A Flock of Swifts
We are a group of people excited by the Swift language. We meet each Saturday morning to share and discuss Swift-related topics.
All people and all skill levels are welcome to join.
2022.10.01
2022.09.24
Conferences
There are lots of in-person conferences happening in Europe. Not so much in the US
Functional Style
Functions being mutated by button pushes. Is it common?
Functional programming stives to eliminate shared mutal state. If there are multiple clients mutating a function it is probably an anti-pattern. In some context (such as mocking) it is convenient to pass (or set) mocked functions for testing. Generally this is done up front at start-up time.
Passing Values and References
class and actor are reference types. When you pass these to other views in SwiftUI, they will be passed as reference types.
Blog Post from Icon Factory for Swift
GPS Saving Power
Bill is trying to figure out the best way to conserve GPS power for his app. Ed suggested starting in low accuracy and switch to high accuracy when acceleration is detected. It will take a lot of testing.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corelocation/cllocationaccuracy
VIPER
An architecture better off for UIKit (Objective-C). There is a lot of boilerplate for communications.
https://www.objc.io/issues/13-architecture/viper/
Rotation Changes in iOS16
In iOS16 you need to do something like this in your scene.
let windowScene = UIApplication.shared.windows.first!.windowScene!
windowScene.requestGeometryUpdate(.iOS(interfaceOrientations:orientation))Brain Gears Demo from Allen King
http://brain-gears.blogspot.com
He is slowly converting the Factal Workbench from a large Objective-C / UIKit app over to Swift. Peter is giving him some assistance.
CopyTask
A demo for providing a long running, progress showing, cancellable task.
The CopyTask type uses AsyncStream but could also be implemented using a Combine CurrentValueSubject.
Here is the AsyncStream version:
final class CopyTask {
var status: AsyncStream<FileCopyStatus>! = nil
private var task: Task<Void, Never>? = nil
private var continuation: AsyncStream<FileCopyStatus>.Continuation! = nil
private var access: any FileAccess
init(source: URL, destination: URL, access: any FileAccess) {
self.access = access
self.status = AsyncStream.init { continuation in
self.continuation = continuation
continuation.yield(.estimating)
}
task = Task {
do {
let totalSize = try await self.findSize(source)
try await self.recursiveCopy(source: source,
destination: destination,
total: totalSize)
self.continuation.yield(.complete(.init(current: totalSize, total: totalSize)))
} catch is CancellationError {
self.continuation.yield(.cancelled)
} catch {
self.continuation.yield(.error(error))
}
self.continuation.finish()
}
}
private func findSize(_ url: URL) async throws -> Int64 {
let info = try await access.fileInfo(for: url)
if !info.isDirectory {
return info.size
}
func depthFirst(url: URL) async throws -> Int64 {
let dir = try await access.listDirectory(url: url)
var total: Int64 = 0
for file in dir {
if file.isDirectory {
total += try await depthFirst(url: url.appendingPathComponent(file.name))
try Task.checkCancellation()
} else {
total += file.size
}
}
return total
}
return try await depthFirst(url: url)
}
func recursiveCopy(source: URL, destination: URL, total: Int64) async throws {
var current: Int64 = 0
let info = try await access.fileInfo(for: source)
if !info.isDirectory {
try await access.copyFile(source: source, destination: destination) { byteCount in
current += byteCount
}
} else {
func depthFirstCopy(source: URL, destination: URL) async throws {
let dir = try await access.listDirectory(url: source)
for file in dir {
let sourceURL = source.appendingPathComponent(file.name)
let destinationURL = destination.appendingPathComponent(file.name)
try Task.checkCancellation()
if file.isDirectory {
try await access.createDirectory(url: destinationURL)
try await depthFirstCopy(source: sourceURL,
destination: destinationURL)
} else {
try await access.copyFile(source: sourceURL, destination: destinationURL) {
byteCount in
current += byteCount
}
self.continuation.yield(.progress(.init(current: current, total: total)))
}
}
}
try await depthFirstCopy(source: source, destination: destination)
}
}
func cancel() {
task?.cancel()
}
@discardableResult
func complete() async throws -> FileCopyProgress {
var last: FileCopyStatus?
for await state in status {
last = state
}
guard let last = last else {
throw FileCopyError.unknownTransferFailure
}
switch last {
case .estimating, .progress(_):
throw FileCopyError.unknownTransferFailure
case .complete(let progress):
return progress // happy path
case .cancelled:
throw CancellationError()
case .error(let error):
throw error
}
}
}Teaser: Task problems
Josh showed us a sample project where there are two async processing streams that don't cancel correctlly when the view goes away. Part of the problem is the @_implicitSelfCapture of Task. We will see the full solution next week.
2022.09.17
Sanatized Text
View Model has two published values for raw input and "sanitized" value that gets put into a database, etc.
import SwiftUI
import Combine
final class InputViewModel: ObservableObject {
@Published var rawInput = ""
@Published private(set) var sanitizedInput = "" // sanitizedOutput, qualifiedInput, cleanedInput
init() {
$rawInput
.print("Input - raw:")
.dropFirst()
.drop(while: { $0.isEmpty }) // regex builder to match string pattern
.removeDuplicates()
.assign(to: &$sanitizedInput)
}
}Example Usage:
struct ContentView: View {
@StateObject var inputViewModel = InputViewModel()
var body: some View {
HStack {
Spacer()
TextField("Enter Your Name", text: $inputViewModel.rawInput)
.font(.title2)
Spacer()
}
.padding()
.onAppear {
inputViewModel.rawInput = "Blob"
}
.onChange(of: inputViewModel.sanitizedInput) { newValue in
// Update value in some other store
print("Input - sanitized: \(newValue)", "-------------", terminator: "\n")
}
}
}Task Inheritence
We talked about what properties get inherited when you make a new task in various ways.
Some playground code we messed aroudn with Playground code:
enum Storage {
@TaskLocal static var id: Int = 0
}
func compute() async throws -> Int {
print("compute", Storage.id)
for i in 1 ... 100000000 {
if i.isMultiple(of: 1000) {
await Task.yield()
try Task.checkCancellation()
}
}
return 42
}
async let x = compute()
print(try await x)
Storage.$id.withValue(10) {
print(Storage.id) // 10
Task {
print(Storage.id) // 10
}
Task.detached {
print(Storage.id) // 0
}
}WWDC Concerency Resources
- Explore structured concurency: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10134/
- Swift concurrency: Behind the scenes: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10254/
- Visualize and optimize Swift concurrency: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2022/110350/
- Discover concurrency in SwiftUI: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10019/
- Updating a sample app code: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swift/updating_an_app_to_use_swift_concurrency
PointFree Concurrency
- PointFree (past) https://www.pointfree.co/episodes/ep190-concurrency-s-past-threads
- PointFree (current) https://www.pointfree.co/episodes/ep191-concurrency-s-present-queues-and-combine
- PointFree (future 1) https://www.pointfree.co/episodes/ep192-concurrency-s-future-tasks-and-cooperation
- PointFree (future 2) https://www.pointfree.co/episodes/ep193-concurrency-s-future-sendable-and-actors
- PointFree (future 3) https://www.pointfree.co/episodes/ep194-concurrency-s-future-structured-and-unstructured
Links and Interesting News
Josh's roundup:
- Activity Kit for the Dynamic Island https://developer.apple.com/documentation/activitykit
- What's in Swift 5.7 https://www.swift.org/blog/swift-5.7-released/?utm_campaign=iOS%2BDev%2BWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_source=iOS%2BDev%2BWeekly%2BIssue%2B576#swift-evolution-appendix
- New screen dimensions of iPhones https://hacknicity.medium.com/how-ios-apps-adapt-to-the-various-iphone-14-screen-sizes-b2504a39b58f
- New HIG now with Activity Button https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/inputs/action-button?utm_campaign=iOS%2BDev%2BWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_source=iOS%2BDev%2BWeekly%2BIssue%2B576
- UIHostingConfiguration for better SwiftUI/UIKit integration https://swiftsenpai.com/development/refresh-cells-uihostingconfiguration/?utm_campaign=iOS%2BDev%2BWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_source=iOS%2BDev%2BWeekly%2BIssue%2B576
- Understanding Type Erasure https://swiftrocks.com/whats-any-understanding-type-erasure-in-swift?utm_campaign=iOS%2BDev%2BWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_source=iOS%2BDev%2BWeekly%2BIssue%2B576
- SwiftUI Lab https://swiftui-lab.com
Automatic Memoization of Fibinachi and Levenshtein distance
The un-memoized fibbonacci function:
func fibonacci(_ value: Int) -> Int {
value > 1
? fibonacci(value - 1) + fibonacci(value - 2)
: value
}Generic Memoziation:
final class Memoize<Parameter: Hashable, Return> {
private var memo: [Parameter: Return] = [:]
let operation: (Memoize<Parameter, Return>, Parameter) -> Return
init(_ operation: @escaping (Memoize<Parameter, Return>, Parameter) -> Return) {
self.operation = operation
}
func callAsFunction(_ value: Parameter) -> Return {
let memoized = memo[value] ?? operation(self, value)
memo[value] = memoized
return memoized
}
}The memoized fibonacci function:
let fib = Memoize<Int, Int> { fib, value in
value > 1
? fib(value - 1) + fib(value - 2)
: value
}Memoziation for higher airty functions:
final class Memoize2<Parameter1: Hashable, Parameter2: Hashable, Return> {
private var memo: [Parameter1: [Parameter2: Return]] = [:]
let operation: (Memoize2<Parameter1, Parameter2, Return>, Parameter1, Parameter2) -> Return
init(_ operation: @escaping (Memoize2<Parameter1, Parameter2, Return>, Parameter1, Parameter2) -> Return) {
self.operation = operation
}
func callAsFunction(_ value1: Parameter1, _ value2: Parameter2) -> Return {
let memoized = memo[value1]?[value2] ?? operation(self, value1, value2)
let dictionary = memo[value1] ?? [value2: memoized]
memo[value1] = dictionary
return memoized
}
}Fuzzy Matching UI using Levenshtein distance
https://github.com/joshuajhomann/SymbolSearch
2022.09.10
Meeting Miscellany
Debugging JSON
Ed says you can add this to your ~/.lldbinit file:
command regex json 's/(.+)/expr let input = %1; print(String(data: try! JSONSerialization.data(withJSONObject: (input is String ? try! JSONSerialization.jsonObject(with: (input as! String).data(using: .utf8)!, options: []) : (input is Data ? (try! JSONSerialization.jsonObject(with: input as! Data, options: [])) : input as! Any)), options: [.prettyPrinted]), encoding: .utf8)!)/'
Franklin notes this blog post that describes something similar:
Josh notes that he uses this extension with debug logging:
extension Encodable {
var prettyPrinted: String {
let encoder = JSONEncoder()
encoder.outputFormatting = [.prettyPrinted, .sortedKeys]
return (try? encoder.encode(self))
.flatMap { String(data: $0, encoding: .utf8) } ?? "\(self)"
}
}Stable Diffusion
Ed is exploring art with AI:
Franklin notes:
Levenshtein distance
Josh presented project using the Levenshtein distance for fuzzy search. We started with a naive implmentation of the algorithm here:
And discussed how it can be implmented with generics or with any StringProtocol:
func lev<Word1: Collection, Word2: Collection>(
_ left: Word1,
_ right: Word2
) -> Int where Word1.Element: Comparable, Word1.Element == Word2.Element {
if right.isEmpty { return left.count }
if left.isEmpty { return right.count }
if left.first == right.first { return lev(left.dropFirst(), right.dropFirst()) }
return 1 + min(
lev(left.dropFirst(), right),
lev(left, right.dropFirst()),
lev(left.dropFirst(), right.dropFirst())
)
}Wagner-Fischer
After looking at the performance of the recursive algorithm, we looked at the Wagner-Fischer and saw how dynamic programming could be used to memoize (cache) the repetitive calculations and lead to a dramatic reduction in run time.
func levMatrix(_ left: String, _ right: String) -> Int {
let leftIndices = left.indexArray
let rightIndices = right.indexArray
let rows = leftIndices.count + 1
let columns = rightIndices.count + 1
var matrix = Matrix(rows: rows, columns: columns, initialValue: 0)
(1..<rows).forEach { matrix[$0, 0] = $0 }
(1..<columns).forEach { matrix[0, $0] = $0 }
for row in 1..<rows {
for column in 1..<columns {
let substitutionCost = left[leftIndices[row - 1]] == right[rightIndices[column - 1]] ? 0 : 1
matrix[row, column] = min(
matrix[row - 1, column] + 1,
matrix[row, column - 1] + 1,
matrix[row - 1, column - 1] + substitutionCost
)
}
}
return matrix[rows - 1, columns - 1]
}
struct Matrix<Element> {
private(set) var contiguousRowMajorElements: [Element]
let rowCount: Int
let columnCount: Int
init(rows: Int, columns: Int, initialValue: Element) {
rowCount = rows
columnCount = columns
contiguousRowMajorElements = .init(repeating: initialValue, count: rows * columns)
}
subscript(row: Int, column: Int) -> Element {
get { contiguousRowMajorElements[row + column * rowCount] }
set { contiguousRowMajorElements[row + column * rowCount] = newValue }
}
}
private extension String {
var indexArray: [String.Index] {
Array(sequence(first: startIndex) { last in
let next = self.index(after: last)
return next == endIndex ? nil : next
})
}
}Memory optimization
Finally we looked at how we could discard the index array allocations and table allocation in favor of a single row optimization outlined here and we discussed other possible optimizations, such as removing the commin prefixes and suffixes and static allocation of the row buffer.
func levenshteinDistance(_ lhs: String, _ rhs: String) -> Int {
var left = lhs
var right = rhs
if right.count > left.count {
swap(&left, &right)
}
let height = left.count
let width = right.count
var row = (0..<width).map { $0 + 1 }
var leftIndex = left.startIndex
for y in 0..<height {
var previousDiagonal = y
var previous = y + 1
var rightIndex = right.startIndex
for x in 0..<width {
let top = row[x]
let substitutionCost = left[leftIndex] == right[rightIndex] ? 0 : 1
row[x] = min(
previous + 1,
top + 1,
previousDiagonal + substitutionCost
)
previous = row[x]
previousDiagonal = top
rightIndex = right.index(after: rightIndex)
}
leftIndex = left.index(after: leftIndex)
}
return row.last ?? 0
}Additional fuzzy search algorithms
Bitap Algorithm
n-gram
Finding similar words with the NL framework
Algorithm books
The Algorithm Design Manual, 3rd Edition by Steven Skiena
Introduction to Algorithms, Fourth Edition
2022.09.03
Color (off-topic)
Inspired by Peter's tinted computer glasses, we got on the subject of color filtering and color spaces.
Carlyn notes that Animals can sense things that we cannot:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/616914/an-immense-world-by-ed-yong/
Ray mentioned something about principal component analysis and how three vectors is enough to get most of the information. Josh mentioned that some people have additional proteins that let them see more colors.
The Last 360iDev
Ed reported about https://360idev.com. It was a good conference with a lot of informative talks that will hopefully eventually become public. Sadly, the organizers were unable to make a reasonable return on investment so this year will be the last one.
There are not that many in-person conferences
Other conferences:
Fast SwiftUI Diffing
Ed (inspired by a 360iDev talk) talked about how SwiftUI uses object diffing to re-render views.
struct P : Codable {
let a : Int
}
struct E : Equatable {
let a : String
}
struct C {
let a : [String:[any View]]
}
_isPOD(P.self) // true, fast diffing
_isPOD(E.self) // false
E.self is any Equatable.Type // true, medium speed diffing
_isPOD(C.self) // false
C.self is any Equatable.Type // false, reflection based slower diffingAside: _isPod is a private (subject to change method) in
https://github.com/apple/swift/blob/main/stdlib/public/core/Builtin.swift
/// Returns `true` if type is a POD type. A POD type is a type that does not
/// require any special handling on copying or destruction.
@_transparent
public // @testable
func _isPOD<T>(_ type: T.Type) -> Bool {
return Bool(Builtin.ispod(type))
}Picker and Service Model Demo
Carlyn gave some demos of new SwiftUI controls and using a service model.
- https://gist.github.com/carlynorama/6b70884d35e5a46833e7d36247d9ff55
- https://github.com/carlynorama/SimpleServiceModel
Changing Axis Scale of of Swift Chart
Using the IRIS machine learning dataset, Ray showed how to create a grid of plots similar to what R can do. He used the TabularData framework to read in the CSV and display it with Swift charts. The charts output was pretty good but the automatic scalebars have a strong bias for including zero. You can customize it.
private func autoscale(_ name: String, paddingFactor: Double = 0.1) -> some ScaleDomain {
let data = dataFrame[name].compactMap { $0 as? Double }
guard let min = data.min(), let max = data.max() else {
return 0.0 ... 1.0
}
let size = max - min
return (min - size * paddingFactor) ... (max + size * paddingFactor)
}Then in the body of the view that includes the Chart view add these two modifiers.
Chart {
:
}
.chartXScale(domain: autoscale(xColumnName))
.chartYScale(domain: autoscale(yColumnName))Link roundup
You should subscribe to iOSDevWeekly. It is a weekly newsletter that comes out every Friday. Here are some interesting links from this week:
-
Swift Package Command Plugins link
-
Xcode refactor Async Await link
-
Sharing SwiftUI code among Apple Platforms link
-
Coordinate spaces link
-
UIKit Pro Tips link
Notes:
- Talk from 360iDev about Swift Package Plugins: https://speakerdeck.com/designatednerd/generating-code-and-other-mischief-with-swift-package-manager-plugins-360idev-denver-co-august-2022
- Interesting cross-platform framework https://www.scade.io
Functional ViewModels
ViewModels can be thought as functions. This video about the architecture of the Kickstarter app is an excelent introduction to that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTLG_LgjWGA
Josh took us on a journey of going from how Apple suggest view models be constructed to a totally function view of the world:
Starting Version
final class ViewModel: ObservableObject {
@Published var input1 = ""
@Published var input2 = ""
@Published private(set) var lowercased = ""
@Published private(set) var uppercased = ""
init() {
$input1.map(\.localizedLowercase).assign(to: &$lowercased)
$input2.map(\.localizedUppercase).assign(to: &$uppercased)
}
}
struct ContentView: View {
@StateObject private var viewModel = ViewModel()
var body: some View {
VStack(alignment: .leading) {
TextField("text1", text: $viewModel.input1)
Text(viewModel.lowercased)
TextField("text2", text: $viewModel.input2)
Text(viewModel.uppercased)
Spacer()
}
.padding()
}
}Inputs and Outputs Made Clear
final class ViewModel: ObservableObject {
let input1: (String) -> Void
let input2: (String) -> Void
let subject1 = PassthroughSubject<String, Never>()
private let subject2 = PassthroughSubject<String, Never>()
@Published private(set) var lowercased = ""
@Published private(set) var uppercased = ""
init() {
input1 = subject1.send
input2 = subject2.send
subject1.map(\.localizedLowercase).assign(to: &$lowercased)
subject2.map(\.localizedUppercase).assign(to: &$uppercased)
}
}
struct ContentView: View {
@StateObject private var viewModel = ViewModel()
@State private var input1 = ""
@State private var input2 = ""
var body: some View {
VStack(alignment: .leading) {
TextField("text1", text: $input1)
Text(viewModel.lowercased)
TextField("text1", text: $input2)
Text(viewModel.uppercased)
Spacer()
}
.padding()
.onChange(of: input1, perform: viewModel.input1)
.onChange(of: input2, perform: viewModel.input2)
}
}As a function
func viewModel(
input1: some Publisher<String, Never>,
input2: some Publisher<String, Never>
) async -> (
lowercased: some Publisher<String, Never>,
uppercased: some Publisher<String, Never>
) {
(
lowercased: input1.map(\.localizedLowercase),
uppercased: input2.map(\.localizedUppercase)
)
}
struct ContentView: View {
State private var input1 = ""
State private var input2 = ""
private let subject1 = PassthroughSubject<String, Never>()
private let subject2 = PassthroughSubject<String, Never>()
@State private var lowercase = ""
@State private var uppercase = ""
var body: some View {
VStack(alignment: .leading) {
TextField("text1", text: $input1.binding)
Text(lowercase)
TextField("text1", text: $input2.binding)
Text(uppercase)
Spacer()
}
.padding()
.onChange(of: input1, perform: subject1.send)
.onChange(of: input2, perform: subject2.send)
.task {
let (lowercased, uppercased) = await viewModel(input1: $input1.publisher, input2: $input2.publisher)
Task { @MainActor in
for await value in lowercased.values {
lowercase = value
}
}
Task { @MainActor in
for await value in uppercased.values {
uppercase = value
}
}
}
}
}Simplifying subscriptions
func subscribe<Value: Sendable>(
_ publisher: some Publisher<Value, Never>,
observe: @escaping (Value) -> Void
) {
Task { @MainActor in
for await value in publisher.values {
observe(value)
}
}
}Simplifying State publishers
@propertyWrapper
struct PublishedState<Value>: DynamicProperty {
final class Projection: ObservableObject {
@Published var value: Value
var publisher: some Publisher<Value, Never> {
$value
}
private(set) lazy var binding: Binding<Value> = {
.init(get: { self.value }, set: { self.value = $0 })
}()
init(value: Value) {
self.value = value
}
}
@StateObject var projection: Projection
var wrappedValue: Value {
get { projection.value }
nonmutating set { projection.value = newValue }
}
var projectedValue: Projection {
projection
}
init(wrappedValue: Value) {
let projection = Projection(value: wrappedValue)
_projection = .init(wrappedValue: projection)
}
}The final version
func viewModel(
input1: some Publisher<String, Never>,
input2: some Publisher<String, Never>
) async -> (
lowercased: some Publisher<String, Never>,
uppercased: some Publisher<String, Never>
) {
(
lowercased: input1.map(\.localizedLowercase),
uppercased: input2.map(\.localizedUppercase)
)
}
struct ContentView: View {
@PublishedState private var input1 = ""
@PublishedState private var input2 = ""
@State private var lowercase = ""
@State private var uppercase = ""
var body: some View {
VStack(alignment: .leading) {
TextField("text1", text: $input1.binding)
Text(lowercase)
TextField("text1", text: $input2.binding)
Text(uppercase)
Spacer()
}
.padding()
.task {
let (lowercased, uppercased) = await viewModel(input1: $input1.publisher, input2: $input2.publisher)
subscribe(lowercased) { lowercase = $0 }
subscribe(uppercased) { uppercase = $0 }
}
}
}2022.08.27
Maps
Andrei was asking about a bug he was hitting with maps. The latest way is to use MapAnnotation:
Map(coordinateRegion: $viewModel.region, annotationItems: viewModel.stations) { annotation in
MapAnnotation(coordinate: .init(latitude: annotation.lat, longitude: annotation.lng), anchorPoint: .init(x: 0.5, y: 0)) {
Button { viewModel.select(station: annotation) }
label: {
VStack {
if annotation.name == viewModel.selectedStation?.name {
VStack {
Image(systemName: "mappin.circle.fill")
.font(.largeTitle)
.foregroundColor(Color.blue)
Text(annotation.name)
}
} else {
Image(systemName: "mappin.circle")
.font(.largeTitle)
.foregroundColor(Color.gray)
}
}
}
}
}There was a bug in which the annotation position was binding to the locations and so it would shift with the map.
Layout
Carlyn is experimenting with layout:
-
From objc.io https://talk.objc.io/episodes/S01E225-view-protocols-and-shapes
-
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/237/?time=876
-
The latest layout stuff forrm objc.io
-
https://talk.objc.io/episodes/S01E318-inspecting-swiftui-s-layout-process
360idev begins soon!
Revisting a year old SwiftUI App
Ray gave a quick review of a SwiftUI app we built a year ago. It still compiles! It was rendered using a state machine. Perhaps now it can use a tab controller instead of a custom view with a switch statement.
Form & Geometry Reader
Geometry reader modifies the positions of the form. This seems like a bug.
Transferable Protocol
Continuing with the Avatar example from last week, it is easy to implement drag and drop (as one-liners) if you have types that are themselves transferable.
2022.08.20
SwiftUI Diffing
New blog post describing SwiftUI diffing mechanism.
Location Services Search
Putting Content Inside a ScrollView
Peter investigates using scroll views. There isn't an option to turn off clipping so you need to play with padding.
struct ContentView: View {
var body: some View {
VStack(alignment: .leading) {
Text("Some Title")
.font(.title)
.frame(alignment: .leading)
ScrollView(.horizontal) {
HStack {
Rectangle()
.fill(.white)
.frame(width: 300, height: 100)
.shadow(color: .black.opacity(0.5), radius: 10, x: 0, y: 0)
}
.padding(10) // overdraw and compensate for clipping
}
.padding(-10) // ignore parent's size proposal
}
.padding()
}
}Box Style Modifier
A helpful view from Ed.
import SwiftUI
struct BoxView : ViewModifier {
@Environment(\.colorScheme) var colorScheme
var title : String
var color : Color?
func body(content: Content) -> some View {
ZStack(alignment: .top) {
RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: 3)
.layoutPriority(-100)
.foregroundColor(.clear)
.overlay(RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: 3).stroke(lineWidth: 1).foregroundColor(Color.gray))
content
.padding()
}
.overlay(alignment: .topLeading, content: {
Text(title)
.bold()
.padding(.horizontal,4)
.background(color != nil ? color! : colorScheme == .dark ? .black : .white)
.offset(x: 4, y: -10)
})
.padding(.top,8)
}
}
extension View {
func boxStyle(title:String = "",color:Color? = nil) -> some View {
modifier(BoxView(title: title, color: color))
}
}Example Usage:
struct BoxView_Previews: PreviewProvider {
static var previews: some View {
ScrollView {
VStack {
Text("Hello World 3")
.font(.title)
.padding(.bottom, 8)
Text("More Contents 1")
Text("More Contents 2")
Text("More Contents 3")
Text("More Contents 4")
}
.boxStyle(title:"Hello World")
Spacer()
}
}
}Implementing Services
Presentation by Josh.
Some important points:
- Defining a protocol lets you program to an interface.
- Don't make your protocol conform to ObservableObject because it will not allow you to use actors.
- ObservableObject publishes on the main actor but an arbitrary actor would cause publishing to happen on the actor's executor (not the main actor)
- Instead consider making a view model factory that contains the service, can be put into the environment, and factory new view models.
import PlaygroundSupport
final class ViewModelFactory: ObservableObject {
let weatherService: WeatherService
func makeSomeViewModel(with: User) -> SomeViewModel { }
}
protocol WeatherService {
func getWeather() async throws -> String
}
final class WeatherKitService: WeatherService {
func getWeather() async throws -> String { "" }
}
actor GoogleWeatherService: WeatherService {
func getWeather() async throws -> String { "" }
}
struct MockService: WeatherService {
func getWeather() async throws -> String { "" }
}Transferable Protocol
Presentation by Josh. Includes upgrade to CoinGecko example from previous weeks. Also, a new avatar picker project using PHPhotoPicker. In a future week, we will use Transferable to get data from the photo library to the UI.
- You can define your own UTTypes.
- The protocol requires implementation of a single static method.
- It uses a result builder so that you can prioritize formats you support.
- Supports four representations: Data, File, Proxy, (I can't remember the last one ^^;; )
- Generally prioritize lossless formats first, lossy formats last.
import SwiftUI
import PhotosUI
import UIKit
enum AvatarImage {
case image(UIImage), livePhoto(PHLivePhoto)
enum Error: Swift.Error {
case noPhoto, invalidImage
}
}
struct LivePhotoView: UIViewRepresentable {
var livephoto: PHLivePhoto
func makeUIView(context: Context) -> PHLivePhotoView {
.init()
}
func updateUIView(_ view: PHLivePhotoView, context: Context) {
view.livePhoto = livephoto
view.startPlayback(with: .hint)
}
}
@MainActor
final class ViewModel: ObservableObject {
@Published var selectedPhotosPickerItems: [PhotosPickerItem] = []
@Published var image: AvatarImage?
func callAsFunction() async {
for await item in $selectedPhotosPickerItems.values.compactMap(\.first) {
do {
async let loadLivePhoto = try await item.loadTransferable(type: PHLivePhoto.self)
let livePhoto = try await loadLivePhoto
if let livePhoto {
image = .livePhoto(livePhoto)
} else {
let data = try await item.loadTransferable(type: Data.self)
async let loadImage = data.flatMap(UIImage.init(data:))
let image = await loadImage
self.image = image.map(AvatarImage.image(_:))
}
} catch {
self.image = nil
print(error)
}
}
}
}
public struct AvatarView: View {
@State private var showPicker = false
@StateObject private var viewModel = ViewModel()
public init() { }
public var body: some View {
Group {
switch viewModel.image {
case let .image(image):
Image(uiImage: image)
.resizable()
.aspectRatio(contentMode: .fill)
.clipShape(Circle())
case let .livePhoto(livePhoto):
LivePhotoView(livephoto: livePhoto).clipShape(Circle())
case .none:
Image(systemName: "pawprint.fill")
.resizable()
.padding(sqrt(64 * 64) / 2)
.background(Circle().fill(Color(uiColor: .tertiarySystemBackground).gradient))
}
}
.frame(width: 128, height: 128)
.overlay(alignment: .bottomTrailing) {
Button {
showPicker = true
} label: {
Image(systemName: "pencil.circle.fill")
.resizable()
.frame(width: 36, height: 36)
}
}
.photosPicker(
isPresented: $showPicker,
selection: $viewModel.selectedPhotosPickerItems,
maxSelectionCount: 1,
matching: .any(of: [.livePhotos, .not(.screenshots)]),
preferredItemEncoding: .current
)
.task { await viewModel() }
}
}
2022.08.13
MKLocalSearch
Carlyn is trying to find the best way to get a bunch of results. It seems to be only returning a single results.
Peter Wu recommends using MKLocalSearchCompleter
private func startProvidingCompletions() {
searchCompleter = MKLocalSearchCompleter()
searchCompleter?.delegate = self
searchCompleter?.region = searchRegion
if configuration == .city {
searchCompleter?.resultTypes = MKLocalSearchCompleter.ResultType([.address])
}
}private func search(for suggestedCompletion: MKLocalSearchCompletion) {
let searchRequest = MKLocalSearch.Request(completion: suggestedCompletion)
search(using: searchRequest, dismissAfterSearch: true)
}Josh found this useful link:
Kotlin + Operator in HTML Builder
Builder in Kotlin looks very similar to Swift's builder. The Kotlin result builder is unable to lift string types to the result type so you need to put the + operator everywhere. This emphasizes a subtle difference in philosophy about clarity and ease-of-use at the call site.
Removing Bar from the Bottom
You can remove the home button bar in SwiftUI easily.
3D Transforms Explained
A good intro to 3D and iOS views.
Share Live Updates with Activity Kit
Persistent update for live stuff. It will not be in the initial version of iOS16.
Franklin pointed us to the HIG:
Move Proposal
Move semantics are coming to Swift!
https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0366-move-function.md
Extistentials, Opaque Types and Primary Associated Types Demo for Combine
import Foundation
import Combine
//SE-361 Extensions on bound generic types (also 244 & 346)
extension Publisher<Int, Never> {
func make(byAppending value: Output) -> some Publisher<Int, Never> {
append(value)
}
}
let p = [0].publisher.make(byAppending: 1)
//SE-244 Opaque Result Types
func makeSingleValuePublisher<Value>(from value: Value) -> some Publisher<Value, Never> {
CurrentValueSubject<Value, Never>(value)
}
//SE-346 Lightweight same-type requirements for primary associated types
//SE-335 Existential any
let publishers: [any Publisher<Int, Never>] = [
p,
Just(2),
makeSingleValuePublisher(from: 3)
]
//SE-328 Structural opaque result types
//SE-352 Implicitly Opened Existentials
func printValues(for publisher: some Publisher<some CustomStringConvertible, Never>) -> AnyCancellable {
publisher.sink { print($0) }
}
var subscriptions: Set<AnyCancellable> = []
publishers.forEach { publisher in printValues(for: publisher).store(in: &subscriptions) }
for publisher in publishers {
printValues(for: publisher).store(in: &subscriptions)
}
i360Dev
It's coming up! Ed will be speaking about Unity and SwiftUI.
2022.08.06
Random Discussion
- Yes, there is a flashlight on the Apple watch.
- Medications in iOS16
- Sleep tracking in iOS16
Charts
Carlyn was trying to get multiple series on a single chart to display.
We will follow up on the solution to this next week.
Layout Continued
We continued our exploration of SwiftUI's composable layout system available in iOS16.
struct EqualWidthHStack: Layout {
struct Geometry {
let maxSize: CGSize
let spacing: [CGFloat]
let totalSpacing: Double
}
func maxSize(subviews: Subviews) -> CGSize {
let sizes = subviews.map { $0.sizeThatFits(.unspecified) }
return sizes.reduce(CGSize.zero) { currentMax, size in
CGSize(width: max(currentMax.width, size.width),
height: max(currentMax.height, size.height))
}
}
func spacing(subviews: Subviews, along axis: Axis) -> [CGFloat] {
zip(subviews, subviews.dropFirst()).map { views in
views.0.spacing.distance(to: views.1.spacing, along: axis)
} + [0]
}
func makeCache(subviews: Subviews) -> Geometry {
let maxSize = maxSize(subviews: subviews)
let spacing = spacing(subviews: subviews, along: .horizontal)
let totalSpacing = spacing.reduce(0, +)
return Geometry(maxSize: maxSize,
spacing: spacing,
totalSpacing: totalSpacing)
}
func sizeThatFits(proposal: ProposedViewSize, subviews: Subviews,
cache: inout Geometry) -> CGSize {
return CGSize(width: cache.maxSize.width *
CGFloat(subviews.count) + cache.totalSpacing,
height: cache.maxSize.height)
}
func placeSubviews(in bounds: CGRect,
proposal: ProposedViewSize,
subviews: Subviews, cache: inout Geometry) {
let proposal = ProposedViewSize(width: cache.maxSize.width,
height: cache.maxSize.height)
var x = bounds.minX + cache.maxSize.width / 2
for index in subviews.indices {
subviews[index].place(at: CGPoint(x: x, y: bounds.midY),
anchor: .center,
proposal: proposal)
x += cache.maxSize.width + cache.spacing[index]
}
}
}2022.07.30
Augmented Reality?
Problems with Multiple External Monitors
Rainer describing a problem using multiple monitors (thunderbolt, usb-c) where the asynchrony of connection causes windows to be gathered in the wrong place.
One suggestion: https://techpp.com/2021/02/16/window-manager-apps-for-macos/
Generally useful iOS Links
SwiftUI Cheatsheet
Is there something like this for async/await/actors?
Not really. A few suggested readings:
- https://www.hackingwithswift.com/quick-start/concurrency
- https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0306-actors.md
Creating Multiple Targets
Carlyn is getting closer to shipping a test version of her app and looking for how to organize her code to prototype vs release.
We went through an example of creating a separate target and a new scheme with optimization enabled.
Composing SwiftUI Layout
We walked through the EqualWidthHStack example from WWDC 2022. Several points touched on:
frame(maxWidth: .infinity)returns a flexible frame. Call it on Text() so that it can be resized.- The
Layoutprotocol has two requirements you need to fulfill to make a custom layout: (1) the total size (2) place subviews using proxy objects. LayoutSubview.sizeThatFits(.unspecified)is the magic that lets you the text size.- You don't need to use preference keys to do layout. It is not recommended but you might need to use it to support older OSes.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/composing_custom_layouts_with_swiftui
Other
.layoutPriority()needs to sometimes be used withZStackto get the right effect. (Ed)- The difference between
.background()andbackground()in your body is the difference between working and an infinite recursion loop.
2022.07.23
Cool Stuff noted by Carlyn
Check out https://calamityware.com for some fun teacups.
AVIF: New image format
- https://9to5mac.com/2022/07/15/apple-avif-image-safari-ios-16-macos-13/
- https://github.com/SDWebImage/SDWebImage
Carlyn Working on a Thing
https://gist.github.com/carlynorama/ad0a7449367b9a08e8c8525d5dcc2f8a
PDF Rendering
We added pdf rendering with the new ImageRenderer and UIGraphicsImageRenderer to the Coin Gecko project.
Other topics discussed:
- Transformation compositions are read from the "bottom up." Order matters!
- SwiftUI View Modifier
.onReceive()is called before the property is set. Make sure to use the value passed to the closure not the current published item because it is the old value. Task.detatcheddoesn't inherit anything.Task {}inherits executor but is not a child task so does not inherit cancellation.async letdoes handle cancellation- Using ShareLink requires eager computation of resource to share.
2022.07.16
No Closures in SwiftUI
We discussed the blog post https://rensbr.eu/blog/swiftui-escaping-closures/ and when through the examples of how SwiftUI breaks in a sample project.
Charts
We explored the new Chart API in iOS 16. Josh created an app to search crypto currencies and graph their performance. Topics including:
- Modelling using quicktype.io
- App architecture, software engineering
- The new charts API
https://github.com/joshuajhomann/CoinGecko
2022.07.09
Josh presented iOS 16 navigation in depth. Some topics covered.
- Summary of last week's topics.
- Deep linking
- State restoration
- How to pick apart
NavigationPathso you can use it in a custom URI. - Design for testability
Project for navigation:
2022.07.02
Useful Links
Experiment with Swift Regex online. Brought to you by Kishikawa Katsumi and the Swift Fiddle.
New static methods in iOS 16 for getting to common file directories:
Format your Swift code
Quick formatting longer lines:
Pokemon Navigation
Josh builds a sample project using the new navigation types in iOS 16. The new navigation gives you full programmatic control of navigation including state restoration and deep linking.
NavigationSplitView- The overload that you want is the one that gives you a binding to column visibility.NavigationStack- Use path as a data tree that controls the views that get pushed on the nav stack.NavigationLink- New overload lets you specify a value that gets propogated to the parent navigation (not a view).
Miscellaneous
- JSON Tip: Build your JSON type with: https://app.quicktype.io
- Xcode Tip: Use control-shift click to create multiple cursors.
- Make sequences lazy to prevent allocation of temporary arrays.
zip(pokemon.lazy.map(\.id), pokemon) - Be careful creating dictionary with uniqueKeysAndValues init, it will trap if that assumption is violated. Instead, use the init that specifies a collision rule. You can log an error or even throw a recoverable error if you use that version.
- Use
@MainActorto prevent purple errors when assigning back to published properties in your view model. - iPadOS 16 supports virtual memory on M1 iPads
- Use
for await item in asyncSequence { }to access a stream of changing values from.task()modifier. - Compiler reasons about lifetime inside
for awaitso you don't have to weak capture self. (It is okay even when you put it in a Task, but can't reason aboutTask.detached)
Sample project:
2022.06.25
Weather App Demo
Carlyn gave a demo of the new WeatherKit API. You can find her repo at:
https://github.com/carlynorama/BlueSky
HaveNWant Demo
HaveNWant is a biologically inspired cognitive architecture by Allen King. Walked us through a few different demos shown on his website.
http://brain-gears.blogspot.com/p/bica16-simulations.html
More recently he is implementing his Factal Workbench in SwiftUI and SceneKit.
Algorithms and Data Structures
We discussed differences about the heap and stack. A heap allocator is complicated because it has to worry about threads, fragmentation and performance. Allocation is non-deterministic had needs to be avoided in hard realtime systems.
We talked very briefly about dictionaries and hashing algorithms. When there is a key collision in a hash table, usually it falls back to a linear search. If you have a hashing algorithms with too many collisions you will end up with linear performance. If you have a hash algorithm with no collisions, your hash table is probably too big.
Some links:
A picture is worth 1000 words:
https://github.com/girliemac/a-picture-is-worth-a-1000-words
A introductory computer science course:
Swift, SwiftUI
Josh presented some links.
What's new in SwiftUI:
The code gets written for you:
Discussions caught from the WWDC SwiftUI lab:
Music written for your game
Free to use but costs a subscription if you want to own the copyright.
SwiftUI Layout protocol
Josh went though an example by the objc.io guys. Here is the free presentation with more details:
https://talk.objc.io/episodes/S01E308-the-layout-protocol
import SwiftUI
enum Layouts: String, Identifiable, CaseIterable {
case vStack
case hStack
case zStack
case grid
case circle
var id: Self { self }
var layout: any Layout {
switch self {
case .vStack: return VStack()
case .hStack: return HStack()
case .zStack: return _ZStackLayout()
case .grid: return Grid()
case .circle: return _CircleLayout(radius: 100)
}
}
func eraseToAnyLayout() -> AnyLayout {
.init(layout)
}
}
struct ContentView: View {
@State private var selectedLayout = Layouts.hStack
static let colors = [#colorLiteral(red: 0.2588235438, green: 0.7568627596, blue: 0.9686274529, alpha: 1),
#colorLiteral(red: 0.8078431487, green: 0.02745098062, blue: 0.3333333433, alpha: 1),
#colorLiteral(red: 0.5568627715, green: 0.3529411852, blue: 0.9686274529, alpha: 1),
#colorLiteral(red: 0.9411764741, green: 0.4980392158, blue: 0.3529411852, alpha: 1),
#colorLiteral(red: 0.9686274529, green: 0.78039217, blue: 0.3450980484, alpha: 1),
#colorLiteral(red: 0.5843137503, green: 0.8235294223, blue: 0.4196078479, alpha: 1)]
.map(Color.init(nsColor:))
var body: some View {
VStack {
Picker("Layout", selection: $selectedLayout) {
ForEach(Layouts.allCases) { layout in
Text(layout.rawValue).tag(layout)
}
}.pickerStyle(.segmented)
Spacer()
selectedLayout.eraseToAnyLayout()() {
ForEach(Self.colors.indices, id: \.self) { index in
Capsule()
.foregroundStyle(Self.colors[index].gradient)
.frame(width: 60, height: 30)
}
}
Spacer()
}
.animation(.linear, value: selectedLayout)
.padding()
}
}Bust-a-move development continued
Josh covered the recursive adjacency algorithms to compute the game pieces that can be removed and the ones not connected to the top. SwiftUI handles all of the animation for you.
SuperHappyDevHouse:
In person meetup if you are in the bay area:
http://superhappydevhouse.org/w/page/16345504/FrontPage
2022.06.18
New APIs
UIHostingControllerSizingOptionsUIHostingConfiguration
These help with the interop story. UIHostingConfiguration is for putting SwiftUI views into UICollectionView cells, etc.
TextFieldnow has a lineLimit property that takes a range.- OSAllocatedUnfairLock A better, safer lock.
Formatting styles are not documented very well. This website helps with that:
Grab live text and qr codes, etc:
- DataScannerViewController
Evolution to Study
Here are a couple of proposals to learn about:
- https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0352-implicit-open-existentials.md
- https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0351-regex-builder.md
Layout with Bust-a-move
Josh has a new example to implement with custom layout. He is implementing the CirclePacked layout from bust-a-move using the API that we discussed last time. This time he can use the cache to speed the calculations up.
Code TBD.
2022.06.11
Today was the WWDC roundup. Apple produced a LOT of new stuff this year. We will be spending the next many weeks covering it. Each attendee (more than 20 this week) told us what feature that impressed them the most.
- Watch as many of the 175 sessions that you can!
- MAKE SURE to watch https://developer.apple.com/wwdc22/110335
- Take notes!
Speaking of notes: https://www.wwdcnotes.com/
Roundups:
Congratulations
-
Explore Apple Business Essentials - https://developer.apple.com/wwdc22/110335
-
Josh Tint (Tim Colson's former student) https://www.apple.com/ma/newsroom/2022/06/apples-wwdc22-swift-student-challenge-winners-help-communities-through-coding/
Combine Leak
No direct news about the future of combine. Navigation Recipes talk mentioned objectWillChangeSequence. Another in the lounge overheard an Apple engineer say the future of combine is AsyncSequence.
Career Thinking
Anonymous postings that are useful but sometimes "toxic" so beware:
Animated Radial Layout Demo
Josh showed of how easy it is to create a custom layout in SwiftUI with the Layout protocol. You only need to implement two methods (though you can override more if you want fancy things like caching). The first method is what your prefered size given subviews and the parents proposal. The second is to position the subviews.
Josh also used some new modifiers for getting color gradients and drop shadows to make things look really good.
https://github.com/joshuajhomann/Radial
2022.06.04
Get ready for WWDC
WWDC starts on Monday. I will be watching from the developer app. Make sure you download it. Take notes for next week as we will be talking about it.
- https://developer.apple.com/wwdc22/beyond-wwdc/
- https://wwdc.community
- https://wwdc.community/events
- https://www.eventbrite.com/o/ios-dev-happy-hour-admins-31205108337
Developer Setup
Some cool products to make your setup more sleek:
- https://www.twelvesouth.com/products/hoverbar-duo
- https://www.twelvesouth.com/products/bookarc-macbook
- https://www.twelvesouth.com/products/staygo-usb-c-hub
Better code
Seven attributes of good software: simple, consistent, composable, scalable, obvious, communicative, and accommodating. Some old and new ideas mixed together in one place. --Ken Kocienda (@kocienda)
https://twitter.com/kocienda/status/1531423290316558337?cxt=HHwWgsCgwczX2sAqAAAA
"Easy to change"
https://pragprog.com/titles/tpp20/the-pragmatic-programmer-20th-anniversary-edition/
Showing images
There are some great async APIs if you are dealing with lists of images.
Property wrappers
An interesting article about property wrappers:
https://www.swiftbysundell.com/articles/accessing-a-swift-property-wrappers-enclosing-instance/
The original property-wrapper proposal:
https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0258-property-wrappers.md
Bridging between different asynchronous programming models
- Imperative: completion handlers, callbacks, delegates, KVO, notifications, target-action, etc
- Combine: publishers, futures
- Async/Await: AsyncSequence, Task
(aside: Think you understand Sequence? See if you can write a "prefix".)
lazy allows you to evalate sequences on the fly instead of materializing the entire sequence in an array. This is useful and necessary for infinite / expensive to compute when you are only looking for the first element sequences.
Most of this weeks discussion focused around Sequence/Iterator and how similar it is to AsyncSequence/AsyncIterator looking at creating Fibonacci with sequence(state:next:) and AsyncStream.init(). Future weeks will look at actual bridging techniques. (You can also find information in the history.)
let fib = sequence(state: (0,1)) { state -> Int? in
let (antepenultimate, penultimate) = state
let value = antepenultimate + penultimate
state = (penultimate, value)
return value
}
var iterator = fib.prefix(10).makeIterator()
while let value = iterator.next() {
print(value)
}
var state = (0, 1)
let asyncFib = AsyncStream<Int> {
let (antepenultimate, penultimate) = state
let value = antepenultimate + penultimate
state = (penultimate, value)
try? await Task.sleep(nanoseconds: UInt64(0.25e9))
return value
}
Task {
var iterator = asyncFib.prefix(10).makeAsyncIterator()
while let value = await iterator.next() {
print(value)
}
}
2022.05.28
“If you hire smart people, you can't tell them what to do more than once a year." ––Steve Jobs
Preliminary Banter
VR Headsets
Autocompletion
Add to your .zshrc:
autoload -Uz compinit && compinitIt will make autocomplete for git subcommands work, for example.
The full story:
https://zsh.sourceforge.io/Doc/Release/Completion-System.html
A nice book:
https://scriptingosx.com/2019/06/moving-to-zsh/
Allen King's Website
https://brain-gears.blogspot.com
Interesting Swift Links
Josh showed us a set of interesting links.
Transition by switching identity
https://sakunlabs.com/blog/swiftui-identity-transitions/
SwiftUI Series
A hackathon type event that is now over.
https://www.swiftuiseries.com/
Making Simple Swift Games in the Browser with WASM
https://pyrus.io/2021/05/15/gaming-with-swiftwasm.html
Quick Look Hero Transition made easy
https://twitter.com/JordanMorgan10/status/1526999338928439296
Everyone loves spirals
https://swiftpackageindex.com/buh/Spiral
100 Cool SwiftUI Recipes
Catch up on all of these cool tips and tricks before WWDC 2022
https://medium.com/devtechie/100-swiftui-recipes-by-devtechie-com-26a4bea15e95
Hover Effect for iPad
https://medium.com/devtechie/hovereffect-in-swiftui-e756b92747d2
Works great with Universal Control
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212757
Git Worktrees
Have multiple working copies set to different branches. (John points out that Xcode might get confused.)
https://git-scm.com/docs/git-worktree
How Apple is Organized for Innovation
Before Steve left, he thought a lot about the roadmap that Apple should follow to maximize innovation.
https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovation
SVG import
Josh showed the beginning of how to import SVG files from Illustrator via the paste board: https://github.com/joshuajhomann?tab=repositories
- We looked at how using
UIPasteboardand enumerating the types in the pasteboard as well as getting the data - We used
XMLParserto grab the polugon tag from SVG file - We used
Scannerto extract the points into asequencethat could then be converted into aCGPath
2022.05.21
This week featured a lot of developer banter. Here are some of the takeaways:
iOS 16
Bill wanted to know about about iOS 16. We won't know anything concrete until WWDC in a couple weeks.
Upgrading Legacy Code
John Brewer recommended this classic:
https://www.amazon.com/Working-Effectively-Legacy-Michael-Feathers/dp/0131177052
Daniel Young mentioned this tool that converts from Obj-C to Swift:
https://swiftify.com/converter/code/
Debugging SwiftUI
Daniel Young mentioned that _printChanges() is a static method on view that dumps the things that changed causing a re-render.
:
var body: some View {
let _ = Self._printChanges()
:
}
:Pointer Authentication
Pointers can be cryptographically signed? Coming soon perhaps. John Brewer:
Git Work Trees
Have multiple working copies in the same repo.
App Architecture
Talked about app architecture some. One of Josh's many sample projects:
https://github.com/joshuajhomann/ImperativeCoordinator
Evolution Proposals
We will talk more about some of them next week. There is a nice new blog about evolution:
https://jeehut.medium.com/swift-evolution-monthly-april-22-issue-f7df19377b0b
2022.05.14
Classifying Sounds
Rainer is working on using CoreML models for classifying. One suggestion (Ed A.) to split out different songs was to use ShazamKit: https://wwdcbysundell.com/2021/roll-your-own-shazam-with-shazamkit/
Searchable
Mark asked about optimizing a list view with a search text field. The recommendation from Josh was to check out the .searchable(text: Binding<String>).
Caching
Ray presented improvements from last week to caching. Some things discussed:
- Making generic keys
- Implementing low memory warning
- Updating the fetch method to include a closure to compute the real value
- Making errors explicit
Regarding the last point, Josh pointed out that it is probably not a good idea to cache errors. We came up with a solution during the meeting but after the meeting I realized that it is actually better not to cache tasks if errors aren't being cached. The final code came out like this:
import Foundation
import UIKit.UIApplication
actor LRUCache<Key: Hashable, Value> {
let maxCount: Int
private var values: [Key: Value] = [:]
internal var lru: [Key] = []
private var isMonitoringMemory = false
init(maxCount: Int) {
self.maxCount = maxCount
}
func evictAll() {
values = [:]
lru = []
}
func evict(key: Key) {
values.removeValue(forKey: key)
lru.removeAll(where: {$0 == key})
}
@discardableResult
func fetch(key: Key,
fallback: @escaping () async throws -> Value) async throws -> Value {
startMonitoringMemory()
updateLRU(for: key)
// Get it and go.
if let value = values[key] { return value }
let value = try await fallback()
values[key] = value
return value
}
private func trim(count: Int) {
if count > 0 {
lru.reversed()[0..<count].forEach { key in
values.removeValue(forKey: key)
}
lru = lru.dropLast(count)
}
}
private func updateLRU(for key: Key) {
lru.removeAll(where: { $0 == key})
lru.insert(key, at: 0)
let extra = max(lru.count - maxCount, 0)
trim(count: extra)
}
private func lowMemoryAction() {
evictAll()
}
private func startMonitoringMemory() {
if !isMonitoringMemory {
Task { @MainActor in
NotificationCenter.default
.addObserver(forName: UIApplication.didReceiveMemoryWarningNotification,
object: nil, queue: nil) { [weak self] _ in
Task { [weak self] in
await self?.lowMemoryAction()
}
}
}
isMonitoringMemory = true
}
}
}Josh was wondering if memory warnings could be done in the initializer using a Combine publisher.
fileprivate let outOfMemory = NSNotification.Name(rawValue: UIApplication.didReceiveMemoryWarningNotification.rawValue)
actor LRUCache<Key: Hashable, Value> {
let maxCount: Int
@Published private var tasks: [Key: Task<Value?, Never>] = [:]
@Published internal var lru: [Key] = []
var monitoringMemory = false
init(maxCount: Int) {
self.maxCount = maxCount
NotificationCenter.default.publisher(for: outOfMemory).map { _ in [:] }.assign(to: &$tasks)
NotificationCenter.default.publisher(for: outOfMemory).map { _ in [] }.assign(to: &$lru)
}This works but he notes that you get the following warning: This use of actor 'self' can only appear in an async initializer; this is an error in Swift 6
Animation in Core Animation, UIKit and SwiftUI
This presentation by Josh H. covered the ins and outs of implicit and explicit animations. As background reading, he recommends reading this: http://rensbr.eu/blog/swiftui-render-loop/
Here are some points he made with his code:
- Core Animations are implicit.
- UIView animations are implicit.
- The new SwiftUI implicit animation API specifies the property to trigger the animation off of.
- When this specified property triggers, all implicit animations fire.
- The inner-most animation wins.
- Explicit animations (
withAnimation) override implicit ones.
import UIKit
final class V: UIView {
let shapeLayer = CAShapeLayer()
override func didMoveToWindow() {
super.didMoveToWindow()
if shapeLayer.superlayer == nil {
layer.addSublayer(shapeLayer)
}
}
override func layoutSubviews() {
super.layoutSubviews()
let inset = bounds.insetBy(dx: 20, dy: 20)
let center = CGPoint(x: inset.midX, y: inset.midY)
let radius = 0.5 * min(inset.width, inset.height)
shapeLayer.path = UIBezierPath(
arcCenter: center,
radius: radius,
startAngle: 0,
endAngle: 2 * .pi,
clockwise: true
).cgPath
shapeLayer.fillColor = UIColor.clear.cgColor
shapeLayer.strokeColor = UIColor.red.cgColor
shapeLayer.lineCap = .round
shapeLayer.lineWidth = 20
shapeLayer.strokeEnd = 0
//backgroundColor = .clear
Task { @MainActor in
try? await Task.sleep(nanoseconds: UInt64(1e9))
shapeLayer.strokeEnd = 0.75
}
UIView.animate(withDuration: 4, delay: 2, usingSpringWithDamping: 0.5, initialSpringVelocity: 1) {
self.transform = .init(rotationAngle: .pi)
}
}
}import SwiftUI
import UIKit
struct ContentView: View {
@State private var isLeading = true
@State private var isBlue = true
var body: some View {
VStack {
VStack(alignment: isLeading ? .leading : .trailing) {
Color.white
Circle()
.foregroundColor(isBlue ? Color.blue : Color.red)
.frame(width: 300, height: 300)
Color.white
}
HStack {
Button("Toggle Alignment") { isLeading.toggle() }
.padding()
Button("Toggle Color") { isBlue.toggle() }
.padding()
Button("Toggle All") {
isBlue.toggle()
isLeading.toggle()
}
.padding()
}
}
.animation(Animation.linear(duration: 0.5), value: isBlue)
.animation(Animation.linear(duration: 3), value: isLeading)
}
}2022.05.07
Bridging async/await and callbacks
Peter discussed the design of a system he was building. Continuations provide a bridge between the worlds.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swift/3814988-withcheckedcontinuation
Building an LRU cache
We walked through making an LRU cache example. The original design that I proposed had a way to get a value from the cache and another to update it. After we finished the example, Josh suggested that a better API would be to provide a closure to do resource creation. Since Task is effecively a future, we can make the cache hold these tasks. That way multiple clients asking for the same resource will grab the same task rather than needlessly spawn multiple versions of the same work. Also missing was some low memory handling. After the meeting I (Ray) refactored the interface and cleaned up some of the shortcomings. The solution looks like this:
//
// LRUCache.swift
// Practice
//
// Created by Ray Fix on 5/7/22.
//
import Foundation
import UIKit.UIImage
typealias ImageCache = LRUCache<UUID, UIImage>
actor LRUCache<Key: Hashable, Value> {
let maxCount: Int
private var tasks: [Key: Task<Value?, Never>] = [:]
internal var lru: [Key] = []
var monitoringMemory = false
init(maxCount: Int) {
self.maxCount = maxCount
// Memory monitoring is deferred until first point of use
// so that we don't need an async initializer for the actor.
}
func evictAll() {
tasks.values.forEach { $0.cancel() }
tasks = [:]
lru = []
}
func evict(key: Key) {
if let task = tasks[key] { task.cancel() }
tasks.removeValue(forKey: key)
lru.removeAll(where: {$0 == key})
}
@discardableResult
func fetch(key: Key,
priority: TaskPriority? = nil,
fallback: @escaping (Key) async -> Value?) async -> Value? {
startMonitorMemory()
updateLRU(for: key)
// Get it and go.
if let task = tasks[key] { return await task.value }
// Spin up a new task, and get the value.
let task = Task(priority: priority) { await fallback(key) }
tasks[key] = task
return await task.value
}
private func trim(count: Int) {
if count > 0 {
lru.reversed()[0..<count].forEach { key in
tasks[key]?.cancel()
tasks.removeValue(forKey: key)
}
lru = lru.dropLast(count)
}
}
private func updateLRU(for key: Key) {
lru.removeAll(where: { $0 == key})
lru.insert(key, at: 0)
let extra = max(lru.count - maxCount, 0)
trim(count: extra)
}
private func lowMemoryAction() {
evictAll()
}
private func startMonitorMemory() {
if !monitoringMemory {
Task { @MainActor in
NotificationCenter.default
.addObserver(forName: UIApplication.didReceiveMemoryWarningNotification,
object: nil, queue: nil) { [weak self] _ in
Task { [weak self] in
await self?.lowMemoryAction()
}
}
}
monitoringMemory = true
}
}
}Some tests:
//
// PracticeTests.swift
// PracticeTests
//
// Created by Ray Fix on 5/7/22.
//
import XCTest
@testable import Practice
class PracticeTests: XCTestCase {
func testLRUCacheBasic() async throws {
let cache = LRUCache<String, Int>(maxCount: 3)
// Test getting value from the fallback
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic", fallback: { _ in 42 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 42)
}
// Test getting value from cache
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic", fallback: { _ in nil })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 42)
}
// Test getting value from the fallback
do {
await cache.evict(key: "magic")
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic", fallback: { _ in 16 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 16)
}
}
func testReset() async throws {
let cache = LRUCache<String, Int>(maxCount: 3)
do {
await cache.fetch(key: "magic0", fallback: { _ in 0 })
await cache.fetch(key: "magic1", fallback: { _ in 1 })
await cache.fetch(key: "magic2", fallback: { _ in 2 })
}
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic0", fallback: { _ in 16 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 0)
}
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic1", fallback: { _ in 16 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 1)
}
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic2", fallback: { _ in 16 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 2)
}
// 210
// Insert magic4 which will evict magic0
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic3", fallback: { _ in 16 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 16)
}
// 321
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic1", fallback: { _ in 16 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 1)
}
// 132
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic2", fallback: { _ in 16 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 2)
}
//213
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic0", fallback: { _ in 16 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 16)
}
// 021
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic3", fallback: { _ in 17 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 17)
}
// 302
do {
await cache.evict(key: "magic3")
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic3", fallback: { _ in 17 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 17)
}
// 302
do {
let lru = await cache.lru
XCTAssertEqual(lru, ["magic3", "magic0", "magic2"])
}
do {
await cache.evict(key: "magic0")
let lru = await cache.lru
XCTAssertEqual(lru, ["magic3", "magic2"])
}
}
}2022.04.30
Server Side Solutions
Tim Condon of the Swift Server Work Group (SSWG) gave their annual update on the Swift blog https://www.swift.org/blog/sswg-update/
Of interest to the group were the different frameworks:
- Vapor (https://github.com/vapor/vapor)
- Smoke (https://github.com/amzn/smoke-framework)
- Hummingbird (https://github.com/amzn/smoke-framework)
All of these have made progress to async/await.
For the problem being asked about something as simple as a WebDAV server where you can get and put files might be enough.
Localization in SwiftUI
We talked about how to do Swift localization. Creating a Swift strings file (dictstring for pluralization). The strings file can contain stuff like this:
// The welcome string that appears at launch.
"CONTENT_VIEW_TITLE %@" = "Hello, world! %@";
/* The welcome string that appears at launch. */
"CONTENT_VIEW_TITLE %@" = "%@ こんにちは、元気？";
This can be used in the code like so:
struct ContentView: View {
var body: some View {
let thing = "Ray"
Text("CONTENT_VIEW_TITLE \(thing)")
}
}It is probably good to use names like CONTENT_VIEW_TITLE so it is obvious when they are wrong and just in case the same word in English maps to different translations in the target languages.
Translations can be imported and exported through the products menu .xcloc files that have an editor that translators can use.
Schemes let you change the language of the app to test. There are special language for simulating text, having lots of diacritics, etc.
The main type is LocalizedStringKey which does the lookup.
2022.04.23
Build problems
- Discussed the plight of large projects with lots of pods having build problems
Adding Build configurations:
Thunderbolt Hubs
- You want thunderbolt ports? Be prepared to spend the money.
- Search the usual suspects, amazon, ebay, macsales, newegg, etc
Making Diagrams
You can make diagrams using Omnigraffle from https://Omnigroup.com
Local Swift Packages
Ray demo'ed making a local package using Josh's project from last week. Created JoshKit and did various other experiments. The documentation is here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swift_packages/
Looked at the Swift Package Index project:
Ray will do a presentation on Tuesday for the SDiOS group.
https://www.meetup.com/sdiosdevelopers/events/284812539/
Extensible build tools in SwiftPM
https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0303-swiftpm-extensible-build-tools.md
2022.04.16
Linting
Talked about introducing linting to a group.
- Make a separate target for linting
- Run lint only on the diffs
- RW has a style guide that uses lint for checking
https://github.com/raywenderlich/swift-style-guide/blob/main/SWIFTLINT.markdown
New Proposals
Several new proposals are landing including many around RegEx.
Here are some links to the proposals. Will be covering in future meetings.
- https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0350-regex-type-overview.md
- https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0351-regex-builder.md
Hex Grids
Need to implement a hex grid? You can use arrays with special offsets.
https://www.redblobgames.com/grids/hexagons/
Match Three Continued
Josh completed his epic presentation on using SwiftUI to implement a match three style game. You can leverage the SwiftUI system to do all of the layout and animation for you. Some cool subtopics included:
- A
withfunction for mutation - User defined coordinate spaces
- Using async system to trigger animations
- Static member lookup for code clarity at the call site
- Functional board manipulations and 2d algorithms
- Types of animations (transitions vs property changes)
code: https://github.com/joshuajhomann/Bejeweled
2022.04.09
WWDC Announced
Apple announced an all online meeting from June 6-10 along with an limited Apple Park June 6th event for developers and students.
Transitions and Forms
Joe is working on a SwiftUI app that has a bunch of form views that want to slide back and forth. His initial version used the AnyTransition view to accomplish transitions. The .move transition only moves about halfway and using combined lets you get something that looks like a full transition.
enum MoveDirection {
case normal
case undo
var intent: AnyTransition {
switch self {
case .normal:
return AnyTransition.asymmetric(
insertion: AnyTransition.move(edge: .trailing)
.combined(with: .move(edge: .trailing)),
removal: AnyTransition.move(edge: .leading)
.combined(with: .move(edge: .leading)))
case .undo:
return AnyTransition.asymmetric(
insertion: AnyTransition.move(edge: .leading)
.combined(with: .move(edge: .leading)),
removal: AnyTransition.move(edge: .trailing)
.combined(with: .move(edge: .trailing)))
}
}
}These transition can be used with the .transition() modifier.
Josh noted that SwiftUI's TabView can be used with a style to make something very analogous to a page controller. We worked through the example and it looks like this:
//
// ContentView.swift
//
// Created by Joe Mestrovich on 3/6/22.
//
import SwiftUI
struct ContentView: View {
@State var selectedForm = 0
var body: some View {
VStack {
ZStack {
Rectangle()
.frame(maxWidth: .infinity, maxHeight: 200, alignment: .top)
Text("This space intentionally left blank.")
.fontWeight(.bold)
.foregroundColor(.white)
}
TabView(selection: $selectedForm) {
AnyForm(name: "A",
next: { selectedForm = 1 },
prev: nil ).tag(1)
AnyForm(name: "B",
next: { selectedForm = 2 },
prev: { selectedForm = 0 }).tag(1)
AnyForm(name: "C",
next: { selectedForm = 3 },
prev: { selectedForm = 1 }).tag(2)
AnyForm(name: "D",
next: nil,
prev: { selectedForm = 2 }).tag(3)
}
.tabViewStyle(.page(indexDisplayMode: .never))
}
}
}
struct AnyForm: View {
var name: String
var next: (() -> Void)?
var prev: (() -> Void)?
var body: some View {
ZStack {
Rectangle()
.cornerRadius(24)
.padding()
VStack {
Spacer()
Text(name)
.font(.largeTitle)
.fontWeight(.heavy)
.foregroundColor(.white)
Spacer()
Button {
withAnimation {
next?()
}
} label: {
Text("normal move")
.fontWeight(.bold)
}
.disabled(next == nil)
Spacer()
Button {
withAnimation {
prev?()
}
} label: {
Text("undo move")
.fontWeight(.bold)
}
.disabled(prev == nil)
Spacer()
}
}
}
}
struct ContentView_Previews: PreviewProvider {
static var previews: some View {
ContentView()
}
}Match Three Game
Josh began building a match three game that he will continue on next week. Some points that he touched on:
- View models should be @MainActor
- You can use
typealias ViewModel = GameViewModelto make a localvar viewModel: ViewModelin your views. - Special care must be taken to initialize main actor view models that are declared with
@StateModel - Preference keys can be used to propogate layout information up the view hierarchy
- It is easy to create custom coordinate spaces that you can use with a geometry reader to compute frames with.
import SwiftUI
@MainActor
final class GameViewModel: ObservableObject {
@Published private(set) var cells: [Cell] = []
struct Cell: Identifiable, Hashable {
let id: UUID = .init()
var position: Int
var x: Int { position % Constant.boardWidth }
var y: Int { position / Constant.boardWidth }
var content: Int = Constant.cellContents.indices.randomElement() ?? 0
var isMatched = false
}
enum Constant {
static let boardWidth = 8
static let boardHeight = 8
static var cellCount: Int { boardWidth * boardHeight }
static let adjacentOffsets: [[(Int, Int)]] = [
[(0, 1), (0, 0), (0, -1)],
[(1, 0), (0, 0), (-1, 0)],
[(-1, -1), (0, 0), (1, 1)],
[(-1, 1), (0, 0), (1, -1)]
]
static let cellContents = ["suit.spade.fill", "circlebadge.fill", "flame.fill", "tag.circle.fill", "ladybug.fill", "face.dashed.fill"]
static let colors = [#colorLiteral(red: 0.1764705926, green: 0.4980392158, blue: 0.7568627596, alpha: 1), #colorLiteral(red: 0.8078431487, green: 0.02745098062, blue: 0.3333333433, alpha: 1), #colorLiteral(red: 0.9372549057, green: 0.3490196168, blue: 0.1921568662, alpha: 1), #colorLiteral(red: 0.8623957038, green: 0.2169953585, blue: 1, alpha: 1), #colorLiteral(red: 0.4666666687, green: 0.7647058964, blue: 0.2666666806, alpha: 1), #colorLiteral(red: 1, green: 0.8398167491, blue: 0, alpha: 1)]
}
init() {
cells = Self.newBoard()
}
private static func newBoard() -> [Cell] {
.init(
(0..<Constant.cellCount).map { index in
Cell(position: index)
}
)
}
}
struct SquaresPreferenceKey: PreferenceKey {
typealias Value = [Int: CGRect]
static var defaultValue: Value { [:] }
static func reduce(value: inout [Int : CGRect], nextValue: () -> [Int : CGRect]) {
nextValue().forEach { value[$0] = $1 }
}
}
struct ContentView: View {
typealias ViewModel = GameViewModel
@StateObject private var viewModel: ViewModel
@State private var squares = SquaresPreferenceKey.defaultValue
private enum Space: Hashable {
case board
}
init(viewModel: ViewModel) {
_viewModel = StateObject(wrappedValue: viewModel)
}
var body: some View {
ZStack(alignment: .topLeading) {
VStack(spacing: 2) {
ForEach(0..<GameViewModel.Constant.boardHeight, id: \.self) { y in
HStack(spacing: 2) {
ForEach(0..<GameViewModel.Constant.boardWidth, id: \.self) { x in
let index = x + y * GameViewModel.Constant.boardWidth
GeometryReader { proxy in
RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: 4)
.aspectRatio(1, contentMode: .fit)
.preference(
key: SquaresPreferenceKey.self,
value: [index: proxy.frame(in: .named(Space.board))]
)
}
}
}
}
}
}
.coordinateSpace(name: Space.board)
.onPreferenceChange(SquaresPreferenceKey.self) { squares = $0 }
}
}2022.04.02
Update
Bill suggests to update to 15.4.1 ASAP.
Practicing for Interviews
Don't panic, reason through the problem and pay attention to
John Brewer recommends "Cracking the Code Interview"
Accessiblity
Lots of insights and discussion about Bluetooth and Telephony from Carlyn.
Also:
https://www.ablenetinc.com/switches/all-switches/
Learn about Modern Collection Views
This app shows a bunch of different layouts (including table-like) layouts.
Ed Arenberg's app is in public beta
There is a large wordset community. After getting a good dataset he wrote a bunch of quick lookup functions.
Franklin suggested using the airport community if he is looking for a wider audience.
Tries
//
// PrefixTree.swift
// Boggle-SwiftUI
//
// Created by Joshua Homann on 12/13/19.
// Copyright © 2019 Joshua Homann. All rights reserved.
//
import Foundation
final class PrefixTree<SomeCollection: RangeReplaceableCollection> where SomeCollection.Element: Hashable {
typealias Element = SomeCollection.Element
private var children: [Element: Self]
private var isTerminal: Bool = false
required init() {
self.children = [:]
}
init(elements: [SomeCollection]) {
self.children = [:]
elements.forEach { self.insert($0) }
}
func insert(_ collection: SomeCollection) {
let terminalNode = collection.reduce(into: self) { node, element in
let child = node.children[element, default: Self()]
node.children[element] = child
node = child
}
terminalNode.isTerminal = true
}
func contains(_ collection: SomeCollection) -> Bool {
collection.reduce(into: self, { $0 = $0?.children[$1]})?.isTerminal == true
}
func contains(prefix: SomeCollection) -> Bool {
return prefix.reduce(into: self, { $0 = $0?.children[$1]}) != nil
}
}2022.03.26
CI Servers and Security
We began today talking about CI servers and automatically publishing to test flight. If you are in a large organization you have to be careful about sharing keys to the app store API because it could allow anyone (including former employees) to publish or remove apps from the app store. Carl suggested that you might want to do CI as an automated process but leave app publishing up to a human who has special access to the keys.
Group Activity Sharing
Ed gave a demo of an app he is making that uses group activity sharing. He found out about it with this tweet:
https://mobile.twitter.com/imryanw/status/1486815964251320321
There is some documentation here:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/groupactivities/groupactivitysharingcontroller
We talked about message passing to keep shared apps in sync. Josh pointed out that this is a real strength of a unidirectional redux architecture where state can be be derived by an initial value and a list of every subsequent change.
Async Sequence Library
Peter alerted us to a new Apple Swift library for Async Sequences that provides much of the Combine functionality:
https://www.swift.org/blog/swift-async-algorithms/
Josh notes that sharing a sequence (like combine does) still seems to be an issue that is not addressed.
Build Partial Block Proposal 0348
Josh took us on a tour of a new proposal:
https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0348-buildpartialblock.md
Accepting this proposal would solve the "you can only have 10 subviews in a container view" in SwiftUI problem. It could also be used for other domain specific languages (DSLs) such as RegEx or HTML or specifying neural network architectures.
This talk at WWDC21 about making DSLs with result builders:
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10253/
The thing that I really like about Becca's talk is how she uses compiler generated messages as a todo list for adding new functionality. Brilliant.
Josh has demo'ed making result builders in the past:
https://github.com/joshuajhomann/AttributedStringBuilder
Result Builder Snippet
@resultBuilder
struct <#Name#>Builder {
typealias Expression = <#Expression#>
typealias Component = <#Component#>
typealias FinalResult = <#FinalResult#>
static func buildBlock(_ components: Component...) -> Component {
buildArray(components)
}
static func buildExpression(_ expression: Expression) -> Component {
}
static func buildOptional(_ component: Component?) -> Component {
component ?? <#empty#>
}
static func buildEither(first component: Component) -> Component {
component
}
static func buildEither(second component: Component) -> Component {
component
}
static func buildArray(_ components: [Component]) -> Component {
}
static func buildLimitedAvailability(_ component: Component) -> Component {
component
}
static func buildFinalResult(_ component: Component) -> FinalResult {
}
}2022.03.19
Swift 5.6
We discussed the features in Swift 5.6 in Xcode 13.3.
https://www.swift.org/blog/swift-5.6-released/
- Another way to think about
anyis "box" because it make explicit there is a boxing cost to using protocols as a "base-class".
We talked about method dispatch. https://blog.allegro.tech/2014/12/swift-method-dispatching.html
Swift 5.7 and beyond
Proposals we focus on include improvements some and any. We also looked at the syntax shortening proposal for if let name = name {} to if let name {}
Implementing Search
Caleb was looking for some advice about how to speed up his fuzzy search performance.
Several suggestions:
- Put the work on a background task
- Do transformation of the data model early and cache it
- Reverse the order of the loop
- Look into other approaches such as RegEx, computing Levenshtein distance, etc
Here is a FRP example of solving the problem.
final class CardSearchViewModel: ObservableObject {
@Published var searchTerm: String = ""
@Published private(set) var cards: [Card] = []
init(
cardSearchService: CardSearchServiceProtocol = CardSearchService()
) {
$searchTerm
.debounce(for: .seconds(1), scheduler: DispatchQueue.main)
.receive(on: DispatchQueue.global(qos: .userInitiated))
.removeDuplicates()
.map { searchTerm -> AnyPublisher<[MagicCard], Never> in
searchTerm.trimmingCharacters(in: .whitespacesAndNewlines).isEmpty
? Just([]).eraseToAnyPublisher()
: cardSearchService
.search(query: searchTerm)
.replaceError(with: [])
.eraseToAnyPublisher()
}
.switchToLatest()
.map { $0.map(Card.init(magicCard:)) }
.receive(on: DispatchQueue.main)
.assign(to: &$cards)
}
}Manu mentioned: Premature optimization is the Root of Evil
2022.03.12
- We discussed use of the
@MainActortag for functions and closures as well as theMainActorsingleton.
Autoclosures
- We revisited why you cannot write `XCTAssertTrue(await someAsyncFunction())
- We looked at the signature for XCTAssertTrue:
public func XCTAssertTrue(_ expression: @autoclosure () throws -> Bool, _ message: @autoclosure () -> String = "", file: StaticString = #filePath, line: UInt = #line)- We discussed what an
@autoclosureis and why we would want to use one by looking by making an analog of the??operator:
infix operator ?!
func ?!<Value>(_ lhs: Value?, rhs: Value) -> Value {
guard let lhs = lhs else { return rhs }
return lhs
}- We saw that the purpose of
@autoclosureto is to defer expensive work (and possibly only perform it under certain conditions). We saw thatXCTAssertTruewants to capture the error for its@autoclosureand reasoned that this is why the function is written with an@autoclosure - We then wrote a function with
Resultto solve the@autoclosureproblem:
extension Result where Failure == Error {
init(awaiting operation: () async throws -> Success) async {
do {
self = .success(try await operation())
} catch {
self = .failure(error)
}
}
}- we looked at a more declarative solution:
class Tests_macOS: XCTestCase {
func testA() async throws {
try await
after { try await a() }
assert: { XCTAssertTrue($0) }
}
}
func after<Value>(
_ operation: () async throws -> Value,
assert: (Value) throws -> Void
) async rethrows -> Void {
let value = try await operation()
try assert(value)
}- We didn't make it to the final one line version, but its listed here:
func a() async throws -> Bool {
true
}
class Tests_macOS: XCTestCase {
func testA() async throws {
try await assertTrue(eventually: a)
}
}
func assertTrue(
eventually operation: () async throws -> Bool,
_ message: @autoclosure () -> String = "",
file: StaticString = #filePath,
line: UInt = #line
) async throws {
try await after(operation, assert: { XCTAssertTrue($0, message(), file: file, line: line)})
}
func after<Value>(
_ operation: () async throws -> Value,
assert: (Value) throws -> Void
) async rethrows -> Void {
let value = try await operation()
try assert(value)
}2022.03.05
More followup discussion of the coordinator pattern and deep linking.
FileAccess Protocol and Actors
Put file access behind an abstraction:
protocol FileAccess {
func write(path: [String], data: Data) async throws
func read(path: [String]) async throws -> Data
func move(source: [String], destination: [String]) async throws
func copy(source: [String], destination: [String]) async throws
func enumerate(path: [String]) async throws -> AsyncStream<String>
func delete(path: [String]) async throws
func exists(path: [String]) async throws -> Bool
func createDirectory(path: [String]) async throws
}Then we can implement a concrete type:
actor NativeFileAccess: FileAccess {
enum Error: Swift.Error {
case couldNotEnumerate(String)
}
let root: URL
init() {
let path =
NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(.documentDirectory,
.userDomainMask, true)[0]
root = URL(fileURLWithPath: path)
}
func write(path: [String], data: Data) async throws {
try await Task {
try data.write(to: root.appending(components: path))
}.value
}
func read(path: [String]) async throws -> Data {
try await Task {
try Data(contentsOf: root.appending(components: path))
}.value
}
func enumerate(path: [String]) async throws -> AsyncStream<String> {
let location = root.appending(components: path)
guard let enumerator = FileManager.default.enumerator(atPath: location.path) else {
throw Error.couldNotEnumerate(location.absoluteString)
}
return AsyncStream(String.self) { continuation in
Task {
for element in enumerator {
guard let nsString = element as? NSString else { continue }
let file = String(nsString)
continuation.yield(file)
}
continuation.finish()
}
}
}
}
private extension URL {
func appending(components: [String]) -> URL {
components.reduce(self) { $0.appendingPathComponent($1) }
}
}And it can be tested:
import XCTest
@testable import FileAccess
class FileAccessTests: XCTestCase {
func checkThrows(method: () async throws -> Void) async {
do {
try await method()
} catch {
XCTFail("method throws")
}
}
func testRoundTrip() async throws {
let fileAccess = NativeFileAccess()
let payload = try XCTUnwrap("Hello".data(using: .utf8))
try await fileAccess.write(path: ["hello.txt"], data: payload)
let readback = try await fileAccess.read(path: ["hello.txt"])
XCTAssertEqual(readback, payload)
await checkThrows {
try await fileAccess.write(path: ["..", "..", "hello.txt"], data: payload)
}
// Alternate approach
let r = await Task { try await fileAccess.read(path: ["nope.txt"]) }.result
XCTAssertThrowsError(try r.get())
let files = try await fileAccess.enumerate(path: []).reduce(into: []) { $0.append($1) }
XCTAssertEqual(["hello.txt"], files)
}
}Unsafe Pointers
Josh gave a quick demo of unsafe pointers and unsafe buffer pointers.
2022.02.26
We talked about a variety of topics including app navigation, deep linking and coordinators.
Rainer gave a demo of UIKit debugging tool called chisel by Facebook.
2022.02.19
Rendering to pdf and printers
We discussed printing to pdf and printer contexts using:
- UIGraphicsPDFRendererContext: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uigraphicspdfrenderercontext
- UIPrintPageRenderer: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uiprintpagerenderer
- UIPrinterPickerController: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uiprinterpickercontroller
Leveling
We discussed leveling and compensation:
- https://medium.com/building-carta/engineering-levels-at-carta-d33db2a55a20
- www.levels.fyi
- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RMSHYGG
- https://staffeng.com
Declarative Tests
Josh presented a project showing declarative testing: https://github.com/joshuajhomann/DeclarativeTests
2022.02.12
App Privacy
Discussion about app privacy and how there is now an option to turn on URL logging for apps under settings :: general :: privacy down at the bottom. You can also use a proxy to get at the urls and inspect the data.
Proxies:
Discussion about parental IT. Remote desktop via Facetime FTW.
Core Data and Testing
Continued work on https://github.com/rayfix/DatabaseFacade What we coded live is committed there.
Things we covered:
- actor basics
- The cost of making an actor conform to a protocol
- Type safe fetch requests
- Managing fetch request controller lifetimes
- Debugging concurrency issues with
-com.apple.CoreData.ConcurrencyDebug 1 - Writing unit tests
- Making persistent stores in-memory containers
- Unit testing core data
2022.02.05
Git and Git Ignore
Xcode has git integration that lets you look at pull requests. John has a problem with pagination and can only list up to "i" in his list of 89 repos.
Some other git clients:
- https://git-tower.com (@stuffmc's client of choice)
- https://gitup.co (Free, open source, works great on giant repos.)
- Sublime Merge
- Fork
- p4merge
- A text editor
Length side discussion about how git ignore files are processed. You can see what your global git settings are with git config --global -l
Here is John's .gitignore for Xcode projects:
https://github.com/jeradesign/0common/blob/main/gitignore_xcode_appcode
Reveal Followup
Rainer followed up with what Reveal shows for a SwiftUI app using the Stanford University card game project. It might not be all that useful for debugging SwiftUI but is interesting because it lets you see some of the private implementation.
Programmatically controlling UIScrollView
You are probably better off not swizzling the implementation but using the gesture recognizer delegate to resolve conflicts.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uigesturerecognizerdelegate
AttributedString
New in iOS 15 there is an attributed string class that you should know about.
Check out: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/attributedstring
The markdown interpreter that it supports is here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/attributedstring/markdownparsingoptions/interpretedsyntax
Aside. A cool markdown program is MacDown: https://macdown.uranusjr.com (It is free, open source MIT.)
Hacking Database Facade
Ray forked Josh's Database Facade project with an alternative (but very reusable?) approach. It has the big downside that it requires the client of the service to think about the lifetime of the watcher object rather than the service worrying about it. We started converting the service to an actor. We made it part of the way but it is finished in the forked version of the repo. The fork can be found here: https://github.com/rayfix/DatabaseFacade
Here is the basic idea WatchValues type:
import CoreData
import Combine
// Protocol to let you turn core data types into value types.
protocol ValueTypeConvertable {
associatedtype ValueType
func valueType() throws -> ValueType
}
// A private fetched results controller delegate that can publish
private final class FetchEngine<ValueType, CoreDataType>: NSObject, NSFetchedResultsControllerDelegate where CoreDataType: ValueTypeConvertable, CoreDataType.ValueType == ValueType
{
private let controller: NSFetchedResultsController<NSFetchRequestResult>
weak var target: WatchedCoreDataValues<ValueType, CoreDataType>?
init(fetchRequest: NSFetchRequest<NSFetchRequestResult>, context: NSManagedObjectContext) {
controller = NSFetchedResultsController<NSFetchRequestResult>(fetchRequest: fetchRequest,
managedObjectContext: context,
sectionNameKeyPath: nil,
cacheName: nil)
super.init()
}
func start(target: WatchedCoreDataValues<ValueType, CoreDataType>) {
self.target = target
controller.delegate = self
try? controller.performFetch()
}
private func transform(_ objects: [NSFetchRequestResult]) -> [ValueType] {
return objects
.compactMap { $0 as? CoreDataType }
.compactMap { try? $0.valueType() }
}
fileprivate
func controllerDidChangeContent(_ controller: NSFetchedResultsController<NSFetchRequestResult>) {
guard let objects = controller.fetchedObjects else { return }
target?.results.send(transform(objects))
}
func initialValues() -> [ValueType] {
guard let results = try? controller.managedObjectContext.fetch(controller.fetchRequest) else {
return []
}
return transform(results)
}
}
final class WatchedCoreDataValues<ValueType, CoreDataType>: ObservableObject
where CoreDataType: ValueTypeConvertable, CoreDataType.ValueType == ValueType
{
var publisher: AnyPublisher<[ValueType], Never> {
return results
.prepend(fetcher.initialValues())
.eraseToAnyPublisher()
}
fileprivate let results = PassthroughSubject<[ValueType], Never>()
private let fetcher: FetchEngine<ValueType, CoreDataType>
init(fetchRequest: NSFetchRequest<NSFetchRequestResult>, context: NSManagedObjectContext) {
fetcher = FetchEngine(fetchRequest: fetchRequest, context: context)
fetcher.start(target: self)
}
}Having to main
2022.01.29
I forgot to capture the zoom chat log this week. Whoops. Topics included:
- Lots of new Versions of Swift coming (5.6, 5.7, ... 6.0)
- Bumping versions, John showed that Xcode has a checkbox to automatically bump version numbers
- Use a service layer with your MVVM
- App code
- Default View Models should be
@MainActor final class ObervableObject - Don't use @Published outside of View Models, just use an
AnyPublisherthat you can recieve on the Main thread. - Snow in Boston
Reveal
Rainer Standke demo'ed the Reveal app. Works best with UIKit and requires a framework that presumably does a lot of swizzling to make it work. It tends to be faster and more robust than the Xcode solution.
Force Directed Graph
We implemented the link drawing and dragging methods today.
let links = Path { drawing in
for link in viewModel.linkSegments() {
drawing.move(to: link.0)
drawing.addLine(to: link.1)
}
}
context.stroke(links, with: .color(white: 0.9),
lineWidth: viewModel.linkWidthModel)We talked about setting the transforms and being careful not to write to @Published from the canvas draw method. (It causes an assertion during rotation in this sample.)
A link to the repo: https://github.com/rayfix/ForceDirectedGraph
2022.01.22
Security Vulerability in Safari?
Bill was wondering about a recent vulnerability in Safari. John Brewer shared the following link: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/01/safari-and-ios-bug-reveals-your-browsing-activity-and-id-in-real-time/
iOS 15 Adoption
The age old question of what versions of iOS to support. If you are making a new app, you should strongly consider supporting only the latest OS. The decision should be guided by the specific audience however.
Some related links:
- https://www.macrumors.com/2022/01/13/ios-15-installation-rates/
- https://mixpanel.com/trends/#report/ios_15
Becoming an Expert
This question comes up from time to time. Here are some suggestions in no particular order (Google for links):
- Attend these meetings and ask questions
- Pick a topic and learn everything you can about it - then present it!
- Advanced Swift by objc.io
- Functional Swift by objc.io
- The Stanford iOS course, updated every year, now with SwiftUI
- RayWenderlich.com
- 100 days of Swift, Hacking with Swift
- Read the Swift.org forums
Resistors!
John Brewer showed us his app for reading resistors!
Canvas and TimelineView Demo
Converting the ForceDirectedGraph app to use Canvas and TimelineView.
We implemented the node drawing:
struct GraphView: View {
@ObservedObject var viewModel: GraphViewModel
var body: some View {
TimelineView(.animation) { timeline in
Canvas { context, size in
viewModel.canvasSize = size
let _ = viewModel.updateSimulation()
print(timeline.date)
context.transform = viewModel.modelToView
for node in viewModel.graph.nodes {
let ellipse = viewModel.modelRect(node: node)
context.fill(Path(ellipseIn: ellipse), with: .color(Palette.color(for: node.group)))
}
}
}
}
}These rely on transforms that are computed in the view model when the canvas dimensions are known:
var canvasSize: CGSize = .zero {
didSet {
let minDimension = min(canvasSize.width, canvasSize.height)
modelToView = CGAffineTransform.identity
.translatedBy(x: (canvasSize.width - minDimension) * 0.5,
y: (canvasSize.height - minDimension) * 0.5)
.scaledBy(x: minDimension, y: minDimension)
viewToModel = modelToView.inverted()
}
}We need to make sure we are transformed into the correct spaces.
func modelRect(node: Node) -> CGRect {
let inset = -Constant.nodeSize / (modelToView.a * 2)
return CGRect(origin: node.position, size: .zero)
.insetBy(dx: inset, dy: inset)
}We will continue the discussion next week.
2022.01.15
Converting Combine to async/await
Continuing the example from last week, Josh converted the Magic app over to use async/await instead of a combine publisher. We could then compare and contrast the strenths and weaknesses of each approach. async/await has a much more imperative feel. For example debounce is a combine publisher and works just by calling that and remembering to switching to the latest publisher. By contast, with async/await, you have to spell it out Task.sleep(nanoseconds:) and a Task.cancel at the right place.
2022.01.08
Happy New Year! It was a first meeting of the year lots of people turned out.
Proposal Discussion: any
This proposal was accepted yesterday. It is a fairly simple syntax change but perhaps paves the way for more advanced automatic type erasure.
Here is the acceptance announcement with modifications.
Discussion: Performance Predictability
Ray guided a summary discussion on Joe Groff's forum post about expected improvements to the ARC programming model and performance predictability. The original post is here: https://forums.swift.org/
The walk-through presentation PerformanceRoadmapPitchSummary.
Privacy and App Submission
When you are submitting an app, you need to worry about third party dependencies (such as analytics and crash reporters) that phone home. You need to include those privacy policies in your submission.
You might wish to check your app using a proxy such as Charles or proxyman. https://proxyman.io
Manu wrote a book about privacy for app developers https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4842-4291-9
Modern SwiftUI Magic
Josh revisited an old SwiftUI project (searching cards from the game Magic) from years ago and looked to modernize it. Some things we did:
- Use
AsyncImageremoving an entire package dependency. - Use
LazyVGridinside aScrollViewinstead ofList - Use
searchableview modifier (inside aNavigationView) instead of doing something custom.
These changes make the user interface look great on different size devices including iPads and Macs.
The original repo is here: https://github.com/joshuajhomann/Magic-Browser-SwiftUI
We looked at how the app uses Combine in the view model to map search terms to a publisher of Card types. Next week Josh will show how this can be updated to the new async/await world.
