The EMMobileClient project is a general purpose framework for integrating Endeca pages into an iOS project and does not assume that the targeted device is an iPhone or an iPad. The framework provides a series of OOTB Model object and Content Items:

Content Items

Content item include:

Data Objects

Data objects include:

Parsing

By default, parsing is done by examining the @type and @class properties of the JSON response objects. Each @type is prefaced with EM and the corresponding class is constructed. For example, @type: ResultsList constructs the content item EMResultsList.

For dataObjects there is a configurable class package property, which by default is:

com.endeca.infront.cartridge.model

This value is stripped and the resulting class name is prefaced with 'EM' and constructed. For example. @class: com.endeca.infront.cartridge.model.SortOptionLabel is constructed as the data object EMSortOptionLabel. The framework offers very convenient extension points for overriding the defaults.

Renderers are also constructed dynamically via reflection. Each renderer is controlled using EMContentItemAdaptor which acts as a translator between content items and UICollectionViews. The controlling class, EMAssemblerViewController, begins the adaptor construction by sending the root content item to a class called the EMAdaptorManager.

The adaptor manager recursively traverses the content item structure creating EMContentItemAdaptors for each contentItem. In this process, contentItem @type and string Adaptor are combined.

For example, the EMResultsList content item has an @type of ResultsList, so a class called ResultsListAdaptor is created. If ResultsListAdaptor does not exist a default of EMContentItemAdaptor is created instead. This adaptor is responsible for constructing the view to be rendered. By default, the ResultsListAdaptor constructs a ResultsListRenderer that is @type + Renderer.

Both Adaptors and Renderers are considered reference code, so they do not reside in EMMobileClient.

For a more a flexible dynamic layout, UICollectionViews are used. Pages are rendered based on the content items they contain rather than a pre-defined page layout, so that your merchandiser can direct the page layout without developer intervention. A collectionview can be thought of as an endless blank canvas, in that there are no restrictions on what can be displayed as long as you can direct what should display. When you define a simple adaptor that allows collectionviews to retrieve the required data from content items, it can be easy to build dynamic pages.

Supporting New Content Items

With this structure, when a new content item is introduced, there is a well defined set of steps needed to support it in iOS:

In the custom adaptor you will need, at a minimum, to return a size and count in order for the renderer to be shown.