iOS Developer Journal

Observed

Throughout history, “journal clubs” of like-minded explorers would meet regularly to express ideas, critique academic and scientific literature, and commiserate about the follies of machines and humans.

Small Planet engineers have gloriously embraced this format, sharing iOS development hacks, discussing challenges, picking them apart, and spinning off new ideas, all in an effort to become better at what we do.

TotallyTabular: A Swift Playground exploring DataFrames from the TabularData framework

To explore the playground, check out this repository and open the TotallyTabular.playground file in Xcode: https://github.com/qmchenry/TotallyTabular

What A Dump!

When data gets to be too much, sometimes you have to take stuff to the dumpster. We explore how to use a great built-in function in Swift called dump to print a complex data structure (but in a way that limits the amount of information shown). This is something you’ll likely start using today if you haven’t been already.

For associated code go to: https://gist.github.com/qmchenry/81e0f25dbd128456b469502ba9f7c41b

Updates to Sextant

Sextant, the complete and performant JSONPath implementation for Swift, now has compliance and performance updates, mutable JSON, and an online playground. Link to repository: https://github.com/KittyMac/Sextant

Github Actions

Github has great documentation of its actions, but it can be a lot to parse. In this episode we’re talking about Ted Summer’s excellent introduction and guide to the service through examples. https://www.actionsbyexample.com

Props: An Open-source Swift Package

Filled with reusable UI elements and styles, Props is the result of a collaboration between Small Planet’s designers and developers to improve our rapid prototyping skills. Working together, we saw the parallels between what we were doing and what a photo stylist and photographer do during a photoshoot. From this, the idea of a catalog of props, reusable visual elements, grew and became this repository.

These components largely leverage the styling system of SwiftUI: https://github.com/SmallPlanetLabs/Props

Introducing Sextant

A complete and performant JSONPath implementation for Swift. Sextant has a simple API, addresses compatibility issues, supports Swift on Linux, and is more performant than other options available. Link to repository: https://github.com/KittyMac/Sextant

Treats and Tricks in Xcode

Including: Secret second clipboards, opening files in “modern” Xcode, copying and pasting shortcuts, collapsing and expanding your view, quickly creating comment blocks, and more.

Environmental Awareness

What are environment values in SwiftUI exactly, why do you want to use them, and how do you use them?

Strings Attached

A short, bite-sized intro to attributed strings in SwiftUI.

Combine Bug Showdown

A quick look at some simple Combine-related code that shines some light on a very particular ecosystem, and offers a little bug eradication.

The Secret Door in Xcode

For a long time, we missed a secret door in Xcode. No longer!

Some View

It was a few months before we noticed “Some View” hanging out in the body. What does it mean and what does it do?