Briggs

A reimagination of UITraitCollection

As seen on POSSIBLE Mobile Insights!

• How UITraitCollection Changed Everything
• Reimagining UITraitCollection with Briggs
• iOS Frameworks Part 2: Build & Ship

What if setting arbitrary constraints, views, and behaviors for specific trait collections was as easy as:

let exclusiveButton = UIButton(type: .System)
let traits: [AdaptiveAttribute] = [
    Idiom.Phone,
    Scale.TwoX,
    ForceTouch.Available,
    SizeClass.VerticalRegular,
    SizeClass.HorizontalCompact,
]

addViewFor(traits, view: exclusiveButton, to: view, withConstraints: [
    exclusiveButton.centerXAnchor.constraintEqualToAnchor(view.centerXAnchor),
    exclusiveButton.centerYAnchor.constraintEqualToAnchor(view.centerYAnchor),
])

Abstract

UITraitEnvironment is just too cool to be limited to views and view controllers!

Briggs seeks to provide a crucial missing component in Apple’s API: UITraitEnvironment.addChildTraitEnvironment:, and adds a healthy dose of sugar to UITraitCollection.

Components

• AdaptiveElement: The child—receives trait collection information
• AdaptiveInterface: The parent—provides trait collection information
• AdaptiveAttribute: The trait—describes trait collection information

Containers

• AdaptiveBehavior: Associates a behavior and counter-behavior with a set of traits

  Behavior is executed if incoming traits match, else counter-behavior is executed.

• AdaptiveConstraintContainer: Associates a set of constraints with a set of traits

  Constraints are activated if incoming traits match, else they are deactivated.

• AdaptiveViewContainer: Associates a view with a set of traits

  View is added to hierarchy if traits match, else view is removed.

Requirements

• iOS 9.0+
• Xcode 7.3+

Installation

CocoaPods

CocoaPods is a dependency manager for Cocoa projects. You can install it with the following command:

$ gem install cocoapods

To integrate Briggs into your Xcode project using CocoaPods, specify it in your Podfile:

source 'https://github.com/CocoaPods/Specs.git'
platform :ios, '9.0'
use_frameworks!

target '<Your Target Name>' do
    pod 'Briggs', '~> 2.0.0'
end

Then, run the following command:

$ pod install

Carthage

Carthage is a decentralized dependency manager that builds your dependencies and provides you with binary frameworks.

You can install Carthage with Homebrew using the following command:

$ brew update
$ brew install carthage

To integrate Briggs into your Xcode project using Carthage, specify it in your Cartfile:

github "auswahlaxiom/Briggs" ~> 2.0.0

Run carthage update to build the framework and drag the built Briggs.framework into your Xcode project.

Manually

If you prefer not to use either of the aforementioned dependency managers, you can integrate Briggs into your project manually.

Embedded Framework

• Open up Terminal, cd into your top-level project directory, and run the following command if your project is not initialized as a git repository:

$ git init

• Add Briggs as a git submodule by running the following command:

$ git submodule add https://github.com/auswahlaxiom/Briggs.git

• Open the new Briggs folder, and drag the Briggs.xcodeproj into the Project Navigator of your application's Xcode project.

  It should appear nested underneath your application's blue project icon. Whether it is above or below all the other Xcode groups does not matter.

• Select the Briggs.xcodeproj in the Project Navigator and verify the deployment target matches that of your application target.

• Next, select your application project in the Project Navigator (blue project icon) to navigate to the target configuration window and select the application target under the "Targets" heading in the sidebar.
• In the tab bar at the top of that window, open the "General" panel.
• Click on the + button under the "Embedded Binaries" section.
• You will see two different Briggs.xcodeproj folders. It does not matter which one you select the framework from.

• Select Briggs.framework and click Add.

  The Briggs.framework is automagically added as a target dependency, linked framework and embedded framework in a copy files build phase which is all you need to build on the simulator and a device.

• Add import Briggs a source file and get coding!

Usage

For an in-depth dive into Briggs, please visit Reimagining UITraitCollection with Briggs.

Credits

Briggs was created by Ada Turner, an iOS developer at POSSIBLE Mobile.

License

Briggs is released under the MIT license. See LICENSE for details.