Topic by dardar 2019-03-20 19:12:45

  • From: legendland
  • Registered: 2013-11-06
  • Posts: 1,205
  • User Karma: 516

Hi all
bare with me, as I'm still getting used to the Mac.
So some of these questions you may head smack.
I wish to begin development for MAC and/or IOS. I have read a couple mentions, and understand that for IOS, at least, publishing onto the App Store requires a none too cheap $100 a year. That's not going to stop me though. To be great, sacrifices must be made. Before all that though, I need to learn what it is I'm actually doing.
I have downloaded Xcode 10, the latest version at least, and got it set up.
I've read through a few of the tutorials on the language syntax and have to say it looks extremely friendly when compared to others I have tackled I mean come on! var str="this is a string"
Simple!
So here's my stumbling blocks so far:
1. GUI's. Every tutorial I've read says to drag and drop things where you want them. Pardon me for a moment while I throw a windows fit about drag and drop being inaccessible. I did have limited success, managing to copy a checkbox into the storyboard, though it never showed up when I ran the program. Whether this was because I put it in the wrong place or didn't link it up or something, I have no idea. So this question: What am I missing here. IS drag and drop the only way? I've coded in wx python, so am not afraid to get my hands dirty coding things from scratch but, everything I've read so far implies that's not a thang.
2. The command line, say I want to run this script:
import cocoa
var str="Nate is learning Mac OS and IOS development."
print(str)

Where does that show? Where actually is the terminal in Xcode? Is that accessible?
I guess my questions here are primarily, is Swift and Xcode the way to go? Am I doing this all wrong? I know app and Mac development is possible, hell I think the legend Works did it himself, so... What am I missing?
Thanks for any help you can offer.

Nathan Smith
Managing Director of Nathan Tech
It's not disability
It's ability!

dardar's Website

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Reply by TJ.Breitenfeldt 2019-03-20 21:39:24

  • Registered: 2015-08-06
  • Posts: 235
  • User Karma: 22

Hi, I have wanted to do IOS development for a while as well. I have learned a couple things after spending some time doing research with not a lot to show for my efforts. I had to set it down because of school.

I can tell you what I learned concerning IOS development. If I get anything wrong I hope someone can correct me.

You can sideload IOS apps onto your phone with XCode without paying for the $100 development membership. The $100 is specifically for being able to upload apps to the app store from what I can tell. Apple created a way in recent years for people to be able to transfer apps from your computer to your phone for free using XCode, it is called sideloading. I was never able to successfully do it myself though.

From everything I have read, XCode is pretty accessible with Voiceover. I believe that XCode is the best way to develop apps for IOS, however, I was struggling learning how to use XCode with Voiceover. I am not a strong Mac user to begin with, which may have been part of my problem. I would imagine that it is possible to run everything through the terminal, and develop in a different IDE to get around the confusing interface for XCode, but I am not sure, and I have yet to find a simple nice code editor for Mac such as Notepad++ or ED Sharp to use instead of XCode. I suppose there is always text edit.

I don't know much about swift, when I was trying to learn IOS development, I was trying to use phonegap, which is a javascript library for creating mobile apps. The idea is that you can create android, IOS, and Windows mobile apps using javascript, HTML, and CSS, all with more or less the same code. Based on my research, javascript libraries like that are great for more simple apps, although insuring accessibility in all platforms is challenging from what I was reading. There are also a lot of limitations, so I don't know if this is something that someone would want to use for audio game development.

I hope that that was a little helpful. hopefully someone with more experience can provide more information.


TJ Breitenfeldt

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Reply by Hijacker 2019-03-20 21:45:46

  • Registered: 2016-07-25
  • Posts: 884
  • User Karma: 84

I don't know alot about Mac OS development, but I just developed a cross-platform app working well using Xamarin, which is also available for Mac OS, even though I used it mainly on Windows 10 using Visual Studio 2017 connected to a Mac OS virtual machine to build and upload the app to my iPhone to check its accessibility and functionality. The good thing is, Xamarin uses xaml files for GUI design, which works fine, even without sight.
Best Regards.
Hijacker

Hijacker's Website

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Reply by swigjr23 2019-03-21 02:32:54

  • Registered: 2015-12-31
  • Posts: 480
  • User Karma: 52

Hello,

I'm not a developer, but I have seen some tutorials over on the AppleVis website. From what I gathered, Xcode is very complicated. You might want to check there.

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