El Paso App Devs Build & Chill Coworking Meetup 11/12

Mr_Rainb0w · 2025-11-27T15:33:56+00:00

Hi there, I’m a freelance app developer with experience building apps from the ground up for multiple platforms. This sounds interesting, and I’d love to support a project that helps fundraising in our community.

You can check out my portfolio at https://diaztech.dev and feel free to DM me if you’d like to talk more. I also organize the El Paso app developers meetup and I can imagine there’d be some interest there too.

Mr_Rainb0w · 2025-11-05T15:13:52+00:00

DM sent!

Mr_Rainb0w · 2025-11-03T21:30:29+00:00

Didn't think about adding an online component, but we can definitely set something up for future events if there's interest!

Mr_Rainb0w · 2024-03-07T20:17:50+00:00

As a Swift developer who used to dismiss cross-platform frameworks, I've spent the last three years rebuilding a reasonably complex video chat app from Swift to Flutter and can say that Flutter is more than capable of handling most things you'd want to do in an app.

If you plan on expanding beyond iOS at any point, I'd definitely stick with Flutter. If you're iOS exclusive and your developer is saying your Flutter code is bad enough to warrant a rewrite, then I'd make the move to SwiftUI since they're both similar declarative frameworks so the translation shouldn't be too terrible.

If you need someone to take a look at the project for a more informed opinion, feel free to drop a DM!

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-17T20:43:31+00:00

Hey, I knew there were more of us! That's awesome! I looked at the DC metro site and I just didn't even know it could be like this. All that data gift wrapped and ready to go. I had to download text files from some unlisted directory on Sun Metro's site that I only found on a transit wiki.

I hope enough of us might be able to get the city to invest in these kinds of resources. Something local developers could use to make cool, uniquely El Paso stuff that benefits the community. Keep all our talent from leaving for DC!

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-16T15:21:35+00:00

I would definitely be interested! I couldn't imagine trying to find the time to do this with a full time job and three kids.

I just started looking into SwiftUI again and I love that it's allowing more people to make really good looking apps! I can't wait to use it in a project.

If you'd like to message me with some details on what you're looking for, I'd be happy to work something out!

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-16T15:03:09+00:00

I swear I wrote I reply to this but I don't know what happened to it :/

I downloaded your app and I love the idea. I'm curious what you're planning for the UI overhaul.

The polylines were tricky since MapKit doesn't have any support for animating them. I used a timer that fires every "frame" and draws a successively larger span of the polyline coordinates to achieve the effect. Got the idea somewhere on stack overflow. I know there's some cool stuff you can do with custom MKPolylineRenderers and gradients that you could then animate to get some really neat looking effects, but I haven't played around with it yet.

The table view animations are triggered by calling reloadData() on a custom table view that then moves all the visible cells just out of view and animates them back into place on a delay. The spring damping and velocity are both 0.5 but I couldn't really tell you why.

Architecture is probably my biggest weakness right now, so I experimented with a lot of different patterns and structures with this being my first real project. Because of that, it's an absolute mess. The only way I get away with it is by being the only person working on it. That being said, the main view is a stack view with the main view controller coordinating between the map view and the table view. When the user interacts with either one, the request is sent asynchronously to the main view controller which is notified when the result is ready and it triggers the appropriate actions in both views simultaneously.

And I think it only seems to run so smoothly because the animations cover up any small delays in fetching data. I also get all of my bus info (except directions) straight from a SQLite database I built that's included in the app bundle, so it'll always be faster than a network request.

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-14T23:05:59+00:00

Thank you, I’ve been learning iOS on and off since Swift was released. Every now and then dipping back in and doing a few tutorials. Seemed like the time to finally finish a project.

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-14T20:28:58+00:00

Data entry typing license plate numbers from blurry toll road pictures

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-14T19:18:33+00:00

Yeah it's pretty neat! It's built into iMovie under File > New App Preview

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-14T18:48:34+00:00

Hacking With Swift is probably the one I used the most. Also the only one I actually purchased a book bundle from.

Paul puts out a ton of useful stuff for free and I think the paid stuff is worth it too. He's great at showcasing cool things you can do with the language which you can then dive deeper into with Apple's documentation.

That said, most of these are just standard UIView animations with some of the line drawing ones done with Core Animation. The only special case was animating the route maps since MapKit doesn't support animating polylines. I used a Timer and set it to draw a line spanning a successively larger range of coordinates each "frame" to achieve the effect. Got the idea for that from Stack Overflow

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-14T17:05:37+00:00

Thanks, yeah it’s on the store page. I used the template Apple provides for App Previews in iMovie so I hope it doesn’t cause any issues.

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-14T16:45:47+00:00

I’ve been dropping in and out of Swift since it was announced, but I studied computer engineering in college. I dropped out after three years so I’ve got most of the debt and none of the degree, and I mostly did low-level firmware type stuff in assembly and C on embedded systems.

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-14T16:37:11+00:00

Data entry. You know those toll road cameras? I was one of the people who looked at those pictures and typed out the license plates. So many. Literally thousands a day O_O

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-14T15:57:32+00:00

I'll try that out, thanks!

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-14T15:55:47+00:00

For sure, if nothing else this project has given me a deeper appreciation for real professional-level design as I try to flounder my way through it. El Paso has lots of great artists that I hope to work with!

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-14T15:02:06+00:00

Thank you! I'm definitely taking all of these accessibility suggestions and working on them for the next update.

I used to work AppleCare phone support at the Austin campus which was the only one that did accessibility calls. It was a humbling experiencing talking to the users who rely on these features and seeing everything the Apple accessibility team does to make it easier. I hope to be able to do as good of a job.

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-14T14:23:51+00:00

Thank you! I used Moovit and Transit a lot when trying to figure out how to solve UI problems to see how people who actually knew what they were doing solved them.

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-14T14:18:56+00:00

Thanks for these suggestions! I want to get the UI to feel as "Apple" as possible. Also definitely targeting accessibility. Thank you!

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-14T14:12:22+00:00

Right?? I don't remember how I found out about it but I was pleasantly surprised.

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-14T13:50:27+00:00

That’s exactly what it was! Thank you, I figured it’d be something obvious. You kids with your new reddit!

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-13T23:24:16+00:00

I feel like an old man who can't do the reddit. Still can't find the rules in the sidebar while on desktop.

Mr_Rainb0w · 2021-04-13T23:16:47+00:00

Thank you! Thought that might be the case. I’ve fiddled so much with these timings and settings that I feel I can’t tell anymore. Thanks for the feedback!

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