This is an example of something that I have experienced a couple of times when working with MonoTouch:
I find a code example on the internet giving an example on how to use the NSUrl class. I try to add it to my code in Xamarin Studio. It is simple, except I can't find which using statement to use. I try to google, but no examples I find include the elusive using statement I am looking for. I find the the official Mac Developer Library NSUrl description, but it does not tell me much (or perhaps it tells me too much).
In general, how do you go about finding which using statement to use in a case like this? Is there a Xamarin documentation of this somewhere that I just can't find? I'm not looking for the specific namespace from the example, but how to go about finding it myself.
If it's an iOS API, it will always be
MonoTouch.<iOS Framework Name>
So if you found NSUrl, you should also be able to see that it is part of Apple's "Foundation" framework.
MonoTouch.Foundation
Of course, I would just recommend just letting the IDE figure it out for you.
Right-click (on NSUrl) -> Resolve -> "using MonoTouch.Foundation"
Related
I am trying to use the finder comment field of a file stored in the folder of my iOS application (I'm talking about local storage, not in the cloud). The function MDItemCreate that would enable me to do so easily is not available in iOS applications apparently, which must be why the build currently fails with the error warning : "Cannot find 'MDItemCreate' in scope". Apple documentation in fact states that this method is only available on MacOS.
I have tinkered with FileManager but it doesn't grant access to comments.
This topic seems related but the solution is quite opaque to me.
My understanding of Swift is rather limited, if you would be so kind as to provide a simple and detailed answer I'd be much grateful.
With thanks,
Julien
I'm not completely certain, but messages like "Cannot find 'X' in scope" are often due to a forgotten import statement. MDItemCreate(_:_:) (docs) seems to be part of the Core Services framework, which has been part of iOS since iOS 12. Have you imported the framework?
You can do this (at the top of your .swift file) as follows:
import CoreServices
I'm looking to give SearchKit a try for a little side project, but I'm having trouble finding out how exactly to import it. I've been hunting around online all day, and haven't found a solid example of anyone incorporating it into a project, let alone specifics of importing it.
I know that it is part of CoreServices, but simply importing that doesn't seem to give me access to SearchKit APIs. I was able to find a SearchKit.framework, but it's a MacOSX framework, not an iOS framework.
I feel like I'm missing something silly.. anyone have any ideas?
While SearchKit is used to provide the Spotlight search service, it is only directly accessible on macOS.
Core Spotlight is available on macOS and iOS.
My goal is to build a swift iOS framework which uses two other frameworks (included as separate projects) and which shouldn't reveal the source code after built.
Is there some text/guide/documentation which would explain and navigate me through the process of building such a framework properly and correctly?
I built framework with aggregate target adding and linking frameworks on which my custom framework is dependent using run script as indicated here. I was able to add built of my custom framework to my custom app, together with other two dependencies (again as a separate projects), and run it on the device. However, I am not convinced by the correctness of my custom framework built.
Moreover, I was not able to upload the archive to the Appstore due to the various errors of "Unsupported architectures...", "CFBundleIdentifier Collision...", "Invalid Bundle...", "Invalid Binary" and so on. After sorting these errors out according to the various stackoverflow answers and installing the app from the TestFlight, the app crashed after launch and wasn't working at all.
I was checking various blog posts, stackoverflow questions/answers and Apple Framework Programming Guide but nothing gave me comprehensive understanding on building custom framework under conditions described above.
Everything I did was just following step-by-step tutorials without explanation of the purpose of the steps. I am sure I am missing the basics. Could you please help me and give me some guides?
I can understand you frustration. I, a while ago too searched probably for many documents on how to write a framework correctly but like you I also didn't find anything really that satisfying. From my own experiences I can give a couple of advices.
NO External Libraries
In my opinion DO NOT use external libraries in your own framework. I don't really know what your frameworks purpose is but most of the stuff you want to do can be done without using external libraries. Depending on other libraries is not a good idea especially if its a framework you are working on. Anytime these libraries get updated or even worse if they don't you will have to wait for them to be updated or find another library.So rather than this happening later on I think its better if you do it from the start. So loose the external libraries.
Universal Framework Binary
Second one is pretty easy. Generating a universal framework. I suggest you don't use a script. Most of the scripts I found were either outdated or they didn't work at all. Later on I found out that actually it was pretty easy to generate one on your own. You can do this by building your project once for a real device and one for the simulator.Then you can generate a universal binary by using the command lipo -create "Your simulator executable path" "your iOS device executable path" -output "your framework name". What this does is that it combines your two executable files and generates a universal one. Then you can just go and copy your simulator documents from the modules file and paste them in you iphoneos modules file. I am going to share a link were you can go through the walkthrough yourself. https://medium.com/wireless-registry-engineering/create-a-universal-fat-swift-framework-b7409bbfa18f
Use Objective-C(If you can)
This one is bit of a tricky one unless you know objective-c. What I would recommend is that you implement your framework using Objective-C and writing a swift wrapper around it. I would not have said this if you were creating an iOS app but in case of a framework I still think you should go for objective-c. This is because Objective-c has been around for over 30 years and most of the very old apps are in objective-c. If you want your framework to easily be used by older apps coded in objective-c I recommend you go with it. I have read tons of posts on how people have problems trying to use frameworks written in swift in their objective-c apps. Swift will be the first and probably only choice in the near future but not just yet. On the plus side if you still haven't you will have learnt Objective-C which will give definitely give you a better understanding on how things work. It will be challenging but I promise you it will be worth your while .I have a good read on this which you can checkout yourself. https://academy.realm.io/posts/altconf-conrad-kramer-writing-iOS-sdk/
Naming Conventions
This is a pretty straight forward one. I suggest you stick to apples naming conventions. This is because you will be sharing your code this time and people will look for familiarity when trying to integrate your framework. This will make your code easier to understand. You can check out these two links for more info.https://github.com/raywenderlich/objective-c-style-guide (obj-c) https://github.com/raywenderlich/swift-style-guide (swift)
Access Control
This in my opinion is an important one. When working on you framework think before you implement a class or a function. Consider if you would like someone else to be able to use that part of your code. You may want to limit the user while they use your framework and correct access control is the way to do it. You can easily guide the users so the users do exactly what you want them to do with your framework.
Document Your Code
This is a must if you want your framework be a professional one. You should be documenting every function and variable the user will use. Documenting and explaining what your code does makes a lot of peoples lives easy. You don't one anyone trying to understand what your code does for half an hour while you could have easily written a small explanation for what the parameters do and one that function or variable should be used for.
Test Your Code
Last but not least do write tests for your code. This does take some time but it assures you that your code works the way it should.
Look at other good frameworks
You should definitely checkout other open source libraries and look at what they have done. Usually there is no point in reinventing the wheel unless you are doing something absolutely different but even then there are very familiar ways to do things. I can suggest you check out the mantle sdk(https://github.com/Mantle/Mantle). Another one is the very popular Alamofire sdk(https://github.com/Alamofire/Alamofire) and also the Realm sdk(https://github.com/realm/realm-cocoa). These are good examples of frameworks. Take a look at them. Look how they have done things. It will give you an insight on how your framework should look like.
I know all of these points may also be valid if you were writing an app but what makes these a must is the fact that you will be sharing your code with others. You may manage by not doing some of these while implementing an app but for a framework things do change a little bit. It is always a pleasure to work with easy to use frameworks which make coding a pleasure. These types of small things will make your framework preferable. Happy coding.
I want to embed mono into my iOS application. I do not want to use MonoTouch. I want to embed mono manually like this:
http://www.mono-project.com/Embedding_Mono
I've have done this successfully on windows, using the above guide and various online examples, here's a good Windows one:
https://github.com/inkdev/Embedded-Mono-Sample
However I'm having trouble getting started on iOS. I know it can be done, companies like Unity3d use it to power their game engine tech. I can't work out how to compile and link mono for iOS nor can I find any good instructions to do so. I've not found any help using search engines, they exclusively seem to turn up articles about MonoTouch (Xamarin's own commercial wrapper around embedding mono into iOS).
Here's a few more noteworthy links:
http://www.mono-project.com/Mono:ARM
http://web.archive.org/web/20090106023130/http://mono-project.com./Mono:Iphone
Is there somewhere I can get precompiled libraries and headers for Mono for iOS, so in my C code I can simply link and include?
Could someone provide and example of how to compile mono for iOS ARM CPUs?
MonoTouch provides a great wrapper around all of the iOS Objective C APIs, however you don't necessarily need all of that, as I understand it should be possible to compile and then embed mono yourself and then use pInvoke to call the few native functions you will need.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, ty!
While not exactly what you are asking for, iOS 7 has added support for scripting with JavaScript. Many people finding this post may want to use this new capability to achieve what you are attempting. Link
As Rolf said, you need to read Mono Licensing document first. Embedding mono on iOS requires special permission from Xamarin.
You need to change several build settings from XCode, and here's what I did.
Open (or Create) iOS project
Add libmonoboehm-2.0.a to your project(You can use another version of .a file)
It's in Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/Versions/{version}/lib folder
Project -> Build Settings -> Header Search
Add path: /Library/Frameworks/Mono.frameworks/Versions/{version}/include/mono-2.0
Project -> Build Settings -> Library Search
Add path: /Library/Frameworks/Mono.frameworks/Versions/{version}/lib
And, code like this in your iOS application
#include <mono/jit/jit.h>
#include <mono/metadata/mono-config.h>
#include <mono/metadata/assembly.h>
#include <mono/metadata/environment.h>
// ....
const char* dllFile = "ABSOLUTE_PATH_TO_DLL_OR_EXE";
domain = mono_jit_init(dllFile);
mAssembly = mono_domain_assembly_open(domain, dllFile);
// ... Do whatever you want :)
Please remember. You need to get license from Xamarin when embedding mono on iOS.
Enjoy :)
Is there any centralized repository of useful Objective-C / Cocoa libraries as there is for Perl, Ruby, Python, etc.?
In building my first iPhone app, I'm finding myself implementing some very basic functions that would be just a quick "gem install" away in Ruby.
There's a project for that! It's called CocoaPods!
Homepage: http://cocoapods.org/
Source: https://github.com/CocoaPods/CocoaPods
Unfortunately not :(
There are some very useful sites however. I find one of the best is cocoadev.com as it contains lots of useful information about many of the more obscure classes usually including snippets of code to do some really cool things :)
Maybe we (the cocoa community) should look into building something like this!
Oh and I just remembered this site cocoadevcentral.com which is also very good for starting out with cocoa.
Daniel mentioned http://cocoadev.com.
More specifically, check out http://www.cocoadev.com/index.pl?ObjectLibrary.
"This page is for tracking re-usable Cocoa classes that can be mixed, matched, and dropped fairly easily into existing Cocoa projects to add useful functionality."
I'd be interested in what kind of "basic functions" you're having to implement. There's actually quite a lot already there in the provided libraries, and I wonder if you're just not finding functionality that's already there...
There's a new index of reusable code for Mac OS and iOS: Cocoa Objects
I might be confused or missing something here... But doesn't apple provide all the Foundation / Cocoa / AppKit / CoreAudio / Qtkit / etc libraries that should provide all of the very basic functions you are looking for?
Other than what xcode comes with or is on the apple dev site, there are no centralized repo's for Cocoa.
Google Code also has some objective C things up. It depends on what you are looking for...
Also see GitHub, many useful Objective-C projects, especially re iPhone. See activerecord & cocoaoniguruma, for instance.
http://github.com/search?q=objective-c
http://github.com/search?q=objc
Google has Google toolbox for mac which got me started unit testing my iPhone application which was the main thing I found missing.