ACToolkit

This library contains a number of useful extensions & classes which I've creared to help with the development of applications on the iOS platform. These are only tested using iOS 7 and higher at present and there are no plans to support earlier versions.

Installation

At present this tool is in development however it will be released as a Cocoapod shortly.

You can import all extensions using the following import statement in your application.

#import <ACToolkit/ACToolkit.h>

Extensions

A number of extensions are provided to built-in classes. The following sections provide examples of how these methods can be invoked.

NSThread+MainThread

// Run a block of code on the main application thread
[NSThread onMainThread:^{
    [self.tableView reloadData];
}];

// Run a method on an NSObject instance
[NSThread onMainThread:@(methodName) target:self];

UIAlertView+AlertShortcuts

// Show an alert box with a single 'Close' button.
[UIAlertView showAlert:@"Coming Soon" text:@"Further information."];

// Show an alert box with the title 'Error' and a 'Close' button'
[UIAlertView showAlert:@"An error occurred while performing your request."];

// Show an alert box with a custom button text
[UIAlertView showAlert:@"Coming Soon" text:@"Further information." button:@"OK - thanks!"];

UIColor+HexString

// Return a UIColor instance for a given color
UIColor *myColor = [UIColor colorWithHexString:@"172a37"];

Classes

This section of this document outlines the various classes which are provided in this library along with usage examples.

ACAvatar

A class to allow you to easily cache avatars from a URL which includes {{size}} as a placeholder for specifying the size needed. If the object exists in the cache, it will be returned from there otherwise it will be downloaded over the internet.

UIImage *avatar = [ACAvatar avatarWithURLString:@"http://server.com/image/?size={{size}}" withSize:72];

ACColorKit

This class provides support for defining a set of colors which can be used within your application without any requirement to reinitialize UIColor instances.

When your application starts, you should define the colors you wish to use throughout your application. The mostly likely place you'll want to do this is within your AppDelgate.

// Set a color with a UIColor instance
UIColor *color = [UIColor redColor];
[[ACColorKit sharedKit] addColor:color withName:@"ticketUpdatePrivateNote"];

// Set some colours from hex strings
[[ACColorKit sharedKit] addColorWithHexString:@"FFF6F6" withName:@"ticketUpdatePrivateNote"];

When you wish to use a color which has been defined, you can pull it straight out from your sharedKit.

UIColor *color = [[ACColorKit sharedKit] colorWithName:@"ticketUpdatePrivateNote"];