After I began out growing iOS apps, 11 years in the past I put a number of apps on the App Retailer. Since they grew to become fewer and fewer because the revenue from them didn’t warrant updating them. Amongst these my most profitable one was iWoman, which I offered in 2015. My second-most-valuable (when it comes to income) remained my beloved SpeakerClock, the final app standing.
I had left SpeakerClock on-line for the principle motive that it stored producing like a median of $100 per 30 days, even with out me doing something on it. For that motive, I didn’t wish to make it free, however quite put it to a comparatively excessive price ticket of $5. There’s additionally an In-App-Buy of one other $5. I figured “why kill the cow whereas it nonetheless produces some tasty milk”.
The opposite facet impact of those value tags was that – I consider – solely individuals who actually wished what the app was providing would truly buy it. My philosophy with this talking timer was to have the largest LED digits attainable, with the performance that helps the talking type of TED Talks, which traditionally have defaulted to a most size of 18 minutes.
Some crashes launched by new iOS variations prompted me to do small bug fixing releases (for iOS 3 in 2010, iOS 5 in 2011, and 2017 for iOS 10). Additionally, trying again on the launch notes of these variations, I had made this precise promise:
“We’ve got completely modernised the code base in order that we are able to deliver you some thrilling new options within the subsequent main launch”
However I didn’t lie with this assertion, a “subsequent main” launch would have been model 2.0. However I didn’t ever dare to show the model quantity up that top. I solely elevated the third digit of the model quantity.
Apple did power me to do a brand new construct finally, once they cracked down on apps which weren’t up to date in too lengthy a time. And the newest replace they did themselves, when the Apple certificates had expired they usually re-signed my app on their servers with out me doing something.
Enter SwiftUI
Over the previous couple of months, I’ve grown very keen on SwiftUI. Being a developer on Apple platforms for greater than a decade made me fairly uninterested in having to maintain writing the identical MVC code numerous occasions. And that will solely get you want customary performance, nothing really thrilling. So I jumped on the likelihood when one among my shoppers requested me to implement a brand new iOS Widget in SwiftUI, within the fall of 2020. Apple had turned to SwiftUI as the one method you may create such widgets due to SwiftUIs means to supply and protect a static view hierarchy which the system may present to the person at sure factors in a timeline with out substantial energy utilization.
My consumer was completely satisfied concerning the end result and so I used to be tasked with the following degree of SwiftUI improvement. I wanted to implement a watchOS app, additionally totally in SwiftUI. Improvement was fairly just like the widget, however this time I additionally wanted to cope with person interplay and communication with the iOS counterpart app. That every one took some a number of months greater than the widget, however once more elevated my SwiftUI abilities tremendously.
After having delivered the watch app, I had a bit further time obtainable to do one thing for myself. I do have another concepts for apps, however my ideas turned to SpeakerClock. I figured that this extremely customized UI would lend itself properly to be carried out in SwiftUI.
Paths in Shapes
A very powerful asset within the legacy code was the drawing of the massive crimson LED digits and the way they prepare themselves in portrait versus panorama, in a pleasant animation. So my first SwiftUI view was one which had a Path factor with the SwiftUI instructions including the trail components to make up the person bars of the LED. My first error right here involved utilizing a GeometryReader to find out the scale of the trail. The LED digits have a hard and fast facet ratio and the drawing coordinates are based mostly on these.
struct LEDDigit: View
{
var digit: Int? = nil
var physique: some View
{
GeometryReader { proxy in
let (w, h) = proxy.unitSize
// prime horizontal line
Path { path in
path.transfer(to: CGPoint(x: 24 * w, y: 7 * h))
path.addLine(to: CGPoint(x: 60 * w, y: 7 * h))
path.addLine(to: CGPoint(x: 62 * w, y: 10 * h))
path.addLine(to: CGPoint(x: 57 * w, y: 15 * h))
path.addLine(to: CGPoint(x: 24 * w, y: 15 * h))
path.addLine(to: CGPoint(x: 21 * w, y: 10 * h))
path.closeSubpath()
}
.activeLEDEffect(when: [0, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9].accommodates(digit))
...
}Whereas this produces the proper output, it causes the person Paths to animate individually when rotating the system. I solved this drawback by shifting the person path’s code right into a Form the place I’m including the bars solely based mostly on whether or not I’m in search of the lively or inactive LED components. The trail(in rect: CGRect) operate arms us the required dimension, so we don’t a GeometryReader any extra.
struct LEDDigitShape: Form
{
var digit: Int? = nil
var isActive: Bool
func path(in rect: CGRect) -> Path
{
let w = rect.dimension.width / 73
let h = rect.dimension.peak / 110
var path = Path()
// prime horizontal line
if [0, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9].accommodates(digit) == isActive
{
path.transfer(to: CGPoint(x: 24 * w, y: 7 * h))
path.addLine(to: CGPoint(x: 60 * w, y: 7 * h))
path.addLine(to: CGPoint(x: 62 * w, y: 10 * h))
path.addLine(to: CGPoint(x: 57 * w, y: 15 * h))
path.addLine(to: CGPoint(x: 24 * w, y: 15 * h))
path.addLine(to: CGPoint(x: 21 * w, y: 10 * h))
path.closeSubpath()
}
...
}That is used such:
struct LEDDigit: View
{
var digit: Int? = nil
var physique: some View
{
ZStack
{
LEDDigitShape(digit: digit, dot: dot, isActive: false)
.activeLEDEffect(isActive: false)
LEDDigitShape(digit: digit, dot: dot, isActive: true)
.activeLEDEffect(isActive: true)
}
}The 2 members of the ZStack draw all of the inactive LED components behind the lively LED components. It nonetheless wanted to be two Shapes as a result of one form can solely have a single drawing type. The inactive components are merely stuffed in a grey. The lively components are stuffed with crimson and have a crimson glow round them simulating some radiance.
With this method a digit is all the time drawn in its entirety which lends itself to easy resizing.
Structure and Orientation Woes
The following step was to combination a number of LED digits and lay them out over the display screen with completely different positions for panorama and portrait orientations, with a easy animation if you rotate the system.
I’ve mainly two layouts:
- Hour digits, Colon, Minute digits (in a
HStack)- in horizontal format with the outer sides touching the secure space insets - A
VStackof Hour digits and Minute digits – in vertical format
Sounds simple, however my makes an attempt with HStacks and VStacks failed miserably. At first of the rotation animation the digits would all the time get a really small body increasing into the ultimate one.
I can solely think about that by some means the SwiftUI format system doesn’t keep in mind that these are the identical views. So I attempted giving them static identifiers and I additionally tried geometry matching. However I couldn’t shake these animation artefacts. There have to be some piece lacking in my understanding about view identification.
In the long run I got here again to doing my very own format inside a GeometryReader, setting body’s width/peak and acceptable offsets (i.e. translation) for particular person components. This works very properly and in addition lets me have a separate animation for the opacity of the colon.
The colon sticks to the proper facet of the hour digits and disappears in portrait format. By sorting view modifiers in a sure method I used to be in a position to get this impact that the colon fades in with a slight delay.
var physique: some View
{
GeometryReader { proxy in
let digitSize = self.digitSize(proxy: proxy)
let colonSize = self.colonSize(proxy: proxy)
let centeringOffset = self.centeringOffset(proxy: proxy)
let isLandscape = proxy.isLandscape
let timerSize = self.timerSize(proxy: proxy)
Group
{
LEDNumber(worth: mannequin.countdown.minutes)
.body(width: digitSize.width * 2, peak: digitSize.peak)
.animation(nil)
LEDColon()
.body(width: colonSize.width, peak: colonSize.peak)
.offset(x: digitSize.width * 2, y: 0)
.animation(nil)
.opacity(isLandscape ? 1 : 0)
.animation(isPadOrPhone ? (isLandscape ? .easeInOut.delay(0.2)
: .easeInOut) : nil)
LEDNumber(worth: mannequin.countdown.seconds)
.body(width: digitSize.width * 2, peak: digitSize.peak)
.offset(x: isLandscape ? digitSize.width * 2 + colonSize.width : 0,
y: isLandscape ? 0 : digitSize.peak)
.animation(nil)
}
.offset(x: centeringOffset.width,
y: centeringOffset.peak)You’ll be able to see that I’m particularly disabling animation with .animation(nil) for essentially the most elements as a result of I discovered that the animation in any other case is all the time out of sync with the rotation resizing animation. The LED colon then again has its personal animation with an extra delay of 0.2 seconds.
The second motive why I explicitly disabled animations is as a result of on the Mac model these animations would lag behind the resizing of the app’s window. This resizing additionally switches between each layouts relying on the way you drag the window nook, kind of like “responsive design” as now we have seen on HTML internet pages. Extra on Mac issues additional down under.
Multi-Modal Buttons
One other problem that had me attempt a number of approaches involved the preset buttons (prime left) and visitors gentle buttons (middle backside). These buttons have a special operate for a single faucet (choose) versus an extended press (set).
The primary drawback is that you just can’t have a easy .onLongPressGesture as a result of this prevents the traditional faucets from being dealt with. One method is to have a .simultaneousGesture for the lengthy press, however then the faucet motion is executed proper (i.e. “simultaneous”) after the lengthy press motion in the event you raise the finger over the button. The opposite method is to make use of a .highPriorityGesture which once more disables the built-in faucet.
I ended up with the next method which makes use of the gesture masks to selectively disable the lengthy press gesture if there is no such thing as a lengthy press motion and to disable the faucet gesture if an extended press was detected.
struct LEDButton<Content material: View>: View
{
var motion: ()->()
var longPressAction: (()->())?
@ViewBuilder var content material: ()->Content material
@State fileprivate var didLongPress = false
var physique: some View
{
Button(motion: {}, label: content material) // should have empty motion
.contentShape(Circle())
.buttonStyle(PlainButtonStyle()) // wanted for Mac
.simultaneousGesture(LongPressGesture().onEnded({ _ in
didLongPress = true
longPressAction!()
didLongPress = false
}), together with: longPressAction != nil ? .all : .subviews)
.highPriorityGesture(TapGesture().onEnded({ _ in
motion()
}), together with: didLongPress ? .subviews : .all)
}
}This method makes use of a customized TapGesture in tandem with the LongPressGesture. A @State variable retains monitor of the lengthy press. We do have to reset didLongPress to false or else all subsequent faucets would proceed to be ignored. I discovered that I don’t want a dispatch async for placing it again to false.
I consider that the rationale for that’s that the primary setting of the variable causes the physique to be up to date and thus the together with: to disable the faucet gesture whereas in progress. Thus the faucet doesn’t fireplace upon releasing the lengthy press. Good to know: The .all allows the gesture and the .subviews disables a gesture.
Opposite to different approaches I’ve seen on the web this method preserves the usual habits of Button for highlighting, Whilst you press a customized button like this, it makes it barely clear.
A Mac Model – For Free?
The large promise of SwiftUI is that you’d get a Mac model of your app for little further work, successfully “free of charge”. So I made a decision to place this to the take a look at additionally produce a macOS model. I set the focused units to iPhone, iPad, Mac and selected the “Optimize Interface for Mac” as a result of that sounded to me like the higher end result.
This optimized mode prompted some points for my customized buttons, as a result of they acquired changed with empty spherical rects destroying my customized look. You’ll be able to forestall this modification by including .buttonStyle(PlainButtonStyle()).
Aside from this my code actually did run as a local Mac app fairly properly. Behind the scenes although it’s all Mac Catalyst. As I perceive it, which means UIKit remains to be on the helm, on Mac only a macOS model of it.
I left the code signing settings alone as I wished to have customers be capable to set up the Mac and iOS variations with the identical buy. This “common buy” is enabled by having the identical bundle identifier for each variations.
Some very minor tweaks had been required for adjusting some minimal and most button sizes. There’s a bug on macOS that stumped me for some time. Solely on Mac I discovered that after I tapped in sure spots in my app this might trigger gestures to cease working. Then after I triggered a brand new format by resizing the window, all the things returned again to regular.
My workaround for this was to connect the Pan Gesture (for setting the timer) solely to the LED digits. This manner there is no such thing as a interference and all buttons proceed to work usually. The system would possibly get confused by having too many conflicting gestures on prime of one another.
A side-effect of the Mac model is that you just begin to connect keyboard shortcuts to buttons. This was additionally a motive why I wished to get Button to work with faucet and lengthy press versus making a customized view that’s not a button.
let title = "(index+1)"
PresetButton()
.keyboardShortcut(KeyEquivalent(title.first!), modifiers: [.command])This manner you’ll be able to set off the preset buttons additionally with COMMAND plus quantity. And never only for the Mac app, however that works for iPads with connected keyboard as properly.
That acquired me pondering, that possibly it might be nice to permit the area bar to cease/begin the timer, like we’re used to from video gamers. For that function I’ve an empty fully black button behind the LED digits:
Button(motion: { mannequin.isTimerActive.toggle() },
label: {
Rectangle()
.foregroundColor(.black)
.body(width: timerSize.width, peak: timerSize.peak)
.onTapGesture(depend: 2) { mannequin.restoreGreenTime() }
})
.keyboardShortcut(.area, modifiers: [])
.buttonStyle(PlainButtonStyle())This button permits me so as to add a keyboard shortcut for area to behave the identical as a faucet. Curiously having a two-tap gesture connected to the Rectangle() poses no drawback.
I submitted the Mac construct proper after the one for iOS however initially acquired a stunning rejection:
The person interface of your app is just not in keeping with the macOS Human Interface Pointers. Particularly:
We discovered that the app accommodates iOS contact management directions corresponding to faucet and swipe.
The rationale for that was that I put again the assistance display screen with a textual content I had beforehand written with iOS in thoughts. I wanted to exchange mentions of swiping with dragging and as an alternative of tapping you might be clicking. I’ve onerous coded the textual content and formatting for now and with and #if I can swap the textual content between a model for Mac and one for iOS.
Group
{
Textual content("Setting the Timer")
.font(.headline)
.padding(.backside, 5)
#if targetEnvironment(macCatalyst)
Textual content("To regulate the timer, click on on the LED digits and drag horizontally.")
.font(.physique)
.padding(.backside, 5)
#else
Textual content("To regulate the timer swipe left and proper.")
.font(.physique)
.padding(.backside, 5)
#endif
}As soon as I had made these modifications the Mac app was accepted in a short time.
Conclusion
I’ve skilled first hand how I can rewrite an app in SwiftUI and the good pleasure that may be had from deleting all of your crufty Goal-C code when doing so.
SwiftUI is my new love and this manner my app is now not a “little one from one other mom”. This restores some enthusiasm in me to truly lastly actually add some long-promised “thrilling new options”. For starters I’m pondering of getting a watchOS companion app which reveals the timer and means that you can distant management it. One other concept is likely to be to retailer my presets on iCloud in order that they’re the identical on all my units.
I’d love to listen to from you what you concentrate on the method of re-implementing elements of apps and even complete apps in SwiftUI.
Additionally printed on Medium.
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