When coming from an Object-Oriented Programming language like ObjC, inheritance is often used to share code between multiple classes. But that solution is not always the best, and have some issues.
In todayâs article, weâll see how Swiftâs Protocol Extensions and their usage as âMixinsâ can change the deal.
via Mixins over Inheritance â Crunchy Development.
Check this amazing post out! Some really epic examples to show the power of Mixins (protocol extensions). ⤠it.
This is a great, straight-to-the-point post about where you can use the keyword where in Swift along with specific code examples. It’s a really powerful keyword that allows you to pre-filter lines of code. Check it out!
http://blog.krzyzanowskim.com/2015/11/13/where-where-may-be-used/
Designing an app icon is not such an easy task! You’ve got to make sure it’s unique and sticks out in the sea of other apps, and is appealing to the eye. The icon needs to represent in some way what your app is about.
I’ve been working on my first iOS app, BB Links (short for Beachbody Links), and this weekend I decided to work on its icon after watching Michael Flarup‘s great video called Designing Better App Icons (which has an awesome 80s vibe!!!).
I’m not that great with Photoshop. I’ve only ever used it for editing video and for making somewhat hacked logos before for my Beachbody business. After watching Michael’s video, I picked up some functions of Photoshop that I didn’t really realize I could use for making logos, such as smart objects using shapes.
The first version, created a month ago
I whipped out Photoshop last night afterwards and started working with shapes to come up with a logo that incorporated the letter b. Here’s the first iteration after deciding that my original logo above which had just the app’s name in text was not good enough.
Redesign, iteration #1
This first version I used shares to create a B (a rectangle and a circle), and then added a shadow behind it. This created a double B in a way, which fit the BB Links app name.
This is the second iteration:
Redesign, iteration #2
I experimented with using some linear shapes with gradients to simulate a block shadow, however, this how meant there was only a single B present. That’s not a bad thing, but my husband said that something was off with the shadow (I’m assuming since I didn’t create a vanishing point…I tried but couldn’t figure out out with Photoshop đ). He also said that the ‘b’ should have a circle inside it–I’d tried to go without just to make it different, but agreed that it just looked “off.”
So with a (BUNCH) of more fiddling around, here’s the final app icon I’ve come up with!
Redesign, iteration #3 (final…for now)
I changed up the blues in the background a bit so they’re brighter, added the inside of the ‘b’, doubled up the ‘b’s, added a slight shadow to the ‘b’s to give them a bit of POP and added a line underneath to play tribute to the fact that hyperlinks have underlines often so that plays on the BB Links name. đ
I used Michael’s awesome iOS App Icon Template (FREE/Donationware) to export all of the sizes required to include in the app’s assets for all of the iOS icon sizes for all of the different iOS devices. It’s great…get it! And support him as well so he keeps it updated and keeps improving it.
For now I’m happy with the way it looks. Much better than I’ve done in the past as most of what I’d made was very flat and didn’t have much depth. I’ll probably play around with it some more after a while to tweak it, but I think this is now close to the final version!
Let me know what you think, and feel free to leave some suggestions for improving it if you want! I’m an amateur and love learning new tips/tricks. đ
This is a really great blog post by Matthijs Hollemans (author of the iOS Apprentice book I just finished reading) about the power of implementing protocol extensions/mixins/traits in your code to help reduce code-reuse, and make it more flexible.
It is a different way of thinking, but in my opinion, a much better way to code. I’m excited to implement protocol extensions into my app!
http://matthijshollemans.com/2015/07/22/mixins-and-traits-in-swift-2/
The concept of “Git” can be intimidating at first…branches, local copies, merging, committing, etc. It isn’t simple when starting out to understand how to use this powerful tool to its full potential. Figuring it out, however, is a must in my opinion! I didn’t know anything about using git before reading about it in the iOS Apprentice book I just finished, but that was just the tip of the iceberg!
There’s a Mac app called Tower (free trial) that wrote an excellent guide to fully understanding how to make the best use of git. The online ebook applies to many free Git management apps as well, so don’t dismiss it because it’s tied to a paid Mac app.
Free ebook:Â Learn Version Control with Git
Reading through this free online ebook has given me the confidence to start using Git for my iOS app to better protect myself from the frustrations of making a (bad) programming change without version control and having to manually change code back to how it used to be when it worked.
I’m excited to be more experimental and take more risks in my code now!
Check out the book’s full table of contents below.
I’ve been plugging along through the iOS Apprentice book from raywenderlich.com over the past few weeks. Let me say one thing: this thing is AMAZING.
RayWenderlich.com iOS Apprentice Book Synopsis
The iOS Apprentice is a series of epic-length tutorials for beginners where youâll learn how to build 4 complete apps from scratch.
Each new app will be a little more advanced than the one before, and together they cover everything you need to know to make your own apps. By the end of the series youâll be experienced enough to turn your ideas into real apps that you can sell on the App Store.
These tutorials have easy to follow step-by-step instructions, and consist of more than 900 pages and 500 illustrations! You also get full source code, image files, and other resources you can re-use for your own projects.
I started out by just signing up for the site’s newsletter. When you sign up for the newsletter, you get emailed the entire first full-length tutorial in the iOS Apprentice book for FREE. At first, I ignored the tutorial as I was focused on just grabbing what I needed from Googling, but I quickly became frustrated with the gaps in my knowledge.
I stumbled upon the RayWenderlich.com site tutorials quite often in my googling and saw that the site had some new Swift and iOS books coming out. I didn’t realize that the tutorial that I got for free with the newsletter sign up was actually the first of four chapters in the iOS Apprentice, and I was interested in buying the iOS Apprentice so I dug up the tutorial in my Gmail and decided to commit to going through it.
As soon as I made it through the first few pages, I knew this was going to be an amazing resource. I zoomed through the free tutorial and was hooked–I decided to bite and I actually bought the complete Mega Swift Bundle from RayWenderlich.com…that’s how sure I was that this was how I wanted to learn.
So as of today, I’ve completed the iOS Apprentice book–all 1,018 pages! I’ve learned so, so much, a lot of which is how to do iOS development in Swift the right way–not by hacking together a bunch of stuff I find online. My current unfinished app definitely has some ‘no-no’s’ in it that the book’s author, Matthijs, pointed out along the way that I’m going to have to go through and fix now that I know.
My next adventure: the RayWenderlich.com Core Data by Tutorials Book! To make my unfinished app work better, I need to get better at Core Data, so this will definitely help!
P.S.: I’m also making my way through the Swift Apprentice book bit by bit as I go along. Another great resource.
Want to make your app stand out and look professional and stylish? Some really great guidelines on this page that covers everything.
Apple has really stepped up their game and has some really excellent resources, WWDC 2015 videos, and Swift 2 sample projects on this page. Definitely check it out!
An excellent post from Thoughtbot about how to make better use of Color in terms of design use (limiting your app to using 3 colours max), naming conventions (i.e. to base names on usage scenario instead of the actual colour, and use aliases), and programming techniques (how to use extensions and global functions with Colors). Some great ideas I’m going to use!
I kept seeing references on github to CocoaPods and Carthage but had no clue how to use them or what they were for.
Today I stumbled upon a tutorial on one of my favourite iOS/Swift tutorial sites RawWenderlich.com that went through explaining the W5s behind Carthage!
Tutorial Link: Getting Started with Carthage
I did the whole tutorial and now all is clear and I can start using Carthage in my projects where it may be useful. đ Sometimes all it takes is a structured learning environment to make something crystal clear in my head!
I also now see how Carthage can be better than CocoaPods so I think I’ll stick to using Carthage in the future.
swift.with(justin) 