UIKit – eMpTy Theory

Accessibility Gets an Upgrade in Xcode 13 Storyboards

WWDC 2021 is behind us and there are so many new and exciting features available to us as developers. One of those areas that has been getting much more love from Apple over the last few years is accessibility. Apple has been making it simpler for developers to test key tools like Dynamic Type, DarkContinue reading “Accessibility Gets an Upgrade in Xcode 13 Storyboards”

Registering Collection View Cells in iOS 14

In my last post, I looked at handling diffable data sources with different types of object data, focusing primarily on the venerable UITableView for my examples. We looked at a simple if…else construct to swap between cell types based on the type of the item from the data source and related snapshot. While this methodContinue reading “Registering Collection View Cells in iOS 14”

Using iOS Diffable Data Sources with Different Object Types

Since iOS 13, we’ve been able to revamp the way our table and collection views work by using diffable data source classes (UITableViewDiffableDataSource and UICollectionViewDiffableDataSource respectively) and snapshots. This provides the advantage of being able to write less code for these types of views, while making our state management much more robust and less likelyContinue reading “Using iOS Diffable Data Sources with Different Object Types”

New UIDatePicker Styles in iOS 14

One of the nice new features that came out with iOS 14 were some new options around the venerable UIDatePicker. There are now some choices other than just the slot machine-style wheels! Since iOS 2.0, the original style of UIDatePicker has been the only standard UIKit option for developers looking to let users select datesContinue reading “New UIDatePicker Styles in iOS 14”

Using UITabBarAppearance for Tab Bar changes in iOS 13

With iOS 13, Apple finally made some long overdue changes to support more effective customizations of the tab bars, and tool bars in your apps. The new UITabBarAppearance, UIBarAppearance, and related classes lets developers easily modify not just the basics like background and selected colors but spacing, text attributes, badging, and positioning. Creating subtle effectsContinue reading “Using UITabBarAppearance for Tab Bar changes in iOS 13”