Learning Swift, 2nd Edition

Chapter 4. Setting Up the macOS Notes App

In Part I, we looked at the Apple Developer Program, the tools you use for developing on Apple platforms, and the fundamentals of the Swift language. Now we’re actually going to build some apps!

In this chapter, we’ll start building Notes. Notes is a Mac app that lets you write notes, which contain text plus a number of other attachments: images, locations, videos, sounds, contacts, and more. We’ll be creating an iOS counterpart for Notes later on, in Part III.

We’re not going to be doing any coding in this chapter, but it’s still important! We’ll be doing all the setup to make a real, working macOS app, using Xcode, by the end of the chapter (it won’t do much, though!).

The kind of setup that we’ll be doing in this chapter is fundamental to the creation of most Swift-based applications for macOS and iOS. One of the most striking things about developing for Apple’s platforms using Xcode and Swift is just how much work is done for you. Just one or two years ago, the setup we’ll accomplish in this chapter would have taken lines upon lines of code.

Even if you’re only interested in learning to use Swift to create iOS applications, we suggest that you work through the chapters (there are only three!) that cover the creation of the macOS application anyway. You’ll gain a better understanding of using Swift with Xcode to build applications, and you’ll be better equipped to work on the iOS application once we start on that, in Part III.

Designing ...