Known issues for iOS modularized approach? - ios

We've a classic iOS application which was developed using objective-c and it has lot of features. The same features has been used for other similar apps as well.
Now we've plan to rewamp the entite application. One of the approach to reduce the development work, we've plan to modularize features as framework re-using the same objective-c code, so that all applicaiton can use the framework and compile time will be less.
Also as part of rewamp, we will be using iOS 10 and swift3.
Please kindly share me your ideas/feedback, what are issues will be popup or any limitaion to do this approach.
Appreciate your help!
Thanks,
Srini

Just pack it as cocoapods and deploy into your company git is the fastest way i suppose, packing into framework is also fine but it have many boilerplate thing like cant run on either device or simulator, and if using fat framework then need to extract the simulator part out when you archive, or have to use embed framework if they are depent on each other,.... its just pretty annoying

Related

Can someone please explain the differences between Cocos2d-Swift, SpriteBuilder, Xcode and CocoaPods?

I'm completely confused and I don't know where to start asking questions. I tried googling, but the terminology is confusing and I'm not sure what either of these things do (except for Xcode). Can someone explain like I'm 5?
I'm on the cocos2d-swift website and after reading the getting started section it says "From this point onwards, using SpriteBuilder is optional.". I don't know what they mean by that.
How do each of these correlate with each other?
Also, how is an API Documentation Browser and Code Snippet Manager useful to an everyday iOS Developer?
cocos2d-swift is a framework that enables you to build things like sprite-based games quickly.
SpriteBuilder is a tool that helps you build your own multilayered sprites (images and animations grouped into a single package -- i.e. Mario, a Goomba, a Fireflower fireball, etc.).
Xcode is a developer environment in which you write your source code, compile, distribute, and test.
CocoaPods is a tool that fetches and manages framework/SDK dependancies.
You would use CocoaPods to fetch the cocos2d-swift framework so that you could build a sprite-based game in Xcode using sprites you generated in SpriteBuilder.
Not sure what Cocos2d is, but swift is the latest programming language by Apple for both OS X and iOS development.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift_(programming_language)
SpriteBuilder is a framework used to create games for iOS very quick. Think of it as a game engine.
http://www.spritebuilder.com/about
Xcode is the IDE (integrated development environment) that you use when writing native OS X and iOS applications. It's awesome!
CocoaPods is a way to load in third-party libraries and frameworks without having to manually install them on your own. It also makes it very easy to keep the frameworks up-to-date. Pods also allows your project to be more portable as it's much easier to install an application with multiple dependancies via Pods.
http://cocoapods.org
A documentation browser is good if you want to have access to documentation while offline. However, I almost always use Google to find what I'm looking for regardless of what technology I'm working on. Google is just the best way to search.
Finally, I'd start off with this book. I read the first edition years ago, and made things very easy for me to understand.
http://www.bignerdranch.com/we-write/ios-programming.html
Hope this helps!
Here are some basics:
XCode (A Program)- Most of your iOS development will happen here. Coding, creating the app etc.
Think of an SDK as a suite of commands or tools you can use-API's (API - Application programming interface)
Cocoas2d (An SDK) - Game engine. A software development kit for creating games. you would pull this library of code and tools into xcode to use it.
SpriteBuilder (An SDK) - Suite of tools for building games. Just like Cocoas, you would pull this into xCode to make use of it as you code.
CocoaPods - A tool for linking/loading SDK's into XCode and easily updating them.
Moral of the story: XCode is the software you will use for everything. Everything else are just additional libraries of code you can pull in.

Fetch data from web service in ios

I am developing an iOS app that should pull data from a web service. Now i have developed a basic structure and layout and implemented it to show static content.
But when i try to load data from an api with the use SBJSON Lib, it gives a lot of errors as It dose not support Automatic reference counting (ARC) which is forced by xcode5.
I Found a solution to that by disabling ARC in the whole project, but again there were a lot of errors as i did not have ant data release mechanism to free the memory space.
So Now, my question is that is some lib that can be used with automatic reference counting or use any method to use SBJSON lib but not mess up my whole project.
I am quiet new to iOS development and don't know much about available options. I have googled the issue a lot but nothing worked in my case.
Also i read about an inbuilt json lib that can b used for development (introduced from ios5 , I think!). How to use it and is it any different/ better than other 3rd party lib available.
Technology
iOS : 7 or later
xcodeversion : 5.1.1
Application : universal
Any suggestion would be a great help.
Thanks in Advance!

Why doesn't Xcode have an ios framework option?

I've seen project such as ios-universal-framework, but I want to know why XCode iOS does not natively support having a framework. Is it some kind of legal issue. The static library option is not good enough because I want to be able to use .dylib files in my framework.
A little background on what I want to do with a framework. I have a project that is generated from Unity3D, and when we update, we have to manually add back all of our project changes.
What I want is to use a framework that can store most of those external libraries and resources to make it easier to upgrade our project when updates are released.
From a security perspective no code is allowed to be dynamically loaded, thus only static libraries are allowed.
It is possible to create static psudo-frameworks. Take a look at GitHub iOS-Universal-Framework.
What you need is a PosprocessBuilder as described in the build pipeline described in the Unity3d Documentation.
You can manage the Xcode configurations in this pipeline using scripts like the Xcode Zerg.
I've used one python script written by a guy called Calvin Rien that worked really well, if you want to know more about this script this blog post should give you a hint.
What you really need to look for to you automate the these steps is to look for posts of Continuous Integration using Unity 3d and iOS like this one:
Unity3d: from commit to deployment onto tester devices in 20 min using Jenkins

porting iOS project for mac platform

I have been searching around for a method to port an iOS xcode built project to OSX xcode project. Unfortunately, I have found that because there is no UIKit or storyboard for OSX xcode (just individual .xib's). Is there a way around this?
If you're a registered Apple developer there's a new video up that goes through some of the basics and the design patterns you should be aware of, just named "Bringing Your iOS Apps To OS X".
The UI paradigm of any non-trivial iOS applications is entirely different to that of one for MacOSX.
Necessarily, you will need to redesign the View layer of the application. However, the Model layer ought to cleanly port over and at least some of your controller classes might be reusable, although MacOSX doesn't have anything equivalent to a UIViewContoller.
Besides this, many of the frameworks your app might be using are either available for both iOS and MacOSX (usually in cut-down form on the former), or a similar.
If your logic and UI are well separated, you have a chance at some good re-use, but at a minimum you will need to rebuild the UI layers of your app; it's going to take time.
If you don't have the time to invest, and if you are willing to try something experimental, there are a couple 3rd party frameworks available that attempt to bridge the UIKit AppKit gap.
You can probably consider many of these as risky 'shots in the dark', but they are worth a look. Keep in mind the long term support ramifications as well.
Chameleon
UMEKit

Show unity 3D in xcode project

I have a question. Is it possible to load unity project from web, and show it in Xcode project? In some non-fullscreen view? Also, unity must handle touch events. Any ideas, suggestions, links or anything else?
Thanks for advice.
P.S. Sorry for my english.
P.P.S. Main project created in Xcode, without unity.
load unity project from web
What do you mean by that? If you mean a compiled unity webplayer application, forget it.
If you mean a standard non compiled Unity project, note that with the iOS plugin you can compile for mobile Apple hardware. This used to cost a lot of money but now they're giving it out for free (included in Unity free).
Also, unity must handle touch events.
The standard Input Unity class handles touch events with methods such as GetTouch() and variables like touchCount or touches.
Unity is a very big and complex package: integrating it into an existing project may be overwhelmingly difficult. I really don't think there are natives way to do so.
Rather, I'd advise you to port your current XCode project into Unity (which sounds a really strange thing to do if you ask me).
Unity and XCode are 2 completely different tools: the former is useful for Cocoa classes and iOS IDE while the latter is for managing 3d game assets in a real-time interactive environment. I don't see how you can possibly integrate the two things.
Manage your project in a single IDE, it will make things a lot simpler.

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