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Learn How to Create iOS Apps

Creating Custom Button Styles in SwiftUI

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In this tutorial we’ll be looking at how to create your own custom button style. Although SwiftUI does provide great default styles, many apps use their own style to match the unique design of their app. This can be accomplished with the ButtonStyle protocol that allows you to chose different effects from colours to shadows and then apply the style across all Buttons in the app giving a consistent style that can easily be altered if needed.

First, create a struct that conforms to ButtonStyle:

struct CustomButtonStyle: ButtonStyle {
    var buttonColor: Color?
    var shadowRadius: CGFloat?
    
    func makeBody(configuration: Configuration) -> some View {
        configuration.label
            .padding()
            .background(Color(buttonColor ?? Color.blue))
            .foregroundColor(.white)
            .cornerRadius(10)
            .shadow(radius: shadowRadius ?? 0)
            .scaleEffect(configuration.isPressed ? 0.95 : 1.0)
            .animation(.easeInOut(duration: 0.2), value: configuration.isPressed)
    }
}

In this code, we have two optional variables that allow us to either take a colour parameter and radius parameter, or just let the custom button set to defaults.

The makeBody method defines the visual appearance and behaviour of the button. Here you can set what it will look like. makeBody is required by the ButtonStyle protocol, so must be implemented.

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How to Fetch and Display HealthKit Data with HKAnchoredObjectQuery

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Over the next few weeks I will be revisiting some of the older tutorials on this site from several years ago. Today I updated How to Use HealthKit HKAnchoredObjectQuery to be compatible with iOS 18. Almost all of it was good, although I feel it needs another look at, this time using SwiftUI to build a view for it so you can visually see the data and the anchor.

The screenshot you see shows what you will be building with your own data from HealthKit.

Begin by creating a new Xcode project selecting SwiftUI. When loaded, there are a few steps to take to get the app ready to access HealthKit data. One is a permission adjustment in info.plist so that the user can be prompted to give permission. The second is the HealthKit entitlement. Let’s look at these now.

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How to Track Motion Activity with CMMotionActivityManager in SwiftUI

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The iPhone is able to detect if you are walking, running, stationary, in a vehicle, or on a bike by using the motion sensors in the device. Back in 2018 I wrote about this in the tutorial called How to Use the CMMotionActivityManager. Today, we’ll update this for SwiftUI.

Since the iPhone 5s, iPhone has been able ot automatically track your activity, that being if you are stationary, in a vehicle, on a bike, and so on. iPhone keeps this data for seven days. You may have noticed when you were in a vehicle that the phone detects if you are driving and so on.

Core Motion provides a way for you to access this seven-day historical data as well as receive live updates on your current activity.

In this tutorial we’ll look at how to access this information to give an overview of your current day and what you have been doing.

It is important to note that the information provided by Core Motion has a confidence level. In the screenshot above you can see that I am stationary, but its confidence level is low. Now I was stationary when taking the screenshot, but the movement of the phone probably lowered that confidence level to low.

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How to use a SwiftUI Form

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The SwiftUI Form view gives the ability to organsise views how you need them. Forms are typilcally used on settings pages and other similar places. In this tutorial we’ll look at using a Form and how to nest a TextField, Picker, and DatePicker.

Deciding wether to use a Form or a List, for example, depends on what you need. A Form is typically used for smaller amount of organised views, like a settings page, although you can iterate within a Form and show many items. One example could be that your profile has tags with your achievements in. You could get your achievements from Swift Data, and then iterate over them in a Form.

There are no hard and fast rules on what to choose, so please do experiment to see what provides the correct look for your application.

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How to Use UIViewRepresentable – More AI Writing Tool Features

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SwiftUI is great for creating views for your iPhone application, but sometimes you need UIKit to fill some gaps. UIViewRepresentable provides a way to bridge the gap between UIKit and SwiftUI by wrapping a UIKit view and allowing you to use that view in SwiftUI.

I recently wrote about bringing Writing Tools to SwiftUI, but as mentioned in that tutorial, SwiftUI is limited and only brings a small part of the available features. The only feature available to a TextEditor in regards to writing tools is .writingToolsBehavior.

In this tutorial, we’ll look at how to bring a UIKit view into SwiftUI.

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How to Add Haptic Feedback to Your SwiftUI

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Haptics have for a long time been part of the iPhone experience, so much so that SwiftUI implements them as standard in some views. In a recent tutorial about adding swipe actions for a to-do list, without planning for it, haptics were part of this thanks to SwiftUI.

For the most part you can leave the default haptics as they are because iPhone users are familiar with haptics and what they mean. If you start to change them for a swipe, then it can just add confusion. However, SwiftUI does include the ability to make some changes to them with sensoryFeedback(). We’ll take a look at these in this tutorial to see what sensoryFeedback can do.

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How to use Apple Intelligence Writing Tools in SwiftUI

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Apple Intelligence launched with iOS 18, and along with that, several tools that can be integrated into your app. These include:

  • Writing Tools
  • Image Playground
  • Genmoji
  • Siri with App Intents

In this tutorial we’ll look at Writing Tools which brings Apple Intelligence to your app. However, to dig deeper into using Writing Tools, you’ll need to use a UIKit view. We’ll look at that in the next tutorial. For now, lets take a look at this VERY brief tutorial as writing tools in SwiftUI is limited to what is baked in.

Apple has added support to some text views, so if you use a TextEditor, for example, you can access writing tools in the normal way and proofread, rewrite, or ask for suggestions for the text you have entered.

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Building a Search Feature in SwiftUI with Array Filtering

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In todays tutorial we’re going to build a very simple list that you can search by using the filter in an Array. The concept is really quite simple, but good to also be aware of for when you might decide to filter on the frontend of the app.

Lets begin by creating a data model that will contain a published array:

class DataModel: ObservableObject {
    @Published var items: [String] = [
        "Ford", "Vauxhall", "Ferrari", "Lamborghini", "Aston Martin", "Nissan", "Bentley"
    ]
}

The DataModel we use is a class. We conform to the ObservableObject protocol and use the @Published property wrapper. If the array of strings called items is changed, then the @Published property wrapper will notify any view that uses this ObservableObject that a change has happend. The view will then update.

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Building a Widget Extension for iOS – Part 2

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In part 1 of building a widget extension for iOS, we got a very basic Widget built that has some custom UI that shows the beginnings of a pomodoro timer. You can download part 1 below, although if you are new to this tutorial I would recommend starting at Part 1 to follow along each step so you are more familiar with how we got here.

PomodoroDownload

In this part of the tutorial, we’ll look at cleaning up the widget ready for making it work in part 3.

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Building a Widget Extension for iOS – Part 1

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WidgetKit launched with iOS 14 and provides a way for users to be able to see and interact with your app without launching your app. Widgets come in various sizes and when defined in your app, allows the user to put them on the home screen.

Widgets aim to provide users with quick access to essential information. They can also be interacted with, making them versatile tools for displaying and managing data.

In this tutorial we’ll look at a simple Pomodoro timer app, with adjustable intervals.

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