Apple Xcode help document reading guide

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Always wanted to write such a thing, for a long time I found a lot of beginner's problem is not mastering the method of learning, so, Xcode so good SDK document there, for them also does not have much effect. From the forum, Weibo and other places to see the questions raised by beginners, but also exposed that they do not know a lot of their doubts in the document is actually written in very clear. And sometimes when they want to find a solution from a document, they often can't find it. Or some people realize that reading a document is a good way to learn, but it doesn't work.

China's technical community has a very boring problem, is the technology is deep, do not understand scold unintelligible, technical shallow, to understand scold no technical content. But what the grandson does, for the people who may not know how to read the document now, I hope this article is instructive.

Structure of the Xcode document

For example, when opened, the entire document interface has the left side bar and the right content area. The sidebar on the left allows you to select a different document library. Your Xcode in general there is a set of different versions of the iOS document library, a set of different versions of the OS X document library, and a Xcode document library.

If you do not have the document library you are looking for, you can select the Preferences menu for Xcode and choose Downloads-documentation. Here you can see that you have downloaded the installed document library, and have not yet downloaded the document library, you can choose as appropriate. Such as:

Then we look at the left navigation area of the document content area, which reveals the structure of the document library. Such as:

First, Resource Types, which is the resource type. All documents in the document library are one of these types:

1. Getting started--Beginners, in general, is for the full novice to see. Suggest beginners to see, there are some ideas to build something, with these ideas to build things, the latter is easier to learn.
2. The guides--guide, which is the coolest and best part of Xcode, learns to look at the guide and in most cases does not have to buy books at all. The guide in the Xcode document is a problem, starting with a question, or one aspect of the system, detailing how to use the Cocoa Library documentation in step-by-step directions. The general programmer is familiar with is reference, is you look up a class, method, function of document time, come out of thing. Those are actually 1.1 points of fine knowledge, light look at those things are completely without context. and guides is to help you tidy up the context of learning.
3. reference--Reference. A document that is organized into a single class with a framework that contains the methods used for each method.
4. Release notes--released instructions. A new version of iOS brings new features, such as familiarity with new iOS, and comparison of different iOS version APIs, all of which require reference to these documents.
5. Sample code--example code. Apple has provided some sample code to help you learn some of the techniques of some API. It is very strongly recommended to learn the time reference, on the one hand to see the document sometimes it is difficult to understand how the actual implementation is. On the other hand, these sample codes are written by Apple's engineers, and you can see the evolution of the code style that Apple recommends from the changes in the sample code.
6. Technical notes--Technical description. Some technical topic articles, you can browse when you are free. There are often some gains.
7. Technical q&a--Common technical questions and answers. Here are some common questions and answers in the technical community.
8. video--video. Currently mainly WWDC video, is actually logged on to the developer site to browse, here is the shortcut. Want to study deeply, must not miss, a lot of see, not only can learn technology, can also practice good English.

In summary, this reference, Release notes, Sample Code, Technical notes, Technical Q&a, are generally only for reference. The main to see is getting started and guides.

Then here is the topics, which is the topic, which is divided into:

1. Audio & video--Audio Video
2. Languages & utilities--language and tools, objective-c some knowledge, APP store management tools, etc.
3. Mathematical computation--mathematical calculations.
4. Xcode
5. Data management--Management.
6. general--a general question.
7. Graphics & animation--graphic and animation.
8. Networking & internet--network issues.
9. performance--performance.
10. security--safe.
11. User experience--users experience.

There is not much to say, most of them are the name of the question. But it is worth mentioning that there are a lot of beginners said, I want to understand the shape and animation technology, but the document can not find, it is only said, you open big eyes, for Mao left to see the right to see it?

The bottom is the frameworks (frame), which is divided into:

1. Cocoa Touch Layer
2. Media Layer
3. Core Services Layer
4. Core OS Layer

Here we don't discuss this thing first, we'll talk about it later.

In general, the left navigation area is three different dimensions to help you pinpoint what you need.

Now let's look at the right side of the content area. Note the above document filter. Such as:

Assuming that you now want to see a performance-related guides, you should do the navigation on the left, click Topics-Performance, and then enter guides on the document filter on the right. Or you can also navigate on the left, click Resource Types-Guides, then enter performance in the document filter.

With a good command of navigation and document filters, learning can be very quick and easy.

Document Guide

The previous document structure of Xcode is about how you can quickly navigate to what you're looking for. But a lot of people's problems may be that they don't know what to read at first.

Here we introduce self-learning iOS development should follow or say we recommend the reading order of the required reading documents.

Reading order:

1. Start developing iOS apps now (starting developing iOS apps today)
2. "Your first IOS App"
3. "Your Second IOS app:storyboards"
4. "Your third IOS App:icloud"
5. "IOS Technology Overview"
6. "IOS Human Interface Guidelines"
7. "Learning objective-c: A Primer" and "Programming with Objective-c"
8. IOS APP Programming Guide
9. "View Programming Guide for iOS" and "View Controller Programming Guide for iOS"
10. Table View Programming Guide for IOS

The first thing to look at is getting started's "get Started with iOS apps (start developing iOS apps Today)" (in both English and Chinese, Apple's official translation). This document is very shallow, but is to establish the concept of the document, you later in the development of the concept often encountered, here are included, especially note that this document looks simple, but each page under the relevant articles, not readings, are required to read.

Even many have done iOS development for a long time classmate, in fact there are many conceptual misunderstanding, modern program development is more and more simple, tools more and more powerful, often some misunderstanding can continue to move forward, but actually do not establish a solid foundation is very disadvantage, often behind the understanding and solve a small problem is not difficult to pay a lot of hard work.

The purpose and detection criteria for reading this document is that you will see the basic concepts of iOS development in the future, all in general.

After reading the "Start developing iOS app now (starting developing iOS apps today)", you should go to the your XXX iOS App series This series is not a difficult article, you do not have to worry about first to learn objective-c, Do not worry about learning C language. The learning method I recommend is a progressive learning method that is accomplished. Before learning the system architecture and OBJECTIVE-C, you can complete the first milestone in the learning process by writing a document that is the simplest app in the world. In this process do not have to worry about any doubts, what do not understand, first do is.

The purpose and test criteria for reading these three documents is to make the three demo apps run on the simulator.

In this process, your basic understanding of the development tools has been established, but also a sense of accomplishment, to the charm (is to eliminate the mystery of the development of iOS).

Further down, it is recommended that you go to "iOS Technology Overview" (iOS technology Overview), iOS is not a technology, but a bunch of technology, the previous article on the document Navigation Area classification, Framework classification, I say the reason is that, you want to do an animation should use the core Animation or OpenGL? You have to do some text related operations should use core text or something, just look here.

Learn about modern program development, language and framework. The reason we Tiny4cocoa called this name is that the Ios/mac developer's representative is often the cocoa framework, which is the SDK. Most of the features you need are lying in the frame, and you know the structure of the framework before you know how to find the relevant technical data.

The purpose and testing criteria for reading this document is to meet specific issues and know which documents to look at.

Again, it is recommended to read the "IOS Human Interface Guidelines", although the Mac/ios platform is also a variety of programs, apps have, but overall, most of the best app UI seems to be in harmony with the entire system. This is completely different from windows and many other platforms. What is this for?

To a large extent attributed to the "Human Interface Guidelines" culture, the so-called Human Interface Guidelines is the specification of the user interface, in Apple it also has a special abbreviation called HIG, is dogma the same thing. All the apps are recommended to follow the HIG, follow the hig, and what you do will seem to be in harmony with the entire system. Even if you want to do some innovative design, you will inevitably break the hig restrictions, but you should still follow the spirit of hig at this time.

In addition, it is important for you to read Hig to understand the logical mechanism of the entire UI structure and UE behavior so that you can base your design on the interface.

The purpose and detection criteria for reading this document is to see any app that you can know whether any of its UI is a system control, a custom control, its hierarchical relationship, and so on.

"Learning Objective-c: A Primer" is a very beginner and simple primer for first reading. "Programming with Objective-c" is a little more complicated and suitable for reading.

General people suggest to learn the language first, I instead suggest to do an app first, then learn the language. There are several reasons, first of all modern development tools, often not used to develop console programs, there will be a framework, the language will not be used to understand the IDE, and may even be more troublesome. Second is, in fact, modern language development to object-oriented, the library is often more complex than language, more important, or more, we are in the learning library, rather than language, language is just a carrier of the library.

For example, delegate and block and so on are closely related to the Cocoa UI async mechanism, the language elements are very difficult to learn, and they are completely unaware of the meaning of the code.

The purpose and test criteria for reading this document are to understand the basic OBJECTIVE-C code and to facilitate subsequent learning and reading of various sample code.

The IOS App Programming Guide is basically about developing a complete process for an app, including the lifecycle of the app, hibernation, activation, and much more. Must look before you formally develop your first online app. or develop an app that comes before a document is required to be read before submission.

The purpose and test criteria for reading this document are to understand the full process and many details.

"View Programming Guide for iOS" and "View Controller Programming Guide for iOS" are important. View is the most important concept within the entire graphical interface. All graphics and interface drawing is based on view. Everything you see in a complex user interface is a combination of different view stacks.

View Controller is a combination of view and some logic, which is not necessary in nature, but is a design that greatly reduces the complexity of programming. Many people don't understand what a view Controller is, so it's painful to write code.

The purpose and test criteria for reading this document are to understand what the view is, what the view controller is, what the situation is with view, and what the view controller is.

UITableView is one of the most important controls and is the most common UI interface element. Before the advent of Uicollectionview, a large number of the custom controls presented in the Content list were based on UITableView, such as many bookshelves and picture grids that were actually uitableview.

So "Table View Programming Guide for IOS" is very important and must be read well.

The purpose and test criteria for reading this document are to profoundly understand Uitableview/uitableviewcontroller's theory and use of the method.

I recommend the necessary reading documents so much, look carefully, at most, that is, today is finished. Learning a thing, if there is a little patience, the right way is not difficult, not to say that the brain must be very smart, most people can do one weeks to learn iOS development, in fact, read these documents, most people will.

As I have emphasized countless times, reading English documents is not difficult, I myself from the year to read English documents very laborious, must look up the dictionary to start, serious reading English documents, not to look up the dictionary, one months past, read English documents do not need to look up the dictionary.

Our company @sycx teacher, also said that his original English is also very bad, even now English is still very poor, but look at the English document completely no problem, that is, a few weeks of serious study after the breakthrough.

In fact, learning iOS is also true. Of course I'm not saying that you can read these 10 sets of documents and never have to look at anything else. Instead, if you understand the 10 sets of documents, you are starting from a beginner, or even though you will write some programs, but the state that iOS does not understand, becomes an entry point.

I don't want this article to help you learn what iOS is, and the purpose of this article is to get you started quickly. Once you get started, you don't need me to tell you what to look for, you know it. Once you get started, you'll find that the contents of the other documents in Xcode are different, but the structure is very clear and you are very convenient to learn.

Read the purpose and test criteria of this article is to encounter problems, know what documents to read, want to improve their skills, know what the context of their own organization to read.

How to query a document quick Help

The quickest way to query a help document is not to type in any keywords. You just need to hold down the option key in the Xcode code Editor, then click on the keyword you want to query, and you'll get help with the keyword. Such as:

Help information will include, some simple descriptions, which iOS operating system to start with, header files, reference documents. header files and reference documents can be clicked directly.

Even if the keyword you click is not the content of the cocoa Library, it is the class or method within your own code, and you can get the relevant definition information. Such as:

The associated hotkey is the command key and the mouse click to jump to any of the class name or method name of the defined header file.

Another way to quickly query help is to open the Quick assistance bar directly, such as first find the "right column switch" and then find the "quick" switch to open it.

The mechanism of the quick help bar is that as long as it is in the open state, as long as the input cursor is on what keyword, the Quick assist bar will display a brief helpful information related to the keyword, which is basically the same as the option click, but may be slightly richer.

When writing code, in most cases, the query under Quick help, look at the header file, is enough.

Search Help

The magnifying glass button at the top left of the document reading interface is the search interface. We search for uiimage, we get search results.

The first thing to note is that the results are categorized into four categories, reference, System Guides, Tools Guides, and Sample code. Category is good for us to quickly find the information we need. The previous category has been introduced, with that basic agreement, the reference can be.

It is also important to note that the options below the search box, first of all hits must (what kind of results will be hit), contain three items:

1. Contain search term this is the most common is the result contains the word
2. Start with search terms starts with the term
3. Match search term must match exact terms

Then there is the languages (language option), which contains JavaScript, C + +, Java, Objective-c, C languages.

Then, find in (which document library searches), contains all the document libraries that you have installed in Xcode.

Read the documentation

Finally, let's briefly explain how to read the document. The reading interface of the document is as follows:

It's worth noting that the following are the headings:

1. Inherits from inheritance, inherited from
2. Conforms to follow what protocol
3. What framework the framework belongs to
4. Availability starting from what iOS version support
5. Declared in header file
6. Related sample code related example codes
7. Companion Guide Related guides (UIImage No, many other classes have)

In the second, a very important thing, in fact, is the title of the narrow navigation bar, which is a multi-layered tree navigation bar, when you look at the document, you can click on the bar to browse the different locations.

In fact, this column contains the entire document library organization tree Chart, unfortunately only in this interface to browse. Interested can slowly browse, the amount of information in fact very large.

Apple Xcode help document reading guide