Category Archives: Xcode
Xcode 10: where did snippets go?
Xcode 10 beta has got some nice new touches (as well as the return of some old favourites, hello again the code folding ribbon!), but one that might disorientate you at first is the absence of the Snippets, Objects and Media libraries that typically live in the bottom right corner of IB in the Utilities sidebar.
I’ve always found this position and size to be somewhat awkward, so I’m overjoyed to find that Apple have now given the libraries their own floating panel. You can access the libraries either with the keyboard shortcut Command-Shift-L, or by clicking the button that’s now in the top-right of the toolbar, just to the left of the editor buttons.
The new button is context-sensitive, so you’ll notice you can’t access code snippets when in Interface Builder, and you can’t access the Objects library when you’re in the text editor. Makes sense to me!
Enjoy! 😀
how to protect your app from hijacking
I was lucky enough to get a great tip from MalwareBytes’ Thomas Reed this week on the possibilities of code hijacking.
Thomas was kind enough to share details of a talk he gave at MacTech last year, in which he demonstrated how some 3rd party apps are susceptible to having their binaries replaced by a fake binary even when the original application is properly code signed with a valid developer’s signature.
The vulnerability lies not so much in the code signing itself, but in the mechanism for when and why it gets checked. In short, code signing is checked when an app is first launched, but after that, except in a few special situations, macOS’s security mechanisms pretty much ignore it. That means once an app has passed GateKeeper, it’s a ripe target for attackers to come in and replace the binary with one of their own.
In order to ensure the app on disk is still in fact the app that was downloaded and first launched, developers need to implement a check on each launch.
If you’re using Swift, some example code for doing that (pictured above) is available from my pastebin here. I’ve also got a version for Objective-C, adapted from here.
The key to it is what you specify in the entitlement constant. In this example, I’ve specified three things: that the code is signed by Apple, that is has the app’s bundle identifier and that it has the developer’s Team ID. Don’t forget to change my dummy values for your real ones in the code! You can get all these details for your app by running this in Terminal:
codesign --display -r- <path to your app>
With that information, the function verifies that the application in memory meets the requirements specified in the entitlement.
Call the function at some point after launch (e.g, when your main nib has loaded) and handle the boolean result appropriately. For example, if the function returns false, you might throw an alert like this one from DetectX Swift telling the user that the app is damaged and needs to be re-downloaded, and then terminate the app when they hit “OK”:
Let’s keep our code (and users!) safe everybody. 🙂
how to quickly toggle Swift Compiler warnings
I thought I’d share this little AppleScript for anyone working with Xcode 8.3.3 and using Swift.
One of the things I find intrusive are the constant Swift Compiler warnings while I’m actually in the middle of writing a block of code (e.g, ‘…value was never used consider replacing…’). Well, yeah, it’s not been used *yet* …grrr!
However, turning off compiler warnings isn’t something I want to do either. It’s too easy to go into the build settings, turn them off, do a bit of coding, take a break, do a bit more coding…oh, three thousand lines later and I suddenly realize why Xcode hasn’t been correcting my mistakes all afternoon!
This script allows you to quickly and easily toggle the warnings from a hotkey, and just gives you a gentle reminder as to what you’ve done. Of course that won’t stop you forgetting, but assigning a hotkey for this script makes it painless to just turn warnings off and back on again as soon as you’ve got past whatever bit of code the compiler was complaining about.
Xcode unfortunately doesn’t have its own scripts menu, so in order to assign the script a hotkey, you’ll need to either make it into a Service with Automator or use a script runner like Red Sweater’s FastScripts.
#starton sendNotification(aVal)display notification "Suppress Warnings was set to " & aVal with title "Swift Compiler - Warnings Policies"end sendNotificationtell application id "com.apple.dt.Xcode"tell its front documenttell its front projecttell its front targettell its build configuration "Debug"set b to build setting "SWIFT_SUPPRESS_WARNINGS"if b's value is "NO" thenset b's value to "YES"elseset b's value to "NO"end ifmy sendNotification(b's value)end tellend tellend tellend tellend tell#EOF
If copying the code above doesn’t build, get the raw source from my pastebin here. Here’s how it looks in Script Debugger 6:
Enjoy!🙂
UITableView doesn’t immediately reload data
Here’s a little problem and solution I ran into the other day while using UITableView. I wanted to have a master-detail set up in which the UITableView was segued to after an initial home screen.
The problem occurred whenever I added or deleted something in the UITableView, segued back to the home page and then returned to the table view. Sometimes the table would not update. Going out and back into the view a second time, however, would finally reload my data and show me the changes. Why was my app needing to load the view twice before the table would show any changes?
Logging showed me that something even weirder was going on: Every time I segued into the table view, the viewDidLoad method was being called not once, but twice. So basically, to get my updated data to show, I was actually calling viewDidLoad four times!
I worked through a whole bunch of stackexchange posts related to various problems and solutions with the reloadData method — adding delays, removing it from any edit- or insert- methods and so on, calling it on the main thread — but the problem stubbornly remained.
Then I noticed something else. In my awakeFromNib method, the call to super had somehow got pushed to the end of the method, after a bunch of other set up calls. I’m not sure how it got there, but I did remember seeing a WWDC 2014 Swift video pointing out that one difference between Objective-C and Swift was that calls to super need to be made after doing any initial set up in Swift’s case, but before for Objective-C. Since this was an Obj-C project, what was my call to super doing at the end of the method?
And as if by magic, moving [super awakeFromNib] to the beginning of my awakeFromNib method resulted in viewDidLoad only being called once, and my table view updating correctly.
Though I found quite a few threads with people having a similar problem with UITableView’s needing two calls before updating, I haven’t come across this particular solution to (or cause of) the problem. Hopefully, this post will save someone else a few hours of head scratching!
Xcode: adding source control
If you’re not yet using source control with your Xcode projects, it’s something you want to seriously consider before a project you’re working on hits serious trouble. Setting up source control is easy when you create a new project (just tick the box in the project set up window), but figuring out how to add it to projects you’ve already created is a bit more challenging. In this post we’ll look at the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of adding source control to an existing project.
Why?
In most normal applications, ‘Command-S’, Versions, Time Machine or other back up will save your hide when you either lose a document or realise a whole bunch of recent changes are something of a disaster. Recovering or reverting a document are mechanisms Apple has put a lot of time and effort into since Lion first appeared (changes I haven’t always been a fan of…).
However, these mechanisms do not work well with Xcode due to the complex and deep links between files in an Xcode build. If you’ve ever tried to go back to an earlier version of an Xcode project or undo some change from last week, and ended up with a headache, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
That’s what snapshots are for, you say? Yes, maybe. When they work. But in my experience snapshots themselves get lost, corrupted, or simply fail to restore.
Moreover, source control has other benefits aside from recovery and reversion that neither snapshots or any other mechanism provide. It’s primary purpose is to allow you to develop parallel but different versions of your project at the same time (a process known as ‘forking’). What if you want to experiment with adding some new feature, but don’t want to risk making changes right across your code that would be needed to try it out? What if you want to create one version of your project for one set of users and another one for others, or one version for an earlier OS X iteration and another for the current release?
How?
Let’s get down to the nitty gritty. Let’s assume you’re convinced you want to add source control to your current project. The first thing you’ll need to do is install git if you haven’t already. If you’re not sure, open Terminal and enter
git --version
If you get back a version number, continue on to the next step. If not, you’ll need to install git first. Follow the instructions for doing that here and then return to this post.
Once git is installed, here’s the steps for adding source control to your existing repository:
1. Locate the project folder
Select the project in the sidebar on the right, and click the little ‘Open in Finder’ arrow on the right.
Once you’ve got the parent folder open in ‘Finder’, quit Xcode.
2. Open Terminal and switch to the project’s parent folder
Click on the project’s parent folder icon in Finder and drag it to a Terminal.app window. Hit ‘control-A’ on your keyboard to move the cursor to the beginning of the line and type ‘cd’. Press ‘return’ to complete the command.
I always like to do a quick ‘ls’ to double check I’m in the folder I think I am, and that it contains what I think it does.
3. Initialize, Add, & Commit
Next, we’re going to hit a series of Terminal commands, one after the other. Press ‘return’ on your keyboard after each one:
git initgit add .git commit -m "Initial commit"
Notice that there’s a period after a space on the end of the second command. Don’t forget to include it.
4. Confirm your local repository
Reopen Xcode, and hit the ‘Source Control’ menu. You should now see the options are active.
Congratulations! You just added a local repository to your project. You can now go ahead and start creating branches (‘forking’) by choosing the Source Control > master > menu item.
You’ll notice that when you make changes in your Xcode project, an ‘M’ (‘modified) will appear next to the files that have been changed. When you’re happy that these are changes that you’re going to keep, use Source Control > Commit. Full documentation on how to use the various features of source control are available in Xcode’s documentation.
5. Add a remote repository
Local repositories are great, and may be enough for your needs, but for ultimate protection (such as against disk loss or failure), you might want to add remote back up. To do that, you’ll need an account with a service like GitHub or Bitbucket. My own personal preference is Bitbucket, largely because they allow you to have private repositories on a free account. Steps for adding your existing project to a remote repository can be found on your chosen service’s website. If you’re using Bitbucket, the general method is first create a new repository on the Bitbucket site and copy the link. Then, enter each of the following in Terminal, replacing the dummy text in square brackets with your actual values (remove the square brackets, too).
cd [path to your repo]git remote add origin [url to your repository]git push -u origin --allgit push -u origin --tags
After that, re-open your project in Xcode and you should be all set up. Check by ensuring the remote path is shown in Source Control > –> master > Configure…
change between debug and release build
If you’ve been wondering how you create a Release build or switch between Release and Debug in Xcode 5, look in the Product menu in the menu bar at the top of your screen.
Choose ‘Scheme >Edit Scheme’, click on ‘Run in the sidebar, and click the ‘Info’ tab in the main panel.
You should now see the drop-down menu that allows you to switch between ‘Debug’ and ‘Release’.
🙂
how to see recently accessed files
While professional troubleshooters will use software like fseventer or the Instruments.app that comes as part of Xcode, there’s an easy way for anyone to see which files have recently been accessed on their Mac.
1. Open any Finder window and hit ‘command-F’.
2. Click the ‘Kind’ button and choose ‘Other’ at the bottom of the menu:
3. Next, scroll down the list till you see ‘System files’ and check the box and hit ‘OK’.
4. Change the button that says ‘aren’t included’ to ‘are included’.
5. Now hit the little ‘+’ button over on the right side of the window.
6. Again, change ‘Kind’, this time to ‘Last Modified’ and change ‘within last’ to ‘today’.
7. Finally, go to Finder > View menu at the top and choose ‘Arrange By > Date Last Opened’.
You can save the search in the Sidebar for convenience. Give it a more useful name like ‘latest changes’ or ‘fs events’ (“fs” stands for filesystem) and click on it whenever you need to check what’s just happened to your Mac! 🙂
how to become an Apple app developer
Developing apps for iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac OS seems like the California gold-rush of the 21st century — the press are full of reports of the riches to be had in this amazing land, stories of “little people” making “big bucks”. Anyone can be an app developer, they say, but what’s the truth behind the hype, and how do you actually learn how to do it?
Last I heard, there were currently something like 600,000 apps on the Apple App store (for iPhone/iPad) and some 100,000 or so on the App store for Mac OS. Apple have paid out (i.e., passed on customer payments after taking their 30% cut) literally billions of dollars to developers. That’s a lot of cash! The question is, can you get a slice of it too?
In theory, there’s no reason why not. As I’ll detail below, the route to becoming an app developer is not particularly hard, nor is it particularly costly. But that doesn’t guarantee success. Anyone can write a book, but writing a killer book that’ll sell like Harry Potter is not so easy, and writing a killer app that will sell like Angry Birds is every bit as difficult.
The analogy holds for success in both cases: you need a great idea, you need to execute it well, and you need to market it properly. Did I mention those 600,000 apps on the App store? How, exactly, are you going to make your fortune if your app is buried in a pile like that? Well, I’ll save ideas and marketing for a future post. In this one, I want to focus on the things that we know we can achieve and only have to depend on ourselves for: developing the skills needed to turn that great idea into an actual piece of software that will run on Apple machines.
Learn the language
If you want to write a killer novel, the first thing you have to do is learn the language that you want to write the novel in, be it French, Chinese, or English. If you want to write a killer app, the same goes. Visual Basic? Visual C++? Java? Yes, that kind of thing except…if you’re developing for iOS (the iPhone/iPad operating system) or Mac OS (Mac computer operating system) you have to learn the Apple language, not any of those common ones associated with lesser machines!
So what is the Apple language? It’s called ‘Objective-C’, and it runs in a programming environment called ‘Cocoa’. You’ll need to learn ‘Cocoa’, but in order to learn that you’ll need to learn ‘Objective-C’, and to learn that, you’ll need to learn the basics of the standard (Ansi) C programming language. Oh my!
And once you’ve got a hold on all that, you’ll then need to learn Xcode, which isn’t a language or a programming environment at all, but a very sophisticated development tool (in fact, Xcode is itself an app!), in which you do all your Apple programming. You’re probably now thinking that it’d be easier to write that next Harry Potter novel and are already hunting around for the back of an envelope to start scratching down your ideas, but wait…
I know it sounds disheartening, but there is some good news. After all, it can’t be that hard if so many other people are doing it, right? (Well, actually, yeah it can, there’s a lot of dedicated programming geeks out there!). But look, I’ve been down this road too, and while I haven’t produced any killer apps (still waiting for that great idea…), I have gone from knowing next to nothing about programming to being able to put together an application that does what I tell it to and doesn’t crash my system.
(OK, not entirely true that I didn’t know anything about programming: in the 1980s, I once learned how to get a monochrome computer screen to print “Hello World” in BBC BASIC, which basically involved nothing other than typing >Print “Hello World”; it seemed so ridiculously pointless in 1982 that it turned me off programming for the next thirty years! Other than that, I’m a newbie 🙂 ).
And the good news gets better: most all of the documentation you need to learn how to be an app developer is available free from Apple. Truly, and I mean this with no trace of irony, it is hugely generous of Apple to put the amount of free material they have online for anyone to use. Want to be a Windows developer? Find your local bookstore and start shelling out one heck of a lot of $$$!! The cynical, of course, will say that Apple only do the giveaway to benefit themselves; others might say that giving away free training justifies their 30% cut.
I think of it as a symbiotic relationship: would-be developers who aren’t in computer science departments or big companies could never afford to buy all the material. Likewise, Apple could never have built an App store with such a huge number and wide variety of programs to Wow! their users if they had only had universities and commercial software developers to rely on. This way, both the little people, that’s me (and — I’m assuming — you), and Apple get to win.
I’ll tell you how to get started in a minute, but before I do let me point out that the ride is not entirely free. There’s probably a point at the beginning and certainly one at the end where you will need to lay out some of your hard-earned. So let’s deal with that now.
What you need
Right off, you’re going to need a Mac computer. Sorry, if you don’t already have one, you’re going to have to buy one; a low-range Macbook Air or Mac Mini will do, anything that can run OS X Lion. You can’t develop Mac apps on your iPhone or iPad, I’m afraid (but it does work the other way too: you don’t need an iPad or iPhone to develop apps for these devices. More on this below).
And what about if you have a good-spec PC? Yes, you could get a Mac emulator (VMmare) or mess around with OSx86, but frankly, these options are likely to cause you more grief than they’re worth; you could end up with apps that don’t build properly, and/or which breach Apple’s licensing conditions.
I’m not saying don’t do it, that’s your choice; I am saying your chances of successfully building an app, making it stable, and getting it accepted into the App store by Apple are significantly reduced if you go that route. Given the price of a basic Mac Mini on Ebay, you could well end up spending more money (as well as time) trying to avoid buying a Mac than just buying a cheap one.
The other expense you might need to lay out for is a basic ‘Intro to C’ book. There’s plenty of web offerings, but really a good ‘idiots’ book like the Dummies or Absolute Beginners should be enough and has the benefit of being reasonably likely to get you to the level of proficiency you need in the shortest amount of time. After that, you learn the rest for free (Objective-C, Cocoa, Xcode) from Apple. At the end of the process, when your app is built and you want to submit your app to the App store, you’ll have to register with Apple for a licence as an app developer and vendor; current cost $99.
Take the first step
“Sign me up”, you say, “where do I start?” The first thing to do is to sign up to Apple’s developer community: this is free (don’t confuse it with the Developer Program or Licensing, which costs $99 and which you don’t need till you’ve built an app you want to upload to the App store).
Once you’re in the Developer Community, download Xcode 4, Apple’s development environment (a different thing from a programming environment, but don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of all this terminology easily enough once you start reading the docs). This is a 4GB monster of a program – bigger than your average operating system, so make sure you have the space – and it is also free. Xcode comes with free iPhone and iPad simulators and in itself, this is a piece of software that’s probably worth a couple of thousand dollars. So smile: you’re already making a profit even though you bought that Mac Mini! This is also the reason why you don’t need, and in fact can’t use, your own iPad or iPhone to test your apps: everything has to be done in Xcode, and this monster app only runs on Mac OS X.
Once you’ve downloaded Xcode, you can play around with it if you want, but unless you’ve worked with an IDE (integrated development environment) before, it’s pretty complicated, so it’s best to wait till you work through the tutorials. It’s not the kind of software you can learn through serendipitous exploration.
Instead, go to the documentation resources and start with the tutorial Your First Mac Application.
By the time you get through this, you’re going to realise why you need to learn Ansi C, Objective-C and Cocoa. So put Xcode away for now, and start on the path of learning to speak Apple’s language. When you get there, just add 1 great idea + 1 great marketing strategy, and you’re on your way to California!
The short guide:
1. Get a Mac
2. Learn C, learn Objective-C, learn Cocoa, learn Xcode
3. Come up with an idea for a great app and plan it out carefully
4. Build and test your app
5. Pay the licensing fee and submit your app to Apple
6. Once it’s been through the review process and accepted, implement your marketing strategy
7. Watch the millions role in and retire.
😃
applehelpwriter.com 