GTConstants

A Constant and Localizable strings manager that allow for easy production & beta development with the additional capability of overriding values from your server

Installation

Cocoapods

GTConstants is available through CocoaPods, to install it simply add the following line to your Podfile:

pod "GTConstants"

Carthage

github "gametimesf/GTConstants" == 0.2.6

Building

GTConstants 0.2.6 requires Swift 5.4.2

Usage

In Your AppDelegate.swift configure the constants manager with a production plist and staging plist. Based on your current environment pass an override config or not.

We use the overrideConfigFile in our local development environments to allow easily customization of your production constants. For things like Braintree, hitting a development server, or using a custom Mixpanel account is all done through redefining the constant in the overrideConfigFile

See the following example below for how we override our production values based on the DEBUG flag Xcode gives you

Set up

class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate, UISplitViewControllerDelegate {
    func application(application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [NSObject: AnyObject]?) -> Bool {

    #if DEBUG
        GTConstantsManager.sharedInstance.config = alphaConfig()
    #else
        GTConstantsManager.sharedInstance.config = prodConfig()
    #endif

        return true
    }

    // Where Constants is a .plist file in your /Resources directory
    private class func prodConfig() -> GTConstantsManagerConfig {
        return GTConstantsManagerConfig(defaultConfigFile: "Constants",
                                        overrideConfigFile: []
        )
    }

    // Where Constants_testing is a .plist file in your /Resources directory
    private class func alphaConfig() -> GTConstantsManagerConfig {
        return GTConstantsManagerConfig(defaultConfigFile: "Constants",
                                        overrideConfigFile: ["Constants_testing"]
        )
    }
}

In Use

Constants

import GTConstants
class MyTableViewController : UITableViewController {
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        GMSServices.provideAPIKey(GTConstantsManager.sharedInstance.string(key: "google_maps_api_key))
    }
}

Strings

Add a file titled: Resources/Localizable.strings file inside of /Resources where you might have the following keys

"MyTableViewController.TITLE" = "My first Table View Controller";
"MyTableViewController.WelcomeBack.User" = "Welcome back, %@";

And then you can simply call:

import GTConstants
class MyTableViewController : UITableViewController {
    @IBOutlet private weak var userWelcomeBackLabel: UILabel?

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        title = "MyTableViewController.TITLE".localized()
        userWelcomeBackLabel?.text = "MyTableViewController.TITLE".localized(args: "Mike")
    }
}

Interceptions

Now the real power of GTConstants comes into play. The ability to on the fly override constants and strings. Simply add an interceptions_url string value pointing to your server in your Constants.plist file returning the following structure:

"hotfixes": {
    "google_maps_api_key": "abc123",
    "MyTableViewController.WelcomeBack.User": "Hi, %@",
}

Now with this on applaunch, the constants manager will automatically make an api call to the interceptions_url you configured above and allow easy override of values you have configured in either your Resources/Localizable.strings file and Resources/Constants.plist file

So now if we take the above example:

import GTConstants
class MyTableViewController : UITableViewController {
    @IBOutlet private weak var userWelcomeBackLabel: UILabel?

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        title = "MyTableViewController.TITLE".localized()
        userWelcomeBackLabel?.text = "MyTableViewController.TITLE".localizedWithArgs("Mike")
    }
}

The userWelcomeBacklabel will now output => Hi, Mike instead of the Welcome back, Mike as defined in our Localization file.

Usage inside of Storyboards

Here at Gametime we love Storyboards and xibs. And with the advent of @IBInspectable it is now easier then ever to localize UILabels, UIButtons, UIBarButtonItems, and UIViewController titles. If you installed the framework with Cocoapods your work here is done. Simply open any Storyboard file and click on a UILabel and you will now see the new fields rendered automatically. If You used Carthage you will need to copy and paste extension-GTConstantsInspectable into your repo due to the framework not living inside your application

App Updates

GTConstants also gives your app the ability to check whether it's compatible with your mimimum app and iOS version requirements. The interceptions_url string pointing to your server should return the following structure:

"update": {
        "ios": [
            {   
                "restriction": 0,
                "active": 1,
                "min_app_version": {
                    "version": "8.2.1",
                    "message": {
                        "en": "App version 8.2.1 update message"
                    }
                },
                "min_os_version": {
                    "version": "9",
                    "message": {
                        "en": "iOS version 9 update message"
                    }
                }
            },
            {   
                "restriction": 2,
                "active": 1,
                "min_app_version": {
                    "version": "5.1",
                    "message": {
                        "en": "App version 5.1 update message"
                    }
                },
                "min_os_version": {
                    "version": "7.2",
                    "message": {
                        "en": "iOS version 7.2 update message"
                    }
                }
            }
        ]
    }

The configuration above allows you to add update rules by specifying the restriction level as well as the minimum app and OS version you'd like to support for your app. You can also add multiple update rules to the ios array if app and OS versions should have separate restriction levels (i.e. 0,1,2 -> low, medium, high).

After the constants manager makes an api call to the interceptions_url, the interceptions manager will automatically check whether your app is in violation of the rules and provide the update data.

Usage

To check whether the user needs to update their app, simply call GTInterceptionsManager.sharedInstance.updateNeeded. To check the update rule the user is in violation of, simply call GTInterceptionsManager.sharedInstance.updateRule. You may also want to use the GTInterceptionsManager.sharedInstance.dataSyncCompletion handler to determine whether update data from your server was received successfully.

Example

Say you want to show an update warning to users of app version 8.2.1 and iOS 9 and limit the functionality of your app to users of app version 5.1 and iOS 7.2, you can specify a low restriction for the former and a high restriction for the latter as shown in the configuration above.

If the user has app version 4.2, the returned update rule will be of restriction 2 (high). If the user has app version 6.5, the returned update rule will be of restriction 0 (low). If the user's app version is 9.6, no update rule will be returned and updateNeeded will be false. The returned update rule is always the one the user is in violation of with the highest restriction.

For this scenario, we can do

GTInterceptionManager.sharedInstance.dataSyncCompletion { status in
    guard status != .error else {
        // show error
        return
    }

    guard status == .complete else { return }

    let rule = GTInterceptionManager.sharedInstance.updateRule

    if rule.restriction == .high {
        // limit functionality
    } else if rule.restriction == .low {
        // show warning
    }
}
````

## Updates

- 0.1.21 Added ability to toggle maintance mode
- 0.1.20 Added ability to check for app updates
- 0.1.17 Updated Syntax & Ability to specify an array of override
  configs
- 0.1.16 XCode 8.2 project issue fix
- 0.1.15 Migrating to GT naming
- 0.1.14 Updating for Swift 3
- 0.1.9: Updating for Swift 2.3
- 0.1.8: Initial release for use with both Carthage and Cocoapods

## Requirements

- Xcode 7
- iOS 9

## Authors

- Mike Silvis, https://github.com/mikesilvis
- Rich Lowenberg, https://github.com/richlowenberg

## License

GTConstants is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.