Research how to create WatchOS apps¶
What will be researched?¶
- What is the best IDE for creating WatchOS apps?
Choice of IDE for WatchOS app¶
Stephear uses Xamarin for developing their Apple/Android app. Xamarin extends the .NET developer platform with tools and libraries specifically for building apps for Android, iOS, tvOS, watchOS, macOS, and Windows. Therefore, when choosing the IDE, it must be able to use Xamarin.
Requirements IDE¶
- Use of Xamarin
- Free (if possible)
- Big communitiy for IDE (for possible crashes)
List of IDE¶
You can see the list used to choose at the GeekFlare webiste.
Chosen IDE¶
Microsoft introduced Visual Studio primarily for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It lets you develop mobile and desktop apps with .NET MAUI (new version of Xamarin).
Why would you want to use an IDE other than Xcode?
Xcode is not available on Linux or Windows in the first place. But even when being on a Mac, VSCode offers several nice features among of them a killer one called “Live Share” that allows 2 or more developers to collaborate remotely on the same file with live code co-editing. You can think of it as Google Docs for code.
Key features:
- App center: It enables developers to automate the lifecycle of your iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS apps. Developers can test on thousands of real devices, distribute to beta testers and app stores, and monitor real-world usage using analytics data.
- IntelliCode: A set of automatic code completion tools that get through your code context, such as variable names, functions, etc. It completes a whole line at once, resulting in more accurate code.
- Getting insights into the code: With Visual Studio Code’s feature of CodeLens, developers can find insights such as changes made, the result of those changes, and others. It also provides essential information like references, authors, tests, and committed history to guide you.
Visual Studio comes with a wide range of features such as debugging, syntax highlighting, intelligent code completion, snippets, code refactoring, and embedded Git. It supports C, C ++, C #, F#, JavaScript, etc. It allows you to create Android, iOS, and Windows apps by using C# or F# using Xamarin.
Useful tools for VScode¶
- Settings Sync
- Colorize (When using colors like rgb, that line will turn that color)
- TODO Highlight
Setup VScode¶
Interesting Links¶
https://www.wwdcnotes.com/notes/wwdc21/10223/ //Visual impaired design improvements https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/guidelines/overview/ //Apple design standards https://novelbits.io/intro-ble-mobile-development-ios/ //BLE Apple design standards https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/General/Conceptual/DevPedia-CocoaCore/CodingConventions.html //Code Conventions Apple