SSApplication

A UIApplication subclass to start your app off right.

SSApplication powers launch setup and app notifications in my app MUDRammer - A Modern MUD Client for iPhone and iPad.

Setup

1. Install with Cocoapods. Add to your Podfile:

   pod 'SSApplication', :head # YOLO
   

   Or just drag SSApplication.{h,m} into your project.

2. With SSApplication installed, edit your main app delegate file and subclass SSApplication:

   // MyAppDelegate.h
   #import <SSApplication.h>
   
   @interface MyAppDelegate : SSApplication
   @end

3. You'll need to make a small change in your app's main.m file to tell it about your new principal UIApplication subclass. Add your app delegate's class as the third argument to UIApplicationMain. Your main.m should look something like this:

   // main.m
   #import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
   #import "MyAppDelegate.h"
   
   int main(int argc, char *argv[])
   {
       @autoreleasepool {
           return UIApplicationMain(argc, 
                                    argv, 
                                    NSStringFromClass([MyAppDelegate class]), 
                                    NSStringFromClass([MyAppDelegate class]));
       }
   }

App Launch

SSApplication helps set up your app at launch time by providing several methods you should override in your SSApplication subclass.

1. Kindly tell SSApplication about your root view controller, to be added to the main window (SSApplication creates a main application window for you).

   - (UIViewController *) ss_appRootViewController {
   	return [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:
   			[MyViewController new]];
   }

2. SSApplication implements application:willFinishLaunchingWithOptions: and passes launch arguments to your app delegate:

   - (void) ss_willFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)options {
    
       // Here I start analytics or other third party services
   }

3. SSApplication asks if there's any long-running setup to be performed on a background queue.

   - (void) ss_willLaunchBackgroundSetup {
       // This method is called asynchronously
       // on a background queue.
       // Here I do long-running setup
       // that doesn't need to finish immediately
   }

Default NSUserDefaults

A handy way to set up default values in NSUserDefaults. Override ss_defaultUserDefaults and return a dictionary.

Each key in the dictionary you specify is checked against the keys already in NSUserDefaults, and any existing keys will NOT be overwritten. This allows you to specify defaults for user preferences and not overwrite any changes the user has made to those preferences.

It also allows you to introduce new preferences in an app update without having to worry about overwriting values in existing preferences.

- (NSDictionary *) ss_defaultUserDefaults {
	return @{
		@"A-Preference" : @1337,
		@"Another-Pref" : @"Threeve",
	};
}

Notifications

The UIApplicationDelegate protocol informs your app delegate of a number of important app events, like moving between the background and foreground.

With SSApplication, several of these delegate calls are collapsed into a single method you can override.

- (void) ss_receivedApplicationEvent:(SSApplicationEvent)eventType {    
    NSLog(@"Event received: %i", eventType);

    switch (eventType) {
        case SSApplicationEventDidBecomeActive:
        case SSApplicationEventWillEnterForeground:
            
            // here I might start up an analytics service
            break;
            
        case SSApplicationEventDidEnterBackground:
        case SSApplicationEventWillResignActive:
            
            // here I might shut down an analytics service
            break;
            
        case SSApplicationEventWillTerminate:
            
            // here I might clean up core data
            break;
            
        case SSApplicationEventDidReceiveMemoryWarning:
            
            // memory warning!
            break;    
            
        default:
            break;
    }
}

Example

Check out Example for an app example.

Thanks!

SSApplication is a @jhersh production -- (electronic mail | @jhersh)