I'm setting out to create an app where it will use 7-10 instances of a custom class, lets call them "books" each class will consist of a number of pages, a title, a int of how many pages a book contains and possibly some notes of the author associated with a specific page.
My question is what is the best way of creating these objects. it seems weak to just hard-code all the books together programatically, and if there are more added after the initial release I'd almost like to have the author be able to construct them with a simple desktop app.
So I guess what I'm looking for is a way to a create a small app to create instances of a custom class on a desktop, then bring those instances into the iphone app.
I only have an iphone dev license as far as I know. Obviously you don't have to be super specific but I'm looking for ways to accomplish this type of task. Maybe if there is a good way to go about hard coding them I would like to hear about that as well.
I guess an equivalent would be a game developer making like a level editor for his game so he doesn't have to create the boards programatically.
Provide your data in XML or JSON
format (or whatever flavour of file
format you prefer), this is to transfer data to/from application.
Parse your data file (xml/json) and store in permanent storage (file,sqlite,core data) on phone. This is the data that your application will regularly use from now on.
Offer user the option to get updates over network
If user selects to get updates, download updated xml/jason file over network, parse and update your permanent store
Use SQLite. You could easily create a sqlite database editor, or use some of the free ones out there. The iPhone can read a sqlite database natively, just include the library.
Related
I have been working with flutter for a couple of months now and it seems that there isn't really too much to work on an app for back-end or advanced functionality. I love using Flutter to help me design the UI but I want to use another language to help me do some other stuff. For example, I want to display a full-screen camera page (almost like Snapchat) or like send a direct message to another user through the app. Do I even need another language to do stuff like this? I am not an advanced programmer. I just want to create simple applications that can process and store a little bit of stuff.
You can easily do the mentioned stuff in Flutter/Dart.
Check out Firebase Messaging for direct messages and SQLite to store information on user devices.
For saving data locally,
You can use SqlFlite, a plugin with the help of which you can easily store and manage your database.
For saving data on the backend, so that other users can also access it when necessary, like the one you mentioned in a comment (..food ordering app)..you can use Firebase
Firebase has all you need.
Link to firebase :- https://firebase.google.com/
When your data is stored on a cloud, you don't need to hard code anything, for example, about the food ordering app you mentioned, you can make use of variables, in which you can store the values. So that when the owner changes the price, it gets updated.
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Sharing data in between apps in IOS
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I've been doing research on how to share data between applications securely. I'd like to get some info on the correct way to handle this before I do a deep dive on implementation using the wrong method. Just cause you can do something does not necessarily mean you should.
User Case: I am working on a suite of language learning apps that have a shared audio file base of several hundred audio files and json files containing important data corresponding to a language. I'd prefer to allow the user to not have to re-download the language bundle when they use another app in our suite.
1. App Extensions - Document Provider Non-UI Variant
According to the documentation:
The File Provider extension grants access to files outside the host app’s sandbox with the open and move actions. This extension (sometimes shortened here to file provider) also allows the host app to download files without presenting a document picker view controller. This feature lets the host app access previously opened documents using secure URL bookmarks, even if those files are no longer stored on the device.
On the surface this seems like a really solid solution. My main concern stems from the last couple lines where it state that the application can download the files no longer stored on the device. I want the files to be stored locally on the device to prevent constant downloading. If the Document Provider does store the files locally and allow the various applications in the group to access the files, then I think this could work.
2. Shared Keychain Access
Allows you to securely store data to a shared keychain that other applications that are part of a suite of applications can access. All applications that share keychain access must use the same app ID prefix. For an example of shared keychain access in action.
I've looked a little into the documentation of this one, and I think this might be the best fit. My major concern with this solution is whether or not there is a size limit to the data uploaded and if mp3/ogg/json file types are allowed. Most the examples/uses I have found with this solution point to sharing strings and small data, I am not sure if it will handle large data like json or audio files.
I also found this repo that apparently makes dealing with Keychain easier:
3. Custom Pasteboards
The custom pasteboard is best for the purpose of semi-privately sharing custom data between two applications. Custom pasteboards are identified using unique names. They can persist data beyond the application that creates them, allowing a pasteboard to hold onto data after the application is terminated or even after rebooting the device.
When writing or reading data to and from a pasteboard, you must specify a pasteboard type. Pasteboard types typically use a uniform type identifier (UTI) to identify the type of data going into and being retrieved from the pasteboard. See Apple’s UIPasteboard Class Reference documentation for additional information.
Above documentation pulled from this post
My main concern with this solution is that perhaps it is a bit of a hack. Logically a pasteboard seems like something that temporarily holds data and allows sharing between apps, whereas the solution I am looking for needs to be more of a permanent solution.
I'd appreciate any info on best practices towards sharing these types of files between apps. I assume there are plenty of other solutions I've omitted here, so if there is a better alternative I'd love some info on it. If it happens one of the listed solutions I have placed here is a good way to solve this problem I'd love to have some more info on your experience with working with them and if my concerns with them are valid, or nothing to worry about.
Thx in advance. As always, well written answers get up-votes ;)
I believe the best approach would be to enable data sharing by setting up an app group. This is Apple's recommended solution for sharing data between applications and extensions, and I believe for sharing data between apps in general.
See the section "Sharing Data with Your Containing App"
Also see "Adding an App to an App Group":
I need to make my app such that
the first screen will have the option : NEW and SEARCH.
2.Clicking NEW should allow the user to create a new profile,
3.but clicking search should allow to access one of the stored profiles by searching for the user number.
These profiles will actually be some data about the person, his name etc. and then yes/no answers to some questions.
At the moment my app works such that I can type in my name, and do the yes/no checks and I am using plists to save the info. this means that when the I start the app the next time the app loads with the saved info. So I have got half the task done.
Now how do I make it multi-user capable so that it has the option of creating a new file or providing a search option to access existing data?
also, I am creating the plist in application directory, using the code on apple's website, but I have no clue how to access these files directly..is it possible to access these files, if I want to show the information on a desktop? Thanks.
The key phrase you want for searching Apple's docs is: Data Management.
Specifically, I would recommend the Data Management Starting Point.
Handling data can be as simple as writing a string or array to disk or as complex as a big Core Data data model. If you plan on writing and maintaining several Apple API apps, I strongly recommend eventually learning Core Data.
I've looked around for this but haven't found what I'm looking for. I need some data to basically come pre-loaded in the app. I know that I could just put it all in on the first launch but would like to stay away from a long load time on the first launch and have it already loaded.
Is it possible to insert entities into core-data so that they are hard-coded in?
Yeah, you include a a pre-filled data store in your app bundle and copy it from the bundle to the documents directory as part of the app launch process - check if the data store exists and, if not, do the copy. You do this prior to accessing the Core Data stack for the first time.
There are a few ways you could do this. The lazy programmer way is to enter your default data into the app, either on the phone or in the simulator, grab the data store file, and include it in your Xcode project. The downside is it doesn't work well if you need to go back and edit the data model later.
The other option is to create an editor app on the Mac that uses the same Core Data model as your iPhone app (they're compatible) and edit the data in your Mac app. Jeff Lamarche talks a bit about this in one of his blog postings. I've done something similar, except I wrote a command line tool to download the latest data from a web site (in my case, XML data) and parse the XML into NSManagedObjects.
This StackOverflow post talks about a bit more complex option of having two data stores - one for your system data and one for your user data - and letting Core Data use both stores at runtime.
I'm doing an iPhone application. In this app, I just want to have a database to be used as a looked up table for values in my app. The only thing the database will do was to supply me the values I needed depending on the query of the program. It won't do any addition or deletion in the database. My question was how do I initialize a default data on the application using CoreData. So that when the program starts It already had all the values needed.
If you have other suggestions of what is better do or what are other alternatives, please tell me.
Thanks.
I would create a simple Mac application, starting from the template for a Core Data document-based application. Copy your existing .xcdatamodel over the default one in the project (or add the new data model and be sure to rename anywhere that refers to the default model). Open up the XIB file for the document window in Interface Builder and drag the Core Data Entity item into it from the Interface Builder library inspector. From the resulting dialog, choose an entity to display and select an interface to display it in.
What this will do is create a fully functional interface for adding, removing, or editing the properties of that entity type. Everything should be hooked up via Cocoa Bindings so that you don't need to write a line of code for this to work. You can add interfaces for each entity type in your model this way.
This will let you quickly enter and edit data within a Core Data document, which you can then save out to disk and add as a resource to your iPhone application. The SQLite database structures are fully compatible between the desktop and iPhone Core Data implementations, so I've found that this is a quick and easy way of testing your iPhone Core Data code.
Please refer to the Core Data Programming Guide, or see below (copy from the PG):
"
How do I initialize a store with default data?
There are two issues here: creating the data, and ensuring the data is imported only once.
There are several ways to create the data.
You can create a separate persistent store that contains the default
data and include the store as an application resource. When you want
to use it, you must either copy the whole store to a suitable
location, or copy the objects from the defaults store to an existing
store. For small datasets, you can create the managed objects
directly in code.
You can create a property list—or some other file-based
representation—of the data, and store it as an application resource.
When you want to use it, you must open the file and parse the
representation to create managed objects.
You should not use this technique on iOS, and only if absolutely necessary on Mac OS X. Parsing a file to create a store incurs unnecessary overhead. It is much better to create a Core Data store yourself offline and use it directly in your application.
There are also several ways to ensure that the defaults are imported only once:
If you are using iOS or creating a non-document-based application for
Mac OS X, you can add a check on application launch to determine
whether a file exists at the location you specify for the
application’s store. If it doesn't, you need to import the data. For
an iOS-based example, see CoreDataBooks .
If you are creating a document-based application using NSPersistentDocument, you initialize
the defaults in initWithType:error:.
If there is a possibility that the store (hence file) might be
created but the data not imported, then you can add a metadata flag
to the store. You can check the metadata (using
metadataForPersistentStoreWithURL:error:) more efficiently than
executing a fetch (and it does not require you to hard code any
default data values).
"
As mentioned above, generally we need to create a pre-populated default store with code, then use it as a
resource file, and copy it from resource bundle to document directory if the coredata file is missing. Please search the CoreDataBooks code example in your Xcode Organizer (or Apple Developer Center), and look at the - (NSPersistentStoreCoordinator *)persistentStoreCoordinator method.
I racked my brain for hours attempting to solve this. What I came up with was simply not to save the database. That way, it will be initialized each time the app is opened. If you save it, it will continue to duplicate.
I would write a tool that populates a database with the data you want in it, generate the db at build time and stuff it in your resources folder. If you are not going to write to it you can just leave it there and access it directly, if you ever did want to write to it you would need to copy it somewhere you are allowed to write (like the documents folder).