This forum is for general discussion, questions, and answers about the Swift programming language. If you have specific questions about SwiftUI, iOS, etc, then it's probably a better idea to use those forums instead.

Hi All,

Paul thanks for the forums. This is awesome!

Thanks, I have been learning a lot of Swift here.

As a beginner iOS/Swift developer I have found lots of helpful insights, turorials and resources from you Paul. This forums are a great opportunity for those of us wanting to get involve in the Swift community. Thank you!

I've been playing around in XCode/Swift trying to learn programming for macOS apps. My interest in iOS is non-existent at this point as my main focus is learning to write software for the macOS platform for a specific need. Maybe at a later time I could write a companion/complementary iOS app to my macOS app, but it's not a need for now.

My learning curve has been nothing short of steep. My background, like many of my age group started out with BASIC back in the late 70s, early 80s just goofing off with a TI-99/A. Once I gradutated high school I went into the military. I was introduced to a Unix based system known as BTOS/CTOS. While using that system I came across their development tools and started writing software, again in BASIC. However they also had programming languages in COBAL, FORTRAN, and Pascal (this was the late 80s/early 90s). I started developing at home writing software in Pascal for Bulletin Board systems and FIDONet on the Windows platform to process files being streamed from satellite feeds. I then took about a 20-year hiatus and returned sporadically to simple web based programming projects using PHP, JavaScript, HTML and CSS. I stepped away again and returned after about a decade and wrote a Music Bingo app in Python this last year. I'm retired and thought I would do a hobby that pays. LOL There was music bingo software out there that did different things, but none of it did all the things I wanted it to do. So I wrote my own software that incorporates all the features I wanted that various apps offered. It's kind of my baby and I'm very pleased with my results. But, I want to possibly sell my software in the future and I think the macOS platform is under represented in the music bingo world. It may or may not happen, but I would rather get it out of the interpretive Python environment over to a structured macOS development environemnt.

With that I am trying to convert that software over to macOS as a native app in XCode. But, the whole lingo on the macOS, iOS, tvOS, watchOS has me a little confused when reading and trying to learn. I start my development environment by opening XCode, but then everything refers to Swift/SwiftUI. So am I developing a Swift app, SwiftUI app, or an XCode app for use on macOS? I feel I missed out on some history based on what I've read about Objective-C and the evolution of programming in the Apple development world.

Will the SwiftUI tutorials help me with writing apps targeted for macOS (I feel I am learning basic principles, but will they apply to macOS?), or will there be useless knowledge following those tutorials? Do I need to focus stricly on Swift or XCode? Like I wrote above, I'm a little confused in the Apple development domain.

I get the feeling XCode is maturing in that it is trying to bring all facets of the different platforms under one umbrella that will allow something written to be deployable to any of Apple's OS's/Platforms. Is that pretty much what is happening?

Tom

@Tom

Seems you have a lot of experience programming already! It might all be a bit confusing for Apple but it's actually rather simple :

. XCode is the environment you use (IDE) to write your programs for macOS, iOS, tvOS, ... It's in XCode that you will write all your code, execute it, test it, ...

. Programming for mac, iPhone, ... used to be only possible with the objective C language. Some years ago, Apple developed a new language called Swift which is more modern and easier to use then Objective C.

. You can write entire programs in swift only but if you want a nice GUI for your program, you would need a framework such as UIKit (for iOS) or AppKit (for macos). With both you can make buttons, windows, ... They contain a LOT of features but can be a bit complex sometimes so last year Apple introduced something new : SwiftUI. SwiftUI can be used for all platforms (macos, ios, tvos, ...), it's easier to use but doesn't (yet) contain all the features UIKit or AppKit have.

Conclusion : learn Swift and SwiftUI to make your macOS app. The 100daysofSwiftUI on this site is great and although it focusses mostly on iOS apps most of it is valid for macOS also.

@PBaboe: Well explained!

I can't find a search to help locate an issue prior to posting.

What am I missing?

Many Thanks !!

Use google, the forums will popup. you can even specify that you want to search on hacking with swift only

In the google searchbar type

site:www.hackingwithswift.com yoursearchterm

That won't restrict results to just forum posts, though.

I'll repeat @jhall124's question: is there a mechanism to specifically search just within the forums, not the whole site?

Just append forums to the google search, like this

site:www.hackingwithswift.com/forums yoursearchterm