Firebase iOS App Template Launch

I'm long overdue for an update on SwiftStarterKits. My previous post, designing a free app template was nearly two months ago! Towards the end of that piece, I mention an estimate on building the already planned 'SwiftUI Firebase Template' as being two weeks. Boy was I wrong.

Well, flash forward 6 weeks, it's shipped!

The final product ended up having far more features than I originally envisioned. I had planned for login, account creation, a settings page and an onboarding screen, each with essential but minimal feature sets. Each step of the way, I recognized glaring holes of functionally that didn't feel natural to leave out, especially for a product whose value proposition is "saving time and money" while building your shippable MVP.

Build settings and build automation

Besides the expansion in product scope, I also chose to add a slew of customizable build settings to an xcconfig file which ships with the product (PewPewTheSpells has an excellent guide to xcconfig files). I realized that there had to be an easy way to document which build settings need changing once you open your Xcode project the first time. I wish .xcodeproj settings came with an xcconfig by default, which would make maintanance easier and more portable. Once automated testing and beta builds exist in a projects lifecycle, having an xcconfig file managing your build configuration(s) goes a long way to make iOS CI/CD manageable.

Expanding on the subject of build automation is definitely a medium term goal of SwiftStarterKits. A couple more projects out the door, and some iteration on making these templates portable (I have my sights on adding iOS, iPad, Mac support by default on all templates), then I plan to focus on CI/CD support.

Firebase integration

Besides expanded product scope, there were several snags while integrating the Firebase SDK. One flow in particular (changing a user's email) required a ton of finagling with undocumentated Firebase functions to achieve the envisioned state. A brief overview: It turns out that requiring email verification before accepting an email change (which I think should be standard behaviour) results in a de-authentication from the Firebase instance. Instead I needed to implement an alternate API for changing a user's email, without requiring verification first, THEN initiating an email verification request after the fact.

Non-happy path flows like this are a perfect example of why software estimation can be so difficult. This wasn't a feature in the original spec, but was essential as soon as I used the software I had built. Once I looked under the hood to make it happen, I found several inconsistencies that required cleanup and special handling. At least the final product handles this (and other implementation specifics) nicely, so customers don't have to.

A dash of marketing

Besides building the Firebase Starter Kit, I've also done a fair amount of marketing and website work in the past month. In no particular order:

1. Created a blog for SwiftStarterKits, which is a space for how-to's, guides, and product release announcements.
2. Wrote the first SwiftStarterKits guide, about integrating a Firebase backend into our latest app templates.
3. Created a fun little custom 404 page.
4. Started using UberSuggest for daily webpage scans, which has helped track down SEO problems both on this website and on SwiftStarterKits (I recommend it!).
5. Designed social media banners for all SwiftStarterKits web pages, along with a nice little Sketch template to make it easy to have a custom branded banner for each blog post.
6. Designed some nice looking device screenshot templates with morflax things (This tool came at a great time. It's excellent for creating device mockups, and they support all current Apple devices, plus the 3D editor is very good).

What's next?

This upcoming week I'll be spending some time writing, doing some website work, and prototyping SwiftUI components. Here are my specific goals for the week:

1. Publish a blog post on SwiftStarterKits, in which I already have a draft of an introductory article about the latest Firebase app template. I want to discuss use-cases, who the product is for, and answer some higher level questions. I might use some of this copy around the website, too.
2. Update the SwiftStarterKits hosted Terms + License pages to match the changes I made in the most recent app template. I really need to align these. Right now I have an HTML version, and a markdown version that ships alongside template downloads, but they don't share a common source. Maybe acceptable duplication for now, but I'll think about this.
3. Create a SwiftStarterKits changelog page, so I can transparently keep track of product changes.
4. Prototype some SwiftUI components! Before I dive into another full blown app template, I'd like to shrink the iteration time a bit and work towards a suite of paid components, which can plug into the free template.