Give your simulator superpowers

RocketSim: An Essential Developer Tool
as recommended by Apple

Issue 154
Feb 14, 2023

Stepping out of tunnel-vision.

If there's one skill I still lack, it's stepping out of the tunnel vision earlier. Countless times, I solved an issue within 5 minutes on a fresh morning. The day before, I potentially spent hours deciphering the same problem.

Last week, our CI implementation started to fail due to a misconfigured stack. While staying in context, I couldn't find the potential cause. Only after walking the dog, taking a shower, and getting a good night's sleep did I realize how to solve our issue.

In retrospect, I wish I had stepped out of context earlier. What if I decided to walk the dog after trying for an hour? I could have solved the issue much more quickly. 

Stepping out of context, removing tunnel-version, using a rubber duck (or your dog) to explain your issue. It's an essential skill to own, allowing you to become more productive.

Enjoy this week's SwiftLee Weekly!

THIS WEEK'S BLOG POST

While it's fundamental for App Developers, I didn't see many written articles covering User Defaults. I decided to write down my learnings and tell you about storing preferences, sharing them with other apps and extensions, and how you can explore the backing storage.

SPONSORED

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CURATED FROM THE COMMUNITY

SWIFT

Tjeerd In 'T Veen explains a technique we use at WeTransfer: creating readable & reusable UI Testing methods.

I enjoyed reading how Pol Piella used the App Store Connect API to trigger Xcode Cloud workflows. He explains how you can use these specific API endpoints by using the AppStoreConnect-Swift-SDK.

SWIFTUI

Merging multiple Swift Charts comes with challenges like managing axis labels. Paul Peelen tells how you can solve these problems by sharing code examples joined by visuals.

Sparsh Paliwal demonstrates the power of SF Symbols using a beautiful application. If you’re new to these symbols: I wrote a detailed guide earlier so you can start using them.

As an app developer, it’s essential to be aware of semantic colors. Like Chris explains, they’re an excellent start for adding Dark Mode support to your app. While at Chris’ blog, you might also want to read about using environment values for stylesheets.

ACCESSIBILITY

Did you know you can use VoiceOver on macOS to test VoiceOver support in the iOS Simulator? Voice-Over works a bit differently than on iOS, but there’s no better person to explain how it works than Bas Broek.

OPTIMIZATION

Getting better at creating qualitative Pull Requests is essential, and Danijela Vrzan helps us with this article. I always love adding MP4s, GIFs, or images to GitHub using RocketSim, and I also prefer to add in-line comments. The latter forces me to self-review the PR, often resulting in finding improvements before others indicate.

XCODE

How about some extra help when writing Swift code?

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