Using native image picker system is easy and solves everyday basic needs of most apps.

Here is an example code that lets user pick images from photo library:

pickerController = UIImagePickerController()
pickerController?.delegate = self
pickerController?.mediaTypes = [“public.image”]
pickerController?.sourceType = .photoLibrary

self.present(pickerController!, animated: true, completion: nil)

We need to implement delegate methods that provides us media info from which we can extract image in our case if available. Here is a code

func imagePickerController(_ picker: UIImagePickerController, didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo info: [UIImagePickerController.InfoKey : Any]) {
    if let image = info[.originalImage] as? UIImage{
    }
}

Our picked image resides inside the key .originalImage which is optional so if something went wrong then it will be nil.

Now, UIImagePickerController also supports basic crop. To activate crop we set the allowsEditing property to true. By default it is false.

I want to configure the web servers on my Elastic Beanstalk environment’s instances to redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS.

I want to state what my beanstalk environment is:

• Apache Web Server.
• PHP 7.3
• HTTPS listener well configured with certificate

I will use a flexible way to configure my environment using .ebextensions

AWS provides a feature to exchange or swap the CNAME between environments. Documentation says -

If I want to upgrade my elastic beanstalk platform from say - for example php 5.6 to php 7.1 - then unfortunately I cannot do it. It allows me to upgrade within 5.6 platform but not switch between major platforms. Only recommended way is to create new environment with major upgraded platform and then swap the environment urls. This way original environment url will still be pointed to my domain running new platform.

Adding HTTPS to elastic beanstalk environment isn’t complicated to configure; until I fell into small mistake. Some of configuration dashboard’s flow been changed a bit from last time I setup the SSL certificate to a beanstalk environment.

Assumptions:

• SSL certificate is ready from AWS Certificate manager.
• Using lassic Load Balancer (Optional)
• Configuration on application side is all fine.

Now assumption is we already have a SSL certificate created from AWS Certificate manager. We will head inside configuration of beanstalk environment. Under Load Balancer Configuration, we will add new lister that listens to HTTPS protocol at port 443. Under the settings, HTTP listener will already be added by default. Another assumption is that default security group added during creation of environment has all correct inbound rules to allow proper incoming access. Generally this is all taken care by beanstalk environment behind the scenes so we will not delve into too deep but focus on abstraction layer where making a mistake is easily susceptible to a new user.

In Swift 5 we do no longer have access to substring() methods for they are deprecated. We will discuss all alternatives and understand them in details.

• How to access Characters in String?
• Why Int based Subscript is not available in Swift?
• What is difference between Range and NSRange?
• How does String Indices work?
• How to create Range from String Indices?
• How to get substring with Range?
• How to get substring with NSRange?

Warning of attempt to present view controller is common occurrence when making an easily made mistake. I will take Alert controller for an example to discuss.

Lets’s create a scenario to bring UIAlertController warning message and observe side effect to understand our situation more effectively. Then we will understand on how to fix warning attempt to present UIAlertController. I will present a Detail view controller modally from Main controller, and Main controller will be delegate object assigned to the property of Detail view controller. In our presented view controller I have a dismiss code when back button is pressed. Before dismissing the controller I will call the delegate object - Main controller in this case - to present Alert controller from Main controller.

We use mailto links in html that opens default mail client app in the system. Mailto takes parameters that helps to create message with relevant fields already filled out for us.

But here’s the kicker: How do we create email message with all relevant fields filled out but without recepient name? We want user to fill recepient manually.

Now: First let’s see how mailto link is constructed -

<a href=“mailto:recepient@email.com?cc=first@email.com, second@email.com&bcc=gossip@email.com&subject=blah”>
Email Us
</a>

Common Mailto components are:

Now comes the best part:

I use hex codes for color values - most of the part in my css than rgb or color name. We have limited named colors in css hence less color palette to work with so I generally don’t use them much frequently.

In rgb we have colors made of Red Green Blue channels. Values of each channel range from 0 to 255. In hex code, each digit contain values ranging from 0 - 9 and A - F - total 16 values. To represent each color channel we have two digit per channel that can provides us 256 combination of values.

Now we have #RRGGBB - two digit hex for each color channels.

We will add social media icons or buttons programmatically in html code of theme in Shopify. We are using free Debut theme. Our Debut theme does come with built-in most of the social icons. We will not be adding or uploading icon image files of our own. We will play with basic code and templating in Shopify.

The built-in social icons are all svg. We are glad they are svg. They are vector so works fluidly when adapting to any size we want it to be. It is very easy to customise the tint color by css or code. We don’t need separate image files for different colors or such. It is widely supported by all modern browsers.

All major files we work with are liquid files. Our whole theme customisation structure is built around Shopify’s liquid templating language that lets us work with all variables and objects to re-use without any heavy lifting work. Our built-in social media icons are in liquid files, which we will shortly see.

We use an MFMessageComposeViewController object to display the standard message composition interface in order to send text messages in our app. Properties of MFMessageComposeViewController lets us populate pre-defined recipients and body message before presenting the interface.

Simple code to create and present MFMessageComposeViewController is:

            
if([MFMessageComposeViewController canSendText]){
    MFMessageComposeViewController *picker = [[MFMessageComposeViewController alloc] init];
    picker.messageComposeDelegate = self;
    picker.recipients =@[“1234”];
    picker.body = @“pre-defined message”;
    [self presentViewController:picker animated:YES completion:nil];
}
else{
    NSLog(@“Cannot send text”);
}
            
            

            
if MFMessageComposeViewController.canSendText() {
    let picker = MFMessageComposeViewController()
    picker.messageComposeDelegate = self;
    picker.recipients =[“1234”];
    picker.body = “pre-defined message”;
    self.present(picker, animated: true, completion: nil)
}
else{
    print(“Cannot send text”);
}
            
            

Not so distant, I had stumbled upon a very silly mistake that caused an MFMessageComposeViewController to show blank after presenting.