Tutorial: iOS User Interface Tests Using Image Snapshots With FBSnapshotTestCase
Testing your UI with Apple’s UI testing framework is great for creating tests that can be used across a variety of different devices and iOS versions however those tests can sometimes be slow, and occasionally just stop working.
Snapshots provide a nice alternative to Xcode’s UI tests and Facebook’s FBSNapshotTestCase library provides a nice framework for performing Snapshot UI tests.
Dominik Hauser has written a nice step-by-step guide to configuring and using FBSnapshotTestCase showing how to
You can find the tutorial on the Swift and Painless blog.
You can find FBSnapshotTest on Github here.
A nice straightforward guide on using FBSnapshotTestCase.
A Great Series Of Tutorials For Those Getting Started With RxSwift
The RxSwift library extends Swift with an extensive set of features for functional reactive programming inspired by the Reactive Extensions for .NET.
Michael Ciurus has written a great set of tutorials for those starting out with RxSwift called RxSwift for Dummies allowing you to develop an understanding of functional reactive programming, and also in using the RxSwift library through an extensive series of explanations and examples.
Michael has also written an RxSwift Safety Manual to help avoid any unwanted side effects when using RxSwift which he wrote after a number of months of using RxSwift.
You can find the RxSwift for Dummies tutorial in three parts on the Swift Pearls site here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
You can find the RxSwift Safety Manual on the Swift Pearls site here.
A great series of tutorials for those looking to use RxSwift.
Tutorial: Using iOS 10’s UIViewPropertyAnimator Class
iOS 10 has added the UIViewPropertyAnimator providing a much cleaner syntax for creating UIView animations, adding an animation curve and allowing you to start and stop animations.
Here’s a tutorial from Yari D’areglia providing a nice overview of UIViewPropertyAnimator. The topics covered include:
- An overview of the different animation states
- Setting up basic animation options
- Creating animation blocks for more complex animations
- Interacting with the animation flow
You can find UIViewPropertyAnimator on the Think and Build It site.
A nice straightforward guide to using the UIViewPropertyAnimator class.
Tutorial: Converting Swift Any Structs To JSON Quickly Using A Protocol And The Reflection API
NSJSONSerialization allows you to easily convert an NSArray or NSDictionary to JSON, but does not work directly with Swift structs.
Emil Loer has written a nice tutorial about how you can quickly convert a Swift struct to JSON by using a protocol and the Swift Reflections compatible with NSJSONSerialization , and also how you can easily go a step further so that you can easily serialize data types that are not supported by NSJSONSerialization such as NSDate.
You can find the tutorial over on the Codelle website.
A nice guide on how you can use Swift features to very cleanly convert Swift structs to JSON.
Tutorial: Creating A Sticker Pack For The iOS 10 Messages App
One of the most touted features of iOS 10 is the dramatically improved messages app. With the new messages app Apple ahas dded the Message framework to the iOS SDK enabling the creation of custom extensions.
Simon Ng at AppCoda has created a step by step guide on how to create a custom sticker app extension for the messages app. You will need Xcode 8 to go through the guide.
You can find the tutorial over on the Appcoda blog.
A nice introduction to creating sticker pack extensions for the new Messages app.