In the “0120 Coding the Message and Thread classes part 1” tutorial, the developer focuses on building the foundation of their AI-assisted dating coach iOS app. They prioritize creating the message and thread classes over UI design, ensuring these structures are robust. The thread class is designed to be Codable, facilitating storage and retrieval from the device. Threads contain essential attributes like ID, ribbon color, person name, and messages array, accommodating both text and image messages. The developer also emphasizes the importance of encoding and decoding for data persistence, with plans to refine compliance with Codable and Decodable standards in the next installment.
In the “0121 Coding the Message and Thread classes part 2” tutorial, the instructor tackles a decoding issue encountered with the Thread class. They ensure that the Message class adheres to the Codable protocol and make necessary adjustments to the Thread class. Coding keys for ID, ribbon color, and person name are added, and these properties are initialized during decoding. The encoding of UIColor as a hex string is discussed, albeit commented out for now. Moving forward, the presenter proceeds to encode the Thread class, covering ID, ribbon color, person name, and messages array. The encoding process involves utilizing containers and encoders with appropriate keys for IDs and person names. Additionally, plans are outlined for creating a method to encode ribbon color and implementing convenience methods for converting UI colors to and from hex strings in the upcoming lecture.
In the third segment of the “0122 Coding the Message and Thread classes” tutorial, the instructor showcases the creation of UI color utility classes to seamlessly convert hex strings to UIColor and vice versa. Through the addition of a new Swift file titled “UIColor+XXString.swift” and the establishment of an extension for UIColor, two handy methods are incorporated: one for initialization with a hex string and another for converting UIColor to a hex string. Importantly, viewers are reminded to import UIKit, given UIColor’s dependency on it. These utility methods are subsequently employed within the Thread class to rectify errors and encode the ribbon color as a hex string. The upcoming focus involves the development of a ThreadManager to efficiently oversee a sequence of threads, a topic to be explored in forthcoming sessions.