APGenericSearchTextField

Context

Swift 4 introduced a new type called KeyPath. It allows to access the properties of an object.
For instance:

let helloWorld = "HelloWorld" let keyPathCount = \String.count

let count = helloWorld[keyPath: keyPathCount]
//count == 10

The syntax can be very concise, it supports type inference and property chaining.

Purpose

Long time ago, I had the necessity to create a SearchTextField, and I thought it would be nice to apply this concept to it.

Under The Hood

• KeyPath
• NSPredicate

Example

To run the example project, clone the repo, and run pod install from the Example directory first.

Details

You have to follow few simple steps:

1. Define your Model by subclassing NSObject
2. Define property by using @objc
3. Select filterOperator
4. Select propertyToFilter
5. Define your cellConfigurator

Model

class Person: NSObject {
	@objc let name: String
	@objc let surname: String

	init(name: String, surname: String) {
		self.name = name
		self.surname = surname
	}
}

Filter Operator

At the moment only two operators are supported

1. Contains
2. Equal

Property To Filter

Using keyPath you can choose what field you want to compare.

For istance: \.name if you want to filter your array objects by name

Cell Configurator

You can configure your cell in this way

searchTextField.cellConfigurator = { [weak self] (person, cell) in
			cell.textLabel?.text = person.name
}

Customization

It's possible to customize your suggestion TableView with these values

tableXOffset
tableYOffset
tableCornerRadius
tableBottomMargin
maxResultsListHeight
minCharactersNumberToStartFiltering

singleItemHandler will return the selected object in tableView

singleItemHandler = { [weak self] value in
		print(value)
}

Storyboard

Storyboards have a problem with having a generic class. The thing is that Interface Builder communicates to the ViewController through the Objective-C runtime. Because of this, InterfaceBuilder is limited to the features that Objective-C provides. In this case, generics are not supported. By the way there is a workaround to use generic class with storyboard.

You need to:

• Declare a custom UITextField that extends GenericSearchTextField and add it to storyboard i.e. class SearchTextField: GenericSearchTextField<Person>{}

• Define Outlet

  • Defining an outlet of type SearchTextField, XCode will report an error. It's important to change type from SearchTextField to UIView
  • Before: @IBOutlet weak var textField: SearchTextField!
  • After: @IBOutlet weak var textField: UIView!

• Define a computed property of type GenericSearchTextField

  • Cast your variable to GenericSearchTextField
  • Now your are able to use your variable

var searchTextField: GenericSearchTextField<Person> {
		return textField as! GenericSearchTextField
}

• Use searchTextField variable

Bugs

The library is in alpha stage
Found a bug? Simple Pull Request

TODOs

• Better test coverage
• Better Filter management
• Custom cell support
• Storyboard Support

Demo

Check out the Example project. You will find two examples with programmatically and storyboard.

Requirements

Installation

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

pod 'APGenericSearchTextField'

Author

Bellaposa, [email protected]

License

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