Using Xcode's visual debugger and Instruments' modules to prevent memory overuse Aug 27 2019

An essential step before you deliver your application to your users is to make sure that your app is not overusing your user's resources. In this post, I'll show how to use Xcode's visual debugger and the command-line counterparts to check for common...

Understanding XCUITest screenshots and how to access them Aug 20 2019

Getting the screenshots of your app doesn't need to be complicated, and it shouldn't require you to install additional applications to do it. Sure you can use any other third-party library, but sometimes simple is better. Also, it is always fun to...

Adding Fastlane to an Xcode project Aug 15 2019

We can install Fastlane as a Homebrew cask or as a gem. I'll go the gem route.

add a Gemfile on your project:

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#Gemfile
source "https://rubygems.org"

gem "fastlane"

We are going to use bundler. If you are familiar with Ruby development, you...

Automating build and TestFlight upload for simple iOS apps Aug 13 2019

Sometimes we only want to do the simplest of tasks of build and upload to TestFlight without having to spend much time doing lots of configuration. Maybe we are only testing a minimum viable product (MVP) and want to make it accessible to beta users...

exportOptions properties Aug 13 2019

From the help obtained on

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$ xcodebuild -version
# Xcode 10.3
# Build version 10G8

This are the options available for the exportOptins Property List file:

compileBitcode : Bool

For non-App Store exports, should Xcode re-compile the app from...

Solutions to common scenarios when using UITextField on iOS Aug 5 2019

At some point on your app development career, you'll find yourself working with text fields to get some data from the user. Collecting data from the user sometimes involves additional work than merely reading text from an UITextField. For example,...

Building a CLI tool using Swift and Vapor's Console module Jul 30 2019

Building a command-line interface (CLI) tools is a complicated task. We work on the logic of our application and also have to deal with other details like parsing parameters, handling the correct display directives depending on the TTY, etcetera. Vapor...

Using Drag and Drop on UITableView for reorder Jul 26 2019

If we use custom cells for a UITableView, and we want to re-order using drag and drop, we need to make our cell model conform to NSItemProviderWriting, NSItemProviderReading and NSObject. To move an object using drag and drop, we need to to be able...

Using Swift for scripting Jul 23 2019

Swift is a powerful language. It can be used to create command-line tools, iOS apps, watch OS apps, macOS apps and server-side applications. However, sometimes, we only need to complete a small task, maybe do some automation on our local setup or build...

Creating App Custom URL Scheme Jul 17 2019

We can do this by adding the following fields to the info plist:

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    <key>CFBundleURLTypes</key>
    <array>
        <dict>
            <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key>
            <string>Viewer</string>
            <key>

Sharing information between iOS app and an extension Jul 16 2019

If you decided to create an Extension for your app (maybe a Today Extension), you will quickly find out that you need to access data from your main app. And soon after, you will find out that you can't access files in your main app directly from the...

UITableView notes Jul 14 2019

There are small details of UITableView that are simple but makes the table view look good. One of those is hiding the separator for empty cells.

A table view has a header, body and footer. Most of the time, when we start a project, we drag a table...