How to build a Mood monitoring app with Xcode and AI

Overview

Welcome to this tutorial where we'll be building an exciting Mood monitoring app using Xcode and Alex, a handy AI tool for iOS development. This app allows users to track their moods, visualize them in a user-friendly interface, and store the data for future reference. This tutorial aims to help beginners and experienced developers build a functional iOS application from start to finish.

Prerequisites

A Mac with Xcode (Download from here)
Alex: the AI for Xcode installed

Implementation Steps

1. Project Setup & Planning

Let's start by creating a new Xcode project. Open Xcode, go to File > New > Project, select a single view app, and name it "MoodTracker". For our app, we'll need a UI/UX where users can log their mood and view recorded data.

We'll be working with a simple data model, MoodEntry, which will have two properties: mood (an integer representing the mood) and date (a timestamp of when the mood was logged).

With Alex, we can quickly draft these initial models with just spoken instructions. For example, say, "Create a new Swift struct named MoodEntry with an integer property mood and a date property date." Alex will generate the corresponding Swift code for us.

2. Core Features

Our next step is to build the main functionality of the app. We'll create a form where users can log their mood, and a list view to display the logged moods.

With SwiftUI, we can create the UI with declarative syntax. For example, to create a form, we can instruct Alex, "Generate a SwiftUI form with a picker for selecting mood and a button for saving the mood." Alex will return the appropriate SwiftUI code.

We also need to wire up the form to save the logged mood. We can instruct Alex, "When the save button is tapped, save the selected mood and the current date to a MoodEntry and add it to an array of MoodEntries." Alex will generate the necessary code for these user interactions.

3. Data & Storage

Persisting data is crucial for our app. We'll use UserDefaults for this and implement functions to save and retrieve mood entries to and from UserDefaults.

Again, Alex can help us. We can ask Alex to "Generate code for saving an array of MoodEntries to UserDefaults" and "Generate code for retrieving an array of MoodEntries from UserDefaults."

Alex will generate boilerplate code, and we can adjust it to our needs. In case of any issues or bugs, we can either debug them ourselves or ask Alex for help.

The final step is to polish and refine our app. We'll add animations for a smooth user experience, manage loading and error states, and optimize our code for performance.

We can ask Alex for suggestions on animations or code optimization. For instance, we can direct Alex, "Suggest some animations for the mood list view" or "Optimize the MoodEntry saving and loading code."

Next Steps

Now that we have a functional Mood monitoring app, consider adding more features like mood trends over time, reminders to log mood, and integration with HealthKit.

For learning more about SwiftUI, you can refer to the SwiftUI documentation here.

Conclusion

Congratulations on building your Mood monitoring app! Throughout this process, not only have you learned about Swift and SwiftUI, but you've also seen how AI can help streamline the development process. Alex's ability to understand general spoken or written requests and generate appropriate Swift code makes it a useful tool for both beginner and experienced developers.

Try Alex yourself with a free trial. Your iOS development journey is just beginning!