Celedev Blog Archive

Only two days after Apple made WatchKit available to developers, you can now live code apps for the Apple Watch by upgrading to the just released CodeFlow version 0.9.8-b, a minor update of CodeFlow public beta. Being that fast to integrate a new technology proves the high flexibility and quality of CodeFlow's underlying live update technology.

CodeFlow 0.9.8-b includes the following new features:

1. It extends the set of Xcode targets types that can be associated with a CodeFlow project. In particular, app-extensions and watchkit-extensions can now be associated with a CodeFlow project.

2. It brings more flexible resource handlers for dynamic resource update. A resource handler can now be defined as a pseudo-setter method that can capture variables from the context in which getResource is called (don't panic, this is explained later in this post...).

3. It includes the bindings library for iOS 8.1 SDK, which is now the default for new projects.

A number of companion downloads are available too:

• updated versions of the sample applications, using the for iOS 8.1 SDK bindings library and providing example of the new resource handle syntax;

• Codeflow Bindings for iOS 8.2 beta SDK: a must-have if you want to develop WatchKit apps or use new APIs in iOS 8.2 (needs Xcode 6.2 to be installed) .

• Codeflow Bindings for iOS 8.0 SDK to be downloaded if you are still using Xcode 6.0 for developing your apps. This bindings library was included in the previous version of CodeFlow, so you don't need to download it if you are upgrading from the previous 0.9.8 version.

WatchKit support

More details about how to live-code a WatchKit app with CodeFlow will be the topic of a dedicated post very soon on this blog. Stay tuned for this.

Extended dynamic resource handlers

The new way of declaring dynamic resource handlers deserve some explanation:

In previous versions, a dynamic resource was associated with an object field like this:

getResource("path.to.resource", "public.image", self, "fieldName")

which has the effect of setting self.fieldName to the current value of the resource after every update of this resource. By declaring a setter for fieldName you can execute a method when the resource was updated and do more sophisticated processing.

CodeFlow 0.9.8-b extends this by allowing the use of a handler function directly in the getResource call. This gives you the opportunity to write more concise code for resource handlers, but most importantly to capture variables from the current scope in your handler. For example, you can now manage a collection of dynamic resources like this:

for i = 1, #resourceNames do
        getResource(resourceNames[i], "public.image", 
                    self, function (self, resourceObject)
                              -- capture the loop index `i` for future updates
                              self.rowImages[i] = resourceObject
                              self:updateRow(i)
                          end)
end

Using this version

In case you missed it, CodeFlow is now in public beta, and you can download it and use it freely until the end of the betatest phase.

And you can help us to make CodeFlow even better, by sending general feedback, suggestions for improvements, or bugs reports to support@celedev.com and by accepting to send crash reports when CodeFlow proposes it. Thanks in advance for this.

So, download this version, and start developing your iOS or AppleWatch app in live-coding mode today!