NewsFeed

News Articles App with MVVM and Coordinator Pattern

This iOS app consumes the provided API endpoint to display a list of news articles to the user. The app's purpose is to allow users to browse and read news articles from various categories. The main features include:

1. Integration with the API endpoint: The app fetches news articles from the API endpoint located at https://bruce-v2-mob.fairfaxmedia.com.au/1/coding_test/13ZZQX/full. The articles are retrieved and displayed via ArticlesViewController

2. Use of Cocoapods and Kingfisher library: Cocoapods is used as the dependency management tool, and the Kingfisher is integrated to facilitate image loading and caching. The library is known for its efficient image fetching and built-in caching capabilities.

# Install Cocoapods
$ sudo gem install cocoapods

# Create a Podfile
$ pod init

# Open the Podfile and add the following line
pod 'Kingfisher'

# Save the Podfile and install dependencies
$ pod install

3. Architecture and design patterns: The app is developed using the MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) architectural pattern with delegates, along with the Coordinator pattern for navigation. This promotes separation of concerns and enhances code maintainability.

4. Notable classes:

   • AppCoordinator: Responsible for managing the navigation flow within the app.
   • NetworkService: Handles the fetching and decoding of news articles from the API.
   • CategoriesViewController: Displays a UICollectionView with unique categories of news articles.
   • CategoriesViewModel: Facilitates interaction with the NetworkService and updates the CategoriesViewController.
   • ArticlesViewController: Shows a UITableView with article cells, allowing users to present a WKWebView for reading articles.
   • ArticlesViewModel: Orders the articles by timestamp and updates the ArticlesViewController.
   • ErrorPresenter: Handles the presentation of error messages.

5. Unit tests and UI tests: The PR includes tests covering critical functionalities. Test classes include NetworkServiceTests, CategoriesViewModelTests, ArticlesViewModelTest and CategoriesViewControllerUITests. I'd like to add more UI tests, but the time constraint for this code challenge is acknowledged.

6. Layout and styling: The app's layout is implemented programmatically, and the main storyboard has been removed. I prefer SnapKit library typically for creating flexible and readable constraints, although in this case, NSLayoutConstraints were used for simplicity. A separate constants file holds color and font constants for consistency.

7. Extensions and utilities: extensions for Date and UIColor types. These extensions allow for converting a hex value to a UIColor and formatting a Date as a user-friendly "time since now" string.

The app is built using a clean architecture, utilises a popular third-party library for image handling. The use of MVVM and Coordinator patterns ensures separation of concerns and improves code organization.

Note this app does not support dark-mode or horizontal orientation