I'm programming in iOS not so long. I was mainly programming UI related stuff like animations, custom UIControls etc.
I need in my new app to:
Display loading activity indicator and in the same time:
load some remote data from server parse them and store in local core data
load some data from local core data
get user position from location service
After this I have all data needed to display next view controller and dismiss loading indicator.
Question is how can I do this all? I need to support iOS9, iOS10, 11, 12. I understand that this needs to be done in background threads and then I need to merge all data from each task and switch to next view controller. I can't use any external libraries like rx-swift or promise-kit. Maybe there is any experienced iOS developer who can give me some main guidelines how to approach to this kind of application flows? I can imagine there is a lot of ways I can do it some of them are better and some of them are worse. Any guidelines would be very helpful for me. Thanks.
It's a very complex question and as you said it's possible to solve all this problems in several ways. But for sure i can give you some core-hints about which steps is better to follow:
Run in a separate thread the management of all stuff regarding to the Network communication. Maybe you can run it on a separate queue using the class DispatchQueue(). Once you received the data, in the same thread, maybe you can directly convert these information and store them inside a CoreData database.
To store into CoreData you need at first to know how it works, so basically search for some really easy tutorial about how to create from zero your first database inside XCode. After you have been able to run and execute a very simple one you will be able to pass to the second step and so try to integrate it with the data you have previously downloaded from the network. Here a good article for you: https://www.raywenderlich.com/7569-getting-started-with-core-data-tutorial .
To get the location is a separate field of study, because you have to study which background modes are allowed in iOS (And actually are allowed just a few). After that you will need to figure out in which category of background-location application your software belongs. After that you have to dig deep and discover how protocol and delegates works inside Swift/Objective-C in order to properly manage the last location value retrieved by the sensors. Here is a good article for you: https://www.raywenderlich.com/5247-core-location-tutorial-for-ios-tracking-visited-locations.
At the end when you interconnected all this flows you can think about how to display the loading indicator. Basically you need to drag and drop it from the tools into the storyboard, interconnect it by using the IBAction or IBOutlet, depending on when you wanna show it and in which specific case. And then use the relative method startAnimating or stopAnimating in the right code flow (It really depends on how you have structured all the previous bullet points).
Since your question was very general and it includes a lot of sub-steps, basically it really needs to be thorough studied and analysed.
I've tried to sum up as much as possible the most important bullet points. I hope the links i suggested to you will help a little bit. Good luck.
Related
I am designing an idle clicker style app, as I am quite new to programming and thought it would be a good personal project. However I am trying to design the upgrades on a second ViewController menu, however every time that the user leaves the first ViewController, all the settings on that page are lost e.g. stats. I know that there are already similar questions, but they don't relate to my issue and I am having difficulties trying to understand them.
I was just wondering if someone had any way to save this progress both when the user moves to a new viewController and when the app is closed and reopened. Also this might be pushing it, but if you could describe what each part of the code does it would be very helpful.
Thanks
Best is to use UserDefaults to store page contents. You can define key/value pairs and save and load values as needed. Look for it in the IOS documentation. It is very easy to implement it.
I am creating a very simple flashcard app. It is a very basic app, the initial screen asks users to select a language. From there they pick from 5 categories. After selecting a category the user should get a random question (out of 20 possible questions).
My question is I want a question to not show up again within that set of 20 until all the other questions in that set have been shown. Similar to a deck of cards where the viewed card goes to the bottom of the deck.
The second question is what framework would be best for this application. There are 200 questions in total, all text, no images. My inclination would be to use something like core data or would that be overkill?
Any help on how to best implement this would be appreciated! I've attached a picture for further clarification.Storyboard Layout
You're doing a great job so far.
There are many ways to track your cards. The simplest might be to add a Boolean property to the card definition. Call it something like "hasBeenAnswered" and set it to false. As a card is retired you can set this to true. Refresh your data source after a correct answer by removing the card from your data source and also setting the book to true, or simply set it to true and replace your data source with all cards which are set to false. (Perform the same fetch you used to get your initial set of data: all cards where hasBeenAnswered is false)
On your second question I'd try to learn Realm. It's easier to pick up than core data, and as a cross-platform tool, you can leverage what you learn on iOS if you ever try to develop on mac or android platforms.
You can also refactor the project to core data after it works the way you want to. And learn even more.
The suggestions I've made are not the most resource efficient, but you won't have any performance issues given the size/scope of your project.
Good luck 🍀
I'm working on a simple ResearchKit app that has 20 survey questions, or ORKSteps. How do I get the answers from a participant who submits the survey into a database?
My research has found ORKESerializer and SQLite as potential parts of the solution. I'm missing a big picture view of how these things can be integrated into a working solution.
Starting without knowledge of databases or data transfer from Swift, so any basic information would be very helpful.
How do I extract data from ORKResult using Swift?
Where do I extract the data to? Or, what's the standard type of database for a small survey?
ResearchKit doesn't have any out-of-the-box solution for storing your results. Generally, it's the task of the developer to go through the ORKResult hierarchy and either persist the processed results for later access or send them to a remote server.
You have several options here:
Use NSCoding to store the vanilla ORKTaskResult (with their ORKResult children). This way you can recreate the whole ORKTaskResult hierarchy at later time to inspect or process it.
Use ORKESerializer (as you guessed) to serialize ORKResults into the JSON format. ORKESerializer is currently included as part of ORKTest's unit tests, and it's not documented very well. It's possible that it will be moved to ResearchKit proper in the future, but it's completely usable right now. The JSON format is particularly useful if you want to send your results to any remote server of your own.
You can manually iterate through ORKResults and convert them into objects that are suitable for storing, or into database records. As you said, you could persist them using SQLite; or other database of your choice; or Core Data.
To sum up, there's no recommended or standard method for persisting results, it depends on your needs.
You can also have a look at the official open sourced RK apps. I think they make use of the AppCore library (which sits on top of the ResearchKit) to store the task results (and also use the Sage Bridge to send the results to Sage's servers). But that may be overboard if your needs are simpler.
I suggest that you run the sample ORKCatalog app and then inspect the ORKTaskResult hierarchy (you can do that within the app itself). You'll get an idea of how the result hierarchy looks.
I do not have experience with the Research Kit but as a database you could use sqlite. stephencelis has made a great wrapper for swift which you can use.
i am New user for Xcode in swift and i published my app to App Store. i could only connected with Parse ( Push notification Service )
but actually i want in future to change the background of my App or to add New Event. i know it is possible to do all this things with backend service but i heard that i have to design the code in parse, there is anyway to find the sample codes like push notification in Parse or somewhere else?
i will really appreciate if someone can help me.
"I want in future to change the background of my App or to add New Event"
These are hugely different scenarios.
Its pretty trivial to use Parse to change a screen background. Just save your existing background image as a file (eg as a UIImage) in Parse, and have your app download the image from Parse and set it as the background image of your UIView. Change the file and all users will see a new background. You would need to do this when the app loads (or at least before you access this screen), or else there will be some annoying delay when you access the screen with the new background image.
Adding a new event sounds close to impossible, as it involves modifying your code. But your compiled code is "signed", and as such is designed by Apple to be impossible to change without going through the market. Any app which could do that could bypass the market and potentially directly download malicious code. And nor (as far as I know) does Apple provide any support for extending or changing code within iOS. If its not actually impossible, I expect it would be so difficult and require so much knowledge of iOS as to be infeasible for the average programmer.
EDIT: You have now clarified as to what you mean by "Event" in your comments. This is just data which you load dynamically (and not an "event" in the programming sense). Yes you can do this through Parse (and lots of other ways), just read/load the data through Parse. Very easy to do, have you read Parse's excellent tutorial?
I have been tasked with creating an iPhone application for a client.
I have some coding experience but only in C# so it doesn't really help here but other than that I am a complete novice on iPhone coding.
What I am trying to accomplish is to get some form of store locator on a map.
I have successfully added the map, get the user location with it zooming into the user. I have added 2 annotations (Which I believe the the best way to go about showing locations on the map).
I have 2 queries that I need help with, What is the best way to go about listing the stores in some form of database. XML, PList, .sql etc... (this would also need to be read from the web as it would need to be easily edited as new stores would be added a lot). Is it possible to loop through the database and dynamically add the stores onto the map within a location of the user?
I am not asking anyone to write any code for me, I am just asking for some help as I have googled the hell out of this and cant seem to find anything that helps.
Any help would be much appreciated,
Thanks
In terms of your potential formats for saving these locations, you options include:
XML/JSON are good formats for exchanging data with a remote server, but less ideal for a local database (though they theoretically could be used for that purpose). JSON is marginally easier to deal with (using NSJSONSerialization), but XML can be relatively easily parsed, too (using, for example, NSXMLParser). If you're doing network operations, I also heartily recommend looking at AFNetworking, which offers some nice advantages over the standard NSURLConnection. This, of course, presumes that you have written a web service on your server to deliver the necessary JSON or XML feed.
Plist is a fine, simple format if you want to save a short, local list of locations on iOS devices. Saving data to a plist is as simple as calling writeToFile method for your NSDictionary or NSArray and reading data is done via [NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:filename] or [NSArray arrayWithContentsOfFile:filename].
Core Data is a good, iOS-specific format for larger databases. It's probably the preferred iOS mechanism for dealing with persistent objects, but is an order of magnitude more complicated than plists.
SQLite is also a good database format if you're thinking about a structure that lends itself towards larger database, but also which lends itself towards eventual rollout to multiple platforms (e.g. both Android and iOS). If you decide to go SQLite route, consider an Objective-C wrapper (such as FMDB), which will simplify your life greatly.
Implicit in all of the above discussion is that, yes, you certainly can write code that iterates through your database and/or model data structures, extracting the necessary location information, and dynamically add annotations to your map. The Location Awareness Programming Guide should help introduce you to some of the MapKit related features.
"Is it possible to loop through the database and dynamically add the stores onto the map within a location of the user?"
Yes. Just as you have created those first two annotations, you now need to create more annotations in a loop. The only additional info you might need is that once you have added an annotation to the map it will stay there until you remove it. So you don't need to maintain your own list of annotations unless you want to do something else with it. Just fire and forget. So now your question comes down to how to loop through data from your chosen data source in Objective-C and not MapKit specific.
I know this is old but if anyone else comes across this like I did, you can use tmysqlkit by tanmay bakshi to read and write directly to a mysql database on a server.
Best,
Sam