In a real project this would not be a good solution, it is a POC that works, but I would say that UI design would be more polished, test code would exist and a lot more error checking for lossed connections, bad results, etc.
The solution runs on iOS 9.3 and up. The searchbar only exists on iOS 11 due to the new smart searchcontroller.
I looked into how to get the location database in a better format. Found on the https://data.sfgov.org/Culture-and-Recreation/Film-Locations-in-San-Francisco/yitu-d5am Shorter json delivered format: https://data.sfgov.org/resource/wwmu-gmzc.json
Use codable with swift 4 for json parsing http://www.json4swift.com/results.php for generating model
One tableview in a navigationcontroller
Added a mapview in a uiviewcontroller to show the annotation
First tried using normal search for the locations, unfortunately the formatting of the locations are very varied in quality and format. I tried using the MKLocalSearchRequest instead which has a natural language search that performs a bit better. To avoid getting locations in Utah etc, I look at the coordinate when it comes back from search and discard it if it's not within a reasonable distance from SF. I also zoom in on the map to show the pin better.
I have decided to not use xibs or storyboards, since we don't use it at my current job and I'm not a huge fan. Using layoutanchors is working pretty well, too.
I have added a search for title, year and director instead of doing the sorting, I felt that that would be more valuable.
Ideas for expansion:
- Screen with all info and the map (like a detailed view) instead of just the map
- Smarter search in the maps, maybe use google lookup that might be better (or both)
Also the two optionals that was in the technical challenge
- Provide a way for the user to change the sorting of the list (Right now it's too many fields to possibly search on, I feel. Might just be needed to search on title and year?)
- Cache data locally using core data (it is very quick so far anyway, it seems like it is possibly updated weekly (according to the sfgov page))
/Erik Lindberg [email protected]