Getting started with Appwrite's Apple SDK and SwiftUI

One of the major highlights of Appwrite 0.11 is the official support for iOS, macOS, tvOS and watchOS. We've also released a brand-new Apple SDK to go alongside it! 😉

In this tutorial, we'll learn to set up Appwrite's Apple SDK, interact with Appwrite's Accounts API and also learn to set up OAuth Logins in your App. Let's get started!

We'll use SwiftUI in this tutorial, if you're using UIKit, check out this tutorial instead.

📝 Prerequisites

At this stage, we assume that you already have an Appwrite instance up and running. If you do not have Appwrite setup yet, you can follow the super easy installation step over at appwrite.io. It's not a typo. There really is only 1 step!

You should have also set up an OAuth provider with Appwrite to be able to follow the OAuth section of this tutorial. You can learn to set up OAuth providers in Appwrite with this tutorial.

🛠️ Create a new App Project

Create a new Multiplatform > App in Xcode.

With the app created, now is also a good time to add our iOS, macOS, watchOS or tvOS app as a platform in the Appwrite Console. Head over to your project file and find your Bundle Identifier. It should look something like io.appwrite.Appwrite-iOS.

In your Appwrite console, click on Add Platform and select a New Apple App, then one of the iOS, macOS, watchOS or tvOS tabs. Give your app a name, add the bundle identifier and click Register.

Once this is complete, it's time to head back to our Xcode project and add our dependencies.

👷 Setup Appwrite's Apple SDK

Using Xcode

The Appwrite Apple SDK is available via Swift Package Manager. In order to use the Appwrite Apple SDK from Xcode, select File > Swift Packages > Add Package Dependency. In the dialog that appears, enter the Appwrite Apple SDK package URL and click Next.

Once the repository information is loaded, add your version rules and click Next again.

On the final screen, make sure Appwrite is selected to add to your target as a library.

Using Swift Package Manager

Add the package to your Package.swift dependencies:



    dependencies: [
        .package(url: "https://github.com/appwrite/sdk-for-apple", from: "0.1.0"),
    ],

Then add it to your target:



    targets: [
        .target(
            name: "[YourAppTarget]",
            dependencies: [
                .product(name: "Appwrite", package: "sdk-for-apple")
            ]
        ),

Build your project and if there are no errors, we're ready to proceed!

🏗️ Create the layouts

Create a new file AccountView.swift and add the following. This defines our SwiftUI view and sets up our buttons and their click listeners that will call the ViewModel.



import SwiftUI
import Appwrite
import NIO

let host = "http://localhost:80/v1"
let projectId = "613b18dabf74a"

let client = Client()
    .setEndpoint(host)
    .setProject(projectId)
    .setSelfSigned()

struct AccountView: View {

    @ObservedObject var viewModel: ViewModel

    var body: some View {

        VStack(spacing: 8) {

            viewModel.downloadedImage?
                .resizable()
                .aspectRatio(contentMode: .fit)
                .frame(height: 200)

            TextEditor(text: viewModel.$response)
                .padding()
            TextEditor(text: viewModel.$email)
                .padding()
            TextEditor(text: viewModel.$password)
                .padding()
            TextEditor(text: viewModel.$name)
                .padding()
            Button("Login") {
                viewModel.login()
            }
            Button("Login with Facebook") {
                // We'll add this later
            }
            Button("Register") {
                viewModel.register()
            }
            Button("Get User") {
                viewModel.getUser()
            }
            Button("Log Out") {
                viewModel.logOut()
            }
        }
        .registerOAuthHandler()
    }

}

struct ExampleView_Previews: PreviewProvider {
    static var previews: some View {
        ExampleView(viewModel: ExampleView.ViewModel())
    }
}

🔨 Create the ViewModel

Let's now create a ViewModel AccountViewModel.swift to manage state and interact with the Appwrite SDK in response to UI interactions.



import Foundation
import SwiftUI
import Appwrite
import NIO

extension AccountView {

    class ViewModel : ObservableObject {

        let account = Account(client)

        @State var email: String = "test@test.test"
        @State var password: String = "password"
        @State var name: String = "Name"
        @State var response: String = ""

        func register() {
            account.create(email: email, password: password) { result in
                switch result {
                case .failure(let error): self.response = error.message
                case .success(let user): self.response = user.email
                }
            }
        }

        func login() {
            account.createSession(email: email, password: password) { result in
                switch result {
                case .failure(let error): self.response = error.message
                case .success(let session): self.response = session.userId
                }
            }
        }

        func getUser() {
            account.get { result in
                var string = ""

                switch result {
                case .failure(let error): string = error.message
                case .success(let user): string = user.email
                }

                DispatchQueue.main.async {
                    self.text.text = string
                }
            }
        }

        func logOut() {
            account.deleteSession(sessionId: "current") { result in
                var string = ""

                switch result {
                case .failure(let error): string = error.message
                case .success(let success): string = String(describing: success)
                }

                DispatchQueue.main.async {
                    self.text.text = string
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Our ViewModel has 4 state objects:

email
name
password
response

We also have 4 functions to interact with the Appwrite SDK:

register - onClick handler for the Signup Button
login - onClick handler for the Login Button
logout - onClick handler for the Logout Button
getUser - onClick handler for the Get User Button

🔧 Update The Application File

Finally, let's update our AccountApp.swift, which will initialise our application and create the AccountView and AccountViewModel.



import SwiftUI

@main
struct AccountApp: App {
    var body: some Scene {
        WindowGroup {
            AccountView(viewModel: AccountView.ViewModel())
        }
    }
}

You should now be able to run your app and create users, login, logout and get information about the currently logged-in user!

🔐 Adding OAuth Support

You would have noticed that we have a Login With Facebook button in our UI, but it doesn't do anything yet; let's now add Facebook OAuth to our app!

The first step is to add a callback URL scheme to our Info.plist file.



<key>CFBundleURLTypes</key>
<array>
<dict>
    <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key>
    <string>Editor</string>
    <key>CFBundleURLName</key>
    <string>io.appwrite</string>
    <key>CFBundleURLSchemes</key>
    <array>
        <string>appwrite-callback-[PROJECT-ID]</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</array>

Make sure you replace the Project ID in appwrite-callback-[PROJECT-ID] with your own.

Next, we'll add a function to our ViewModel to call the createOAuth2Session() method of the Appwrite SDK.



func loginWithFacebook() {
    account.createOAuth2Session(
        "facebook",
        "\(host)/auth/oauth2/success",
        "\(host)/auth/oauth2/failure"
    ) { result in
        switch result {
        case .failure: self.response = "false"
        case .success(let success): self.response = success.description
        }
    }
}

The last step is to invoke this function from AccountView.swift, calling the function from our existing button's action.



Button("Login with Facebook") {
    viewModel.loginWithFacebook()
}

Re-run your app and you should now be able to trigger your Facebook OAuth Flow! With that, you now know how to interact with Appwrite's Accounts API in your iOS, macOS, tvOS and watchOS apps!

We've built a complete app that interacts with all of Appwrite's APIs, which you can find over at our Github Repo. If you'd like to learn more about Appwrite or how Appwrite works under the hood, we've just curated all the resources for you during 30 Days of Appwrite.

✨️ Credits

Hope you enjoyed this article! We love contributions and encourage you to take a look at our open issues and ongoing RFCs.

If you get stuck anywhere, feel free to reach out to us on our friendly support channels run by humans 👩‍💻.

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