Further Exploration
The Interface Builder Editor gives you the opportunity to experiment with many of the different GUI objects you’ve seen in iOS applications and read about in the previous hours. In the next hour, the Xcode code editor is used in conjunction with the Xcode Interface Builder for your first full project, developed from start to finish.
To learn even more about what you can do with Interface Builder, I suggest reading through the following three Apple publications:
- Interface Builder Help: Accessed by right-clicking the background in the Interface Builder Editor, the IB help is more than a simple help document. Apple’s Interface Builder Help walks you through the intricacies of IB using video tutorials and covers some advanced topics that will be important as your development experience increases.
- iOS Human Interface Guidelines: The Apple iOS HIG document provides a clear set of rules for building usable interfaces on the iOS device family. This document describes when you should use controls and how they should be displayed, helping you create more polished, professional-quality applications.
- Accessibility Programming Guide for iOS: If you’re serious about creating accessible apps, this is a mandatory read. The Accessibility Programming Guide describes the accessibility features mentioned in this hour’s lesson as well as ways to improve accessibility programmatically and methods of testing accessibility beyond the tips given in this hour.
As a general note, from here on, you do quite a bit of coding in each lesson. So now is a great time to review the previous hours if you have any questions.