When Apple unveiled DocC two years ago, I don’t think anyone was too surprised to see it produce documentation from source code comment annotations with Markdown formatting.

But that wasn’t all DocC did, and it was a pleasant surprise when we learned it could use Markdown for both navigation structure and long-form documentation to accompany your generated API reference.

No one would have raised an eyebrow if that’s where the tool’s capabilities had stopped. But there was one big surprise left with it being able to produce fully interactive tutorials, like the Apple-authored ones they created to teach SwiftUI. It makes sense for Apple’s internal teams to all use the same tool rather than having a “documentation tool” and a “tutorial tool”, but I still didn’t expect it.

The slight downside is that those tutorials, while beautiful and easy to read, with screenshots that persist while the reader scrolls past multiple tutorial steps, take a long time to create. Would anyone outside Apple be willing to put the work in to make them?

So I’ve been idly keeping track every time I spot one in the wild, and while I’d not call them common, there are still plenty around, and I’d love to showcase a few for you today.

• Meet Runestone from Simon Støvring
• Using SwiftTreeSitter from ChimeHQ
• Meet the Composable Architecture from Point-Free
• Meet SwiftGodot from Miguel de Icaza
• EffectsLibrary tutorials from GetStream
• SwiftUI and Firebase from Firebase
• Building Reusable SwiftUI Components by Peter Friese

They’re even used to create training/workshop material, which I didn’t expect.

It’s fantastic to see people put time and effort into creating such high-quality tutorials. However, if you just looked through those and felt intimidated, remember that any documentation is better than nothing. Start with API reference documentation, go deeper with Markdown articles, and only consider adding the “icing on the cake” with a tutorial after that.

It’s great to see such a strong start from DocC. This comment is already too long, but I might write about how many packages we see adopting it in the Swift Package Index at some point soon. It’s more than we expected!

Dave Verwer  

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testim.io  

SwiftFormat Automation

I’ve written about my ideal setup for formatting and linting in Xcode. However, what I wished for doesn’t exist yet, so in the mean time, you should probably read Pranav Kasetti’s approach to getting part of the way there with what we have available today.

codewithkasetti.com  

Swift Splash visionOS Sample Code

This new visionOS sample code from Apple looks excellent and is a great reminder that great documentation doesn’t have to be a slick, step-by-step tutorial. These larger sample code projects are great to see several aspects of the SDK work together. 👍

apple.com  

Changes to URL string parsing

I wasn’t aware of this change to URL, and while Toomas Vahter is correct that there’s an “important” warning on the official API docs, if Apple changes anything about URL parsing, that needs publicising.

Switching to the newer URL specification is a big deal, and in addition, the last sentence says that the new default (…) tries to encode invalid characters. This is a big deal.

Read this article and the API docs before checking nothing has broken in your apps.

augmentedcode.io  

Split your data easily and efficiently

There are so many useful little utilities and helpers in swift-algorithms (and in swift-collections, while we’re at it!), Here’s Danijela Vrzan to tell us all about one in particular. 👍

danijelavrzan.com  

An Interactive Intro to CRDTs

You might have heard mention of CRDTs over the last few years. I don’t remember if I first encountered them in one of Drew McCormack’s posts or by talking with Chris Eidhof, but they are a tempting solution to a long-standing and challenging problem. If they’re new to you, you could do far worse than reading and playing with the interactive demos in Jake Lazaroff’s latest post. Incredible work!

After that, it might be time to check out some of these packages.

jakelazaroff.com  

SF Symbols 5

Seeing how far SF Symbols has come over the last few years is always fantastic, with hundreds of new symbols in every release (making more than 5,000 total!), colour, animation, and better localisation. It’s invaluable, and this year’s release is predictably even better, with better animations and more than 700 new glyphs.

The new app will get delivered through Software Update, or at least it did for me! So, manually installing this new version is unnecessary if you already have v4.

apple.com  

Swift TO

Why not start your weekend with a few recent Swift TO conference talks? Covering everything from how SwiftUI will destroy the publishing industry to how to build accessibility at the core of your development process, you’re sure to find something you’ll be interested in!

swiftconf.to  

SwiftData by Example

Available as a PDF download or an online version that you can read for free, I’m confident Paul Hudson’s is the most comprehensive look at Apple’s new persistence framework there is. Incredibly, he published this book (effectively) simultaneously with the framework itself. That’s remarkable work. 🚀

gumroad.com  

Senior iOS Developer @ Linearity GmbH – We’re an award-winning design software suite that simplifies the asset creation process. Linearity Curve creates precision vector assets & Linearity Move is an animation software that crafts breathtaking animations in seconds. We’re crafting together a new iOS team, reach out if you're Interested! – Remote (within European timezones)

Senior iOS Engineer @ Luma AI – We are a small AI research and product company working on new kinds of creative tools for 3D. Our mission is to democratize the 3D experience for all. iOS at Luma is at the center of the product universe. We are growing the iOS team from 1-4, please reach out if you're interested! – On-site (United States in CA) with some remote work (within US timezones)

Would you like to see your company’s open positions listed above? Post your job over on iOS Dev Jobs, and check out with a “Featured Listing”, and they’ll be here next week!

“Come over and see your old pals when you’re done to talking to that guy.”

Great stories.