How to install CocoaPods and setup

Install CocoaPods and setup with your Xcode project

CocoaPods is a dependency management tool for iOs and OS X development.

It makes managing third part libraries in an Xcode easy and straightly.

CocoaPods will resolve dependencies between libraries, fetch the resulting source code, then link it together in an Xcode workspace to build your project.

Why Should we use CocoaPods.

Sometimes we are using many Git libraries inside our app. Like JSONKit, MBProgressHUD, Facebook-SDK etc. But it is very boring to build all libraries or if you add the code in your project, it is tough to manage. Also, there are many disadvantages in this: 

• Code that could be somewhere else is stored in your repository, that is wasting space.
• Sometimes, it’s hard to get a specific version of a library.
• Finding a new version of a library and updating your project which makes time taking and sometimes harder to update.
• Downloading libraries manually creates a tendency to perhaps make some changes to the downloaded code.

The most simplest solution is to use CocoaPods.

CocoaPods is the dependency manager for Objective-C projects. It has thousands of libraries and can help you scale your projects elegantly. CocoaPods is built with Ruby and is installable with the default Ruby available on OS X.

Install CocoaPods

Before installing CocoaPods you have to make sure bellow items has to be installed/updated.

• Command Line Tool
• Ruby (sudo gem update --system)
• Git

Open terminal and run this command:

sudo gem install cocoapods -V(-v prints detail download info).

Enter admin password. This could take a while. After few minutes it will show green message is cocoa pods installed successfully in your mac machine. 

Hurrah….You successfully installed CocoaPods in your mac machine. Now you can setup Pod with your Xcode project. 

How to setup POD for your Xcode project:

1. Open Terminal
2. Change directory to your XCode project root directory (where your ProjectName.xcodeproj file is placed).
3. Before we create pod file close xCode project.
4. $ pod setup : (Setting up CocoaPods master repo)

If successful, it shows Setup completed(read-only access). So, you setup everything. Now Lets do something which is more visible…Yes ! Lets install libraries in your Xcode project.

Steps to add-update libraries in pod:

1. $ touch pod file or pod init (This will create a default Podfile for your project. The Podfile is where you define the dependencies your project relies on. Make sure to create the Podfile in the root of your Xcode project.)
2. $ open -e podfile (This should open a blank text file)
3. Add your library names in that text file. You can add new names (lib name), remove any name or change the version e.g: 
   pod 'SVProgressHUD', '0.9'
   
   
   

   OR

   pod 'SVProgressHUD' 
   pod 'Reachability'
   
   
   You can even tell CocoaPods what source to use by specifying the git repository or referring CocoaPods to a local copy of the library.
   
   
   pod 'SVProgressHUD', :git => 'https://github.com/samvermette/SVProgressHUD'
   pod 'ViewDeck', :local => '~/Development/Library/ViewDeck'

Save and close this text file.
4. $ pod install
   You should see output similar to the following: 
   
   Analyzing dependencies 
   Downloading dependencies 
   Installing SVProgressHUD (0.9)
   Installing Reachability 
   Generating Pods 
   project Integrating client project 
   It might also tell you something like this: 
   [!] From now on use `ProjectName.xcworkspace`. 
   
   VERY INPORTANT!From now on, as the command-line warning mentioned, you must open the workspace not the project.
   
   
   
   
























5. $ pod update(If one of your project's dependencies received a major update and you want to use this update in your project, then all you need to do is update your project's Podfile and run pod update on the command line. CocoaPods will update your project's dependencies for you.)

Command Line:

The CocoaPods gem has many more tricks up its sleeve. Even though you can use the CocoaPods website to browse the list of available pods, the CocoaPods gem also lets you list and search the available pod specs. Open a new Terminal window and enter the command pod search result to search for libraries that include the word progress. The advantage of searching for pods using the command line is that you only see the information that matters to you, such as the pod's source and the available versions.

Run the pod command (without any options) to see a complete list of available options. 

More information along with the installation guide can be found at:

http://cocoapods.org

Extensive documentation on everything regarding Cocoapods can be found on their github wiki

https://github.com/CocoaPods/CocoaPods

Read More

How to remove expired provisioning profile from mac and Xcode?

Over the last few days I’ve been getting alerts on my iPhone that my provisioning profiles are about to expire.  So I have updated my provisioning profile and certificate both. After updating my profiles I was surprised to see that I kept getting warnings. It seemed now that I had both the new and expiring profiles being synched each time I connected my iPhone to iTunes.

The best way to remove them, without XCode installed, is to use the iphone configuration utility. You can download this for Mac or PC. Your device must be plugged in in order to do this.

Here is a picture of using the iphone configuration utility to delete provisioning profiles:

Note that this is not the only way.!!!!!

If you have XCode installed, I would recommend using organizer to delete the provisioning profiles. In Organizer, select the "Devices" list. Then choose your device (must be plugged in). Then choose "Provisioning Profiles" under your device. From here you can make multiple selections (hold shift key) and then hit delete key to remove them.

There is also 1 more way to delete expired profile !!!!!! 

You can delete the files directly from ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles

Open finder, ⌘-Shift-G, and paste in the above path. Restart Xcode afterward.

But you will find that at above location the files will be with 33 hexa digit number name, not with original name. So the question is how to find name?

Follow below steps to find file name.

step 1 

In xcode build settings, select your provisioning profile that you want to delete

step 2

Select the Provisioning profile in build settings under code signing identity, and click other. It will show a 33 hexa digit number. copy that. 

step 3

go to ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles 

and search for that copied number as a name in provisioning profile.

Delete it. :)

Read More

How to create build for simulator and also run that build in simulator?

Generate a Simulator Build

In order to generate a simulator build you will:
i)Find the folder containing your xcode project.
ii)Open a terminal and run a couple of commands to generate the build.
1)Find your Xcode project directory The easiest way to find your Xcode project is to use Xcode itself. Control-click on your project and select Show in Finder:

2)Open a Terminal and Find Your Simulator SDK Version Click on the tasks menu in finder, Open With and Terminal. This will open the finder and automatically select the .xcodeproj directory.

This will open a terminal with the right directory already opened:

Change the working directory for the shell inside of the terminal so that it's set to the parent directory:

Figure out which SDKs versions are available by running the following command in the terminal:

xcodebuild -showsdks

What you want from this output is the string for the iOS Simulator SDK.
Choose the most recent version if you have more than one installed:

Build the Simulator Package:In your terminal you will want to run this command with the proper simulator SDK string replaced with the string you found in the previous step:

xcodebuild -arch i386 -sdk iphonesimulator{version}

If you are using workspace instead of xcodeproj then don't use above command instead use:

xcodebuild -arch i386 -sdk iphonesimulator{version} -workspace[projectName].xcworkspace - scheme [projectName]

Or you can use:

xcodebuild -workspace {project name}.xcworkspace -scheme {project name} -arch i386 -sdk iphonesimulator8.1

This should generate a build. If the build was successful you should see a lot of output from the build tools followed by the string ** BUILD SUCCEEDED ** in your terminal.

Your build path is

{base directory}/build/Release-iphonesimulator/{projectname}.app

If you build the workspace.

{Derive data directory}/build/Release-iphonesimulator/{projectname}.app

Yes, it is your final Simulator Build.

How to run it on Simulator?

your simulator build by running command:

ios-sim launch

Also verify that the app opens in the simulator.

How to install ios-sim?

If you get error with error message:

-bash: ios-sim: command not found.

Follow the step to install the ios-sim

Download node.js from http://nodejs.org/download/ for your system.
Open node package file.
Install it on your system.
Open the terminal and run the command: $ sudo npm install ios-sim -g
Now ios-sim is install on your system.

Read More

Practicing Auto Layout - An example of keyboard sensitive layout

The keyboard sensitive layout is very common in iOS apps, in which the view(s) will automatically shrink or extend when the keyboard comes out or disappears.

OK, ready? Let’s go!

1. Creating the view hierarchy

Start a new project with single view application. Drag a UITextView and a UIButton into the controller’s default view. Make these two views extend to fill the parent view. Keep the button’s height as the system default (44 points)

2. Setup the constraints

Now expand the “Constrants” node in Interface Builder. We can find that the Interface Builder has already generated some constraints for us. The purple icon indicates that it’s managed by IB, and the blue ones are user-managed constraints. A user-managed constraint can be deleted manually. And each time you create or delete a constraint, Interface Builder may recalculate those constraints to determine if there’s need to generate non-user-managed constraint. So you have to take care of the change of the automatic generated constraint.

In this example, we will define 3 user-managed constraints in vertical space:

• The top spacing between the text view and the parent view.
• The spacing between the text view and the button.
• The bottom spacing between the button and the parent view.

Set constant value of those constraints to “0″ to make the subviews fill the parent bounds.

3. Creating the outlet of the constraint to make it changeable by code

When the keyboard comes out, we need to change some spacing to make the new layout adaptive to the keyboard. But with Auto Layout, we have to remember these 2 things:

• All the frames of views are calculated by the Auto Layout system. We should not arbitrarily change the frame of some view as what we have done before.
• The constraints of the view of the root controller are managed by the system, we should not take the charge of it.

According to the concerns above, among the user-managed constraints we have created, the bottom spacing constraint is best suitable for this task. So, we create an referencing outlet named “keyboardHeight” to the constraint.

4. Coding for keyboard notification

OK, now let’s code for the keyboard events.

#import "PALViewController.h"
 
@interface PALViewController () 

@property(weak, nonatomic)IBOutlet UITextView *textView;

//The outlet of the bottom spacing constraint

@property(weak,nonatomic) IBOutlet NSLayoutConstraint *keyboardHeight;

- (IBAction)dismissKeyboard:(id)sender;

@end


@implementation PALViewController

 - (void)didReceiveMemoryWarning{

         [didReceiveMemoryWarning]
// Dispose of any resources that can be recreated.
}

- (void)observeKeyboard {

[[NSNotificationCenter addObserver:self selector: @selector(keyboardWillShow:) name:UIKeyboardWillChangeFrameNotification object:nil];

[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector: @selector(keyboardWillHide:) name:UIKeyboardWillHideNotification object: nil];

}

- (void)viewDidLoad{

[super viewDidLoad];

 // Begin observing the keyboard notifications when the view is loaded.

[self observeKeyboard];

}

// The callback for frame-changing of keyboard

- (void)keyboardWillShow:(NSNotification *)notification {

NSDictionary *info = [notification userInfo];

 NSValue *kbFrame = [info objectForKey:UIKeyboardFrameEndUserInfoKey];

 NSTimeInterval animationDuration = [[info objectForKey:UIKeyboardAnimationDurationUserInfoKey] doubleValue];

CGRect keyboardFrame = [kbFrame CGRectValue];

CGFloat height = keyboardFrame.size.height;

NSLog(@"Updating constraints.");


// Because the "space" is actually the difference between the bottom lines of the 2 views,

// we need to set a negative constant value here.

self.keyboardHeight.constant = height;

[UIView animateWithDuration:animationDuration animations:^{ 

[self.view layoutIfNeeded];

}];

}

- (void)keyboardWillHide:(NSNotification *)notification {

NSDictionary *info = [notification userInfo];

NSTimeInterval animationDuration = [[info objectForKey:UIKeyboardAnimationDurationUserInfoKey] doubleValue];

self.keyboardHeight.constant = 0;

[UIView animateWithDuration:animationDuration animations:^{

self.view layoutIfNeeded];

}];

}

- (IBAction)dismissKeyboard:(id)sender {

[self.textView resignFirstResponder];

}

@end

First, we should register the observer as before. But, in the callback methods, there are slight changes to the prior code. We used to recalculate and set the frames of some view according to the keyboard’s frame. By adopting Auto Layout, we now turn to code against the constraints instead.
Line 38-46 shows how to obtain the height of keyboard and update the layout when keyboard appears or changes.
Now run the sample app, let’s see if it works.
When you tap the text view, the keyboard appears, and the text view will automatically shrink. When the keyboard dismissed, the button will slide down, and the text view will fill the rest part of the screen again.

Perfect! The Auto Layout just works as magic!

 

Conclusion

In this example, we have learned how to implement a common case in iOS application. With Auto Layout, we are now talking to the constraints instead of directly manipulating view frames.

Read More