Marketers are now switching their taste from Android to iOS for their own benefits. Do you know why?
As per the latest statistics, among 250 million smartphone users in the USA, over 100 million users prefer to use the iPhone. Not just that it has been statistically proved that by the year 2021, the percentage of users will increase worldwide.
Taking the leverage of Apple users, marketers are now giving more attention to iOS development, launching iOS apps for their websites.
It looks good that you are preparing for the same.
However, there are certain things that you need to learn before developing an iOS app. iOS plugins are one among them.
So, you are planning to have iOS development. Good! And what are the plugins that you are preparing to install for this? Any list?
Well, before jumping into the plugins, you need to conclude certain aspects. First of all, it is important to decide which app development tool you are about to use. Is it the Xcode or any other iOS development tools? Once you are done with this, you are free to choose your plugins.
Xcode is one of the finest tools that a majority of developers prefer over other tools. It is an integrated development environment primarily used for macOS and iOS. With the support of different programming languages like C, C++, Java, Python, Ruby, Swift, etc. the tool has made its way to build a strong business application.
It was initially introduced in 2003 with the version 1.x series and recently have release version 11.x series on June 2019.
Image Source: Xcode
Almost all of you may have more or less idea about this. But how many of you know why developers of almost every iOS development company are profoundly using this tool for app creation? It’s because of its plugins that result in multiple benefits.
So, without wasting more of your time, let us introduce the list of plugins associated with Xcode for iOS development.
10 Best Performing Xcode Plugins for iOS Development
- Xcode Colors: XcodeColors, developed by Robbie Hanson, is designed to add colors to the Xcode’s console. The plugin is often found in a combination with the CocoaLumberjack. It is an open-source library and used as a wonderful logging framework for both MAC and iOS platforms.
Due to such a combination, debugging becomes much easier as expected. The best thing about this plugin is, you will discover shades of colors used in them.
- CocoaPods: CocoaPods is build using Ruby and is easy to install when the default Ruby setup is already made in the platform. It acts as a dependency manager for both iOS and OS X projects that are the owner of thousands of libraries.
CocoaPods plugins are used to scale the entire project using multiple libraries. Being a developer you will find it easy to carry out your work with this plugin, as it will eliminate the need of working with third-party plugins.
The best thing is that when you plan to integrate non-ARC libraries into the ARC project, you don’t actually need to look for tons of external libraries or take the help of third-party libraries. Installing this plugin is enough for you to perform your job seamlessly.
- XToDo: XToDo is a plugin that highlights FIXME, TODO, ???, and !!! comments. This means whenever there is made any changes, developers can easily identify them with this highlighted option. This makes it easier and more convenient for the developers to carry on with their work.
- GitDiff: Another most popular plugin that a developer of an iOS development company frequently uses is GitDiff. The plugin is featured with a graphical user interface. With such a creative combination, the developers find solving a difficult query easier and more effortless.
Often we find problematic to identify the edited line among the thousands of codes used. With this GitDiff plugin, it will be easier to discover the last edited piece. GitDiff plugin adds a visual note about the changes you have made. This carries the line number, the edited changes, and so on.
It won’t be wrong if you call this as a code editor.
- KSlmageNamed: For any program written in objective-C, auto-completion is an added feature. The same feature is now available for iOS application development as well.
With the addition of this plugin with Xcode, the auto-completion feature automatically gets updated. In this feature, the file names for an instant image will be automatically filled. This what reduces the typing effort and even saves time for the developer to develop an effective app.
Why don’t you look for an iOS development company India? The developers there make use of all such effective plugins for the best iOS app creation.
- Peckham: We all know, Xcode is efficient in auto-completing file names due to its autocorrelation with completing code. But the main problem arises when it is about adding and importing statements against the lines.
Is this bothering you as well? With Peckham plugins, things become much easier than expected. For example, you want to insert a header to the pod.
Image Source: Github
With Peckham, you just need to press Command-control-P and type a few letters. Based on your typed letters, some automatic recommendations appear. This allows you to choose a name for your header without any more effort.
Peckham thus makes you feel great when used by the developers for iOS development.
- FuzzyAutocomplete: Another working Xcode plugin for iOS development is FuzzyAutocomplete. Xcode’s autocomplete feature is strongly in buzz for a majority of iOS and OS X developers. They greatly rely on this feature to improve the performance level of the app.
However, the performance of the Autocomplete plugin at times is not up to the mark. Due to the wrong implementation, the developers often have to suffer for this. Frustrated with this, Jack Chen and Leszek Ślażyński have discovered a new plugin titled FuzzyAutocomplete.
It is an excellent alternative to the Autocomplete plugin and meets every demand of the users. The plugin featured with the Xcode algorithm performs amazingly in terms of pattern matching.
- ACCodeSnippetRepository: The purpose of using this plugin is to synchronize the Xcode snippets to a git repository. This allows you to access the code snippets with ease and in just a few clicks when you are using a plugin. The plugin helps the developers to access the code snippets very easily and use it whenever they want.
In short, an ACCodeSnippetRepository plugin is a web-based tool that allows the developers to store, organize, and share code snippets. The online code repository consists of over 2000 members and 23000+ snippets.
The best thing about this plugin is even if you have manually added any code snippet in Xcode, it will be kept undisturbed. All your efforts will remain visible no matter how flexible it is.
- Dash For Xcode: Dash For Xcode is specifically designed for browsing documentation. The plugin consists of an individual editor that when integrated with Xcode turns out to be an excellent browser for documentation.
Dash for Xcode plugin is not just an API documentation browser but even known as a Code Snippet Manager. It is a hub that stores snippets of code and takes no time to search offline documentation sets. The sets comprise of 200+ APIs, 100+ cheat sheets, and many more. Additionally, you can even create your own documentation sets and include them in your code.
- Backlight: Backlight plugin as the name suggests is a simple but fantastic plugin that highlights the codes in different colors. It not just makes the codes easily visible in the black background but even makes it more fascinating for the developers.
Image Source: GithubThe best thing is that you can identify any changes made on the code very easily simply by following the highlighted section. Different colors for different sets of codes make the code unique. For example, comments are highlighted in a greyish color, conditions are highlighted in a purple shade, commands are highlighted in green, and so on. Thus identifying any segment of the code is not as hard as expected.
The Bottom Line
Look for the “Alcatraz”, the open-source package manager for Xcode that allows the users to discover multiple plugins as per their need. With Xcode, this even gets installed. So browse this to find your plugin partner.
Aren’t they enough to create a successful app for your Apple platform? Indeed they are!
So, guys, search for the keyword reputed iOS development company India or America or in other countries as per your location and get a professional developer to carry on with your work.
