Wish this article was around when I started. These are all things I've learned to use and embrace every day. Great tips!
iOS Development Tips If You're Just starting Out
11–20 of 105 posts
Re: iOS Development Tips If You're Just starting Out
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
I started out using XIBs, but also found myself moving a lot of my controllers away from them as soon as things got non-trivial. The biggest problem I found was weak layout support, so if you had a lot of dynamic content in a screen, it was easier to make a flexible layout in code. I also agree that the lack of "diffability" for XIBs, despite them being XML, is a pain. Maybe I was missing something, but my experience…
Perhaps you're missing something. XIBs are arguably among the most powerful features of Cocoa. I built an app with a really complex, dynamic layout using them (look up "Panna" in the App Store). Working with an evolving design and changing team, with layout elements often changing and getting tweaked in tiny ways... Well, if I did the entire layout in code, I would have needed a full-time developer just for the ongoi…
100% agree. IB makes for faster development time, easier maintenance, and it's way better for auto layout if you're targeting iOS 6.0
Re: iOS Development Tips If You're Just starting Out
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps you're missing something. XIBs are arguably among the most powerful features of Cocoa. I built an app with a really complex, dynamic layout using them (look up "Panna" in the App Store). Working with an evolving design and changing team, with layout elements often changing and getting tweaked in tiny ways... Well, if I did the entire layout in code, I would have needed a full-time developer just for the ongoi…
100% agree. IB makes for faster development time, easier maintenance, and it's way better for auto layout if you're targeting iOS 6.0
I think there's a case to be made though, that using IB when starting out doesn't make you fully understand how UIViews work. So starting out I'd probably recommend you make your own views programmatically to know what you're hooking into.
That said once you get that base level of understanding, nibs and storyboards are huge time savers, and are the way to go.
Re: iOS Development Tips If You're Just starting Out
#14The thing I have missed the most with Objective C is the lack of a code tidy/formatting tool. All Xcode can do is alter the indent on each line which isn't useful. Regular indent etc do not support the language. There is an uncrustify tool in various SO answers but it is a good example of how not to do things (eg by default it does nothing - there are no presets, it is very flaky). I wish Google provided tidy tools w…
Have you tried JetBrains's AppCode? http://www.jetbrains.com/objc/
(I haven't but their RoR-tailored IDE RubyMine is the only IDE I've enjoyed using after it for less than a week.)
Re: iOS Development Tips If You're Just starting Out
#15 Otherwise you can just use git submodules.
I wish I had something to suggest as a replacement. We're still trying to figure that one out ourselves. We just know we won't use submodules again. For now, we're manually managing disjoint repositories.
Re: iOS Development Tips If You're Just starting Out
#16Utilizing storyboards and xibs is one of the best way to decrease development time. Stop the coding madness!!!! The only people I still know that avoid heavy utilization of these do not understand how to properly use them. Go learn!
Agreed. If iOS actually had a sane declarative language like Android's xml layouts then I'd do everything in code but since layouts coded in Obj-C are excruciatingly painful to read and edit you're better off with a WYSIWYG tool, even if (IMO) WYSIWYG is fundamentally the wrong approach for UI development.
I actually consider this a big liability for Apple going forward. The explosion of "phablets" and other form factors spells the end of their pixel-perfect design approach and their tools and APIs for managing dynamic, variable layouts are stone age compared to Android's.
Re: iOS Development Tips If You're Just starting Out
#17Thanks - as it happens I'm about 3 months in to learning Objective-c and iOS development. This is super helpful, as many of the tutorials online are dated. Right now I'm working through the Ray Wenderlich stuff which is really good, at least as far as I can tell.
w/r/t using the visual XIB/Storyboard interface vs. coding the views, I've found early on that while the nibs and storyboards make it easy to prototype and visually hook stuff up, looking at some of the apps I admire (apps like Clear, Rise, etc.), makes it pretty clear that I will need to code these views up myself to achieve some of those interactions. Unless I'm missing something (which of course I am, I'm a NOOB) I don't see how most of those can be done right from the nibs.
edit: also, if anyone has any other recommended links/resources, I'd love any recommendations. Thanks.
Re: iOS Development Tips If You're Just starting Out
#18The thing I have missed the most with Objective C is the lack of a code tidy/formatting tool. All Xcode can do is alter the indent on each line which isn't useful. Regular indent etc do not support the language. There is an uncrustify tool in various SO answers but it is a good example of how not to do things (eg by default it does nothing - there are no presets, it is very flaky). I wish Google provided tidy tools w…
I am totally satisfied with Uncrustify, and this is my Uncrustify's config for Objective C, in case you find it useful (Allman style): https://gist.github.com/940977
Re: iOS Development Tips If You're Just starting Out
#19Otherwise you can just use git submodules. I would recommend against it. They become a real pain down the road. I wish I had something to suggest as a replacement. We're still trying to figure that one out ourselves. We just know we won't use submodules again. For now, we're manually managing disjoint repositories.
what problems did you experience with git submodules?
Re: iOS Development Tips If You're Just starting Out
#20Utilizing storyboards and xibs is one of the best way to decrease development time. Stop the coding madness!!!! The only people I still know that avoid heavy utilization of these do not understand how to properly use them. Go learn!
Agreed. If iOS actually had a sane declarative language like Android's xml layouts then I'd do everything in code but since layouts coded in Obj-C are excruciatingly painful to read and edit you're better off with a WYSIWYG tool, even if (IMO) WYSIWYG is fundamentally the wrong approach for UI development. I actually consider this a big liability for Apple going forward. The explosion of "phablets" and other form fac…
Cocoa Auto Layouts are what you're looking for: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserE...