SwiftUI code for Core Plot for Mac and iOS

[Jeffrey Terry]

Hi All, 

I have posted SwiftUI code that can be used to display a Core Plot on a Mac, iPhone, and iPad on GitHub. https://github.com/jterry94/SwiftUICorePlotExample

It updates plot when the data changes, axis labels change, and when the range changes. 

I would like to thank Fred Appelman for all of his assistance. I never would have gotten this working without his help. I learned a ton about SwiftUI from this exercise. 

I cleaned up the code and added comments. 

I hope it helps someone else. 

Jeff

[JustFred]

@Jeff: Thank you for the kind words.

You have now given CorePlot 7 arguments, and you can imagine that it is not good practice to add 4 more to set the padding, a few more color control etc.

I have updated my example github which now has an option to set the padding using the technique:

            CorePlot(....)

                .padding(left: 10)

                .padding(right: 10)

Obviously CorePlot has many more settings that you would like to expose, but I just went for the easy ones :-)

Maybe you can add that to your code example.

[Jeffrey Terry]

Hi Fred, 

I have absolutely no idea how and why what you did there works. 

I don't know how .padding(left:10) somehow sets options.paddingLeft = 10. 

Can you point me to a tutorial or something on using options?

I trying adding another variable, a simple string, and tried setting it but failed. I think this one may be way beyond my understanding of SwiftUI. 

[Jeffrey Terry]

Never mind. I figured it out. You just chose the function name padding for the extension. You did not have to use a keyword like .padding() from SwiftUI. That function could have been named anything in your extension of CorePlot. I have it working now. 

[JustFred]

You figured it out :-)

e.g.

    func paddingLeft(_ left: CGFloat) -> CorePlot {
        options.paddingLeft = left
        return self
    }

would have worked as well.

[Jeffrey Terry]

Added those changes but they only work for static parameters. I made an observable object so I could pass all the changing parameters at once rather than individually. That reduced the number of passed parameters to two. 

[JustFred]

I would think it should work for dynamic parameters as well.

Something like this:

     @State var paddingSmall = false

     CorePlot(...)

         .padding(left: paddingSmall ? 5 : 25)

should cause a redraw if paddingSmall would change value.

[JustFred]

The observable object is a good idea btw.

On Saturday, December 19, 2020 at 4:59:25 PM UTC+1 ter...@iit.edu wrote:

[Jeffrey Terry]

I had tried is as @Binding rather than @State. If I ever figure out when to use @Binding, @State, @EnvironmentObject, etc., it will be a miracle. 

[Jeffrey Terry]

I think I'm going to leave it that way and pass static and variable plot parameters in the different manner so it is easier to tell the difference between the two.