + .pi, angleInRadians]
let radius = (pow(size.width / 2.0, 2.0) + pow(size.height / 2.0, 2.0)).squareRoot()
let points = angles.map { (angle) -> CGPoint in
let dx = radius * cos(-angle) + size.width / 2.0
let dy = radius * sin(-angle) + size.height / 2.0
return CGPoint(x: dx, y: dy)
}
context.cgContext.drawLinearGradient(gradient, start: points[0], end: points[1], options: [])
}
self.init(image: image)
}
}
view raw SKTexture+Gradient.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

This extension adds support for creating linear and radial gradients. Linear gradient can be drawn with an angle (in radians) although in most of the cases rotating SKSpriteNode would be enough. Gradients are drawn using core graphics APIs what are a little bit difficult to use but now nicely hidden in the extension. Both initialisers take in array of colors (UIColor) and CGFloat array with values in range of 0 to 1 defining the locations for colors in CGGradient.

For adding linear gradient or radial gradient to a SpriteKit scene we need to create a SKTexture and assign it to a SKSpriteNode. I created an example project SpriteKitGradientTexture for showing gradients in action. In the example project one SKSpriteNode is animating with textures containing linear gradients with different angles and the other SKSpriteNode just displays radial gradient.

final class GameScene: SKScene
{
override func didMove(to view: SKView)
{
let linearGradientSize = size
let linearGradientColors = [UIColor(red: 53.0 / 255.0, green: 92.0 / 255.0, blue: 125.0 / 255.0, alpha: 1.0),
UIColor(red: 108.0 / 255.0, green: 91.0 / 255.0, blue: 123.0 / 255.0, alpha: 1.0),
UIColor(red: 192.0 / 255.0, green: 108.0 / 255.0, blue: 132.0 / 255.0, alpha: 1.0)]
let linearGradientLocations: [CGFloat] = [0, 0.5, 1]
let textureCount = 8
let textures = (0..<textureCount).map { (index) -> SKTexture in
let angle = 2.0 * CGFloat.pi / CGFloat(textureCount) * CGFloat(index)
return SKTexture(linearGradientWithAngle: angle, colors: linearGradientColors, locations: linearGradientLocations, size: linearGradientSize)
}
let linearGradientNode = SKSpriteNode(texture: textures.first)
linearGradientNode.zPosition = 1
addChild(linearGradientNode)
let action = SKAction.animate(with: textures, timePerFrame: 0.5)
linearGradientNode.run(SKAction.repeatForever(action))
let radialGradientSize = CGSize(width: min(size.width, size.height), height: min(size.width, size.height))
let radialGradientColors = [UIColor.yellow, UIColor.orange]
let radialGradientLocations: [CGFloat] = [0, 1]
let radialGradientTexture = SKTexture(radialGradientWithColors: radialGradientColors, locations: radialGradientLocations, size: radialGradientSize)
let radialGradientNode = SKSpriteNode(texture: radialGradientTexture)
radialGradientNode.zPosition = 2
addChild(radialGradientNode)
let pulse = SKAction.sequence([SKAction.fadeIn(withDuration: 3.0), SKAction.fadeOut(withDuration: 1.0)])
radialGradientNode.run(SKAction.repeatForever(pulse))
}
}
view raw GameScene.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

If this was helpful, please let me know on Mastodon@toomasvahter or Twitter @toomasvahter. Feel free to subscribe to RSS feed. Thank you for reading.

Example project

SpriteKitGradientTexture (GitHub)