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