<Mike's Tech Tidbits />

Join a software engineer's journey through articles, tips, and the latest tech discoveries. With insights into Swift and Mobile Development trends.

Building Searchable Tree Views in SwiftUI

SwiftUI's OutlineGroup component provides a convenient way to display hierarchical data structures, similar to what you'd see in a file browser's sidebar. However, when it comes to implementing search functionality that intelligently expands and collapses folders based on search results, OutlineGroup can become quite challenging to work with.After spending considerable time trying to make OutlineGroup behave properly with search filtering, I decided to build a custom solution from scratch. The r

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Using Swift Enumerations

Swift enumerations, commonly known as enums, are one of the language's most versatile and powerful features. They allow developers to create custom types that represent a finite set of related values, making code more readable, type-safe, and maintainable.Enumerations serve as a blueprint for creating custom types with a predefined set of possible values. Think of them as containers for related constants that work together as a cohesive unit. Whether you're representing compass directions, appli

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Using SwiftUI's Text Component

The Text component serves as the fundamental building block for displaying textual content in SwiftUI applications. Acting as the modern replacement for UIKit's UILabel, this versatile view handles everything from simple static labels to complex dynamic text presentations with rich formatting capabilities.The most straightforward approach to creating text involves passing a string directly to the Text initializer:swiftText("Hello, SwiftUI!")![swiftui text view](/posts/swiftui-basics-text-view/sw

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Module Architecture and Dependency Management in Swift

As iOS applications evolve and expand, managing their inherent complexity becomes increasingly challenging. One of the most effective approaches to tackle this challenge is through strategic modularisation. This comprehensive guide explores the fundamental concepts of modular architecture and dependency management specifically within the Swift iOS development ecosystem.Modularisation represents the architectural practice of decomposing a software system into discrete, self-contained components.

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Swift Property Wrappers - Practical Implementation Patterns

Property wrappers in Swift represent one of the language's most elegant features, enabling developers to encapsulate complex property behaviors behind simple, reusable interfaces. Rather than cluttering your code with repetitive boilerplate, property wrappers let you define custom logic once and apply it consistently across your codebase.Let's explore several real-world scenarios where property wrappers shine.Managing UserDefaults typically involves verbose getter and setter code scattered throu

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Swift's Structured Concurrency

Structured concurrency represents a paradigm shift in how we approach multithreaded programming, offering developers a more predictable and maintainable way to handle concurrent operations. This methodology ensures that concurrent tasks are organized within a clear hierarchical structure, making code more reliable and easier to debug.At its core, structured concurrency establishes a binding relationship between task lifecycles and their containing code blocks. When a section of code initiates a

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Cleaner Code Patterns With Swift Property Wrappers

Swift Property Wrappers have been a game-changer since their introduction in Swift 5.1, yet many developers still find them somewhat enigmatic. Let's break down this powerful feature and explore how it can transform your code architecture.At its essence, a Property Wrapper is a specialized Swift construct (struct, class, or enum) that encapsulates common property behaviors. Think of it as a decorator pattern that adds functionality to your properties without cluttering your main code logic.The m

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Result Builders - Creating Expressive DSL APIs

Swift 5.4 introduced one of the most transformative features for building domain-specific languages - Result Builders. This compiler feature powers the elegant syntax we see in SwiftUI and enables developers to create APIs that read like natural language rather than traditional imperative code.If you've worked with SwiftUI, you've already experienced Result Builders in action through the @ViewBuilder attribute, but their potential extends far beyond UI construction.Result Builders, originally kno

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Using Tasks and Child Tasks in Swift's Structured Concurrency Framework

Swift's introduction of Structured Concurrency has fundamentally transformed how developers approach asynchronous programming. This powerful framework provides elegant solutions for managing concurrent operations while maintaining code clarity and performance. Let's explore the core concepts of tasks and child tasks that form the foundation of this concurrency model.At the heart of Swift's concurrency model lies the concept of tasks. These represent units of asynchronous work that can execute wi

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Understanding Swift Combine's Future and Deferred Publishers

Swift's Combine framework provides powerful tools for handling asynchronous operations, and two of the most important publishers for single-event scenarios are Future and Deferred. Let's explore how these work and when to use each one.The Future publisher in Combine represents an asynchronous operation that will eventually produce exactly one value before completing or failing. Think of it as Swift's version of a promise from JavaScript or other reactive frameworks.

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Understanding Diffable Data Sources in iOS

Managing data in table views and collection views has traditionally been a complex task involving multiple delegate methods and careful state management. Diffable data sources revolutionize this approach by providing a streamlined, declarative way to handle data updates in iOS applications.A diffable data source extends either UITableViewDataSource or UICollectionViewDataSource, utilizing two generic Hashable types SectionIdentifierType and ItemIdentifierType. These type constraints define the

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iOS Layout Management Using UIStackView

The UIStackView is one of iOS development's most powerful layout tools, designed to organize views in either horizontal or vertical arrangements. This component significantly reduces the complexity of Auto Layout code while providing dynamic constraint management when views are added, removed, or modified.By default, stack views position their arranged subviews horizontally. Throughout this guide, we'll focus on horizontal arrangements, though the same principles apply to vertical stack views by

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Understanding Swift Combine Publishers - A Comprehensive Guide to Reactive Programming

Swift's Combine framework introduces a powerful approach to handling asynchronous data streams through reactive programming. At the heart of this framework lies the Publisher protocol, which serves as the foundation for managing data that flows over time. Let's explore how Publishers work and why they're essential for modern iOS development.Reactive programming centers around the concept of data streams that emit values over time. The Publisher protocol in Combine provides the blueprint for mode

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Understanding Subjects in Swift's Combine Framework - A Deep Dive into CurrentValueSubject and PassthroughSubject

The Combine framework introduces a powerful concept called Subjects, which serve as a bridge between imperative programming and reactive streams. In this comprehensive guide, we'll examine the two primary subject types that Apple provides and explore their practical applications in iOS development.A Subject represents a specialized publisher that conforms to the Subject protocol within Combine. What distinguishes subjects from regular publishers is their .send(_:) method, which enables developer

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Building a Lightweight Auto Layout DSL for iOS Development

Creating user interfaces programmatically in iOS offers significant advantages over Interface Builder, but Apple's Auto Layout API can be quite verbose and cumbersome to work with. While Apple recommends using Interface Builder whenever possible, many developers prefer the flexibility and maintainability that comes with programmatic layouts.Several third-party frameworks like SnapKit, PureLayout, and Anchorage have emerged to address this ve

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Programmatic Auto Layout with UIScrollView

When building iOS applications, choosing programmatic layout over Interface Builder offers several compelling advantages. You get a unified source of truth for your interface, eliminate the need to constantly switch between code and visual editors, reduce repository noise from storyboard files, avoid XML merge conflicts that plague team development, and gain enhanced flexibility for conditional layouts and animations.UIScrollView serves as an excellent component for displaying content that exten

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