Action Extensions

Action Extensions provide several useful features to common, built-in Cocoa, Cocoa Touch and Swift data types such as converting UIColor to/from hex strings (for example #FF0000), creating UIImage instances from Base64 encoded strings stored in Dataor NSData objects and encoding UIImages as Base64 strings or Data objects.

The following extensions are available:

• Color Extensions – Extends UIColor to support the Action Data controls and adds convenience methods for working with colors in a Codable, Encodable or Decodable class.
• Data Extensions – Extends Data to support the Action Data controls and adds convenience methods for working with data properties in a Codable, Encodable or Decodable class.
• Image Extensions – Extends UIImage to support the Action Data controls and adds convenience methods for working with image properties in a Codable, Encodableor Decodable class.
• String Extensions – Extends String to support the Action Data controls and adds convenience methods for working with UIImage and UIColor properties in a Codable, Encodable or Decodable class.

Color Extensions

Extends UIColor to support the Action Data controls and adds convenience methods for working with colors in a Codable, Encodable or Decodable class.

Color as Hex String

Because UIColor is not Codable, it cannot directly be included in a data model object as a property. Action Extensions include several helper methods to work with color as a hex string to get around this limitation.

A hex string can be in either the rrggbb or rrggbbaa formats where:

• rr – Specifies the red component as a hex value in the range 00 to FF.
• gg – Specifies the green component as a hex value in the range 00 to FF.
• bb – Specifies the blue component as a hex value in the range 00 to FF.
• aa – Specifies the alpha component as a hex value in the range 00 to FF.

The hex string can optionally start with the prefix of #.

Examples:

// Assign a color from a string
let color: UIColor ~= "#FF0000"

// Initialize a color from a hex string
let green = UIColor(fromHex: "00FF00")

// Convert color to a hex string
let white = UIColor.white.toHex()

macOS Examples:

// Assign a color from a string
let color: NSColor ~= "#FF0000"

// Initialize a color from a hex string
let green = NSColor(fromHex: "00FF00")

// Convert color to a hex string
let white = NSColor.white.toHex()

Data Extensions

Extends Data to support the Action Data controls and adds convenience methods for working with data properties in a Codable, Encodable or Decodable class.

Working with Images

Because UIImage is not Codable, it cannot directly be included in a data model object as a property. Action Extensions include several helper methods to work with images as Base 64 encoded data to get around this limitation.

Examples:

// Assign data from an image
let icon: Data ~= UIImage(named: "Icon.png")

// Convert data to an image
let image = icon.uiImage

Image Extensions

Extends UIImage to support the Action Data controls and adds convenience methods for working with image properties in a Codable, Encodable or Decodable class.

Working with Images

Because UIImage is not Codable, it cannot directly be included in a data model object as a property. Action Extensions include several helper methods to work with images as Base 64 encoded data to get around this limitation.

Examples:

// Assign data from an image
let icon: Data ~= UIImage(named: "Icon.png")
let icon2 = UIImage(named: "Icon2.png").toData()

// Assign image from data
let image: UIImage ~= icon

// Base 64 encode an image
let base64 = UIImage(named: "Icon.png").toString()

// Assign image from base 64 encoded string
let image2: UIImage ~= base64 

// Initialize an image from a base 64 encoded string
let image3 = UIImage(fromString: base64) 

String Extensions

Extends String to support the Action Data controls and adds convenience methods for working with UIImage and UIColor properties in a Codable, Encodable or Decodable class.

Color as Hex String

Because UIColor is not Codable, it cannot directly be included in a data model object as a property. Action Extensions include several helper methods to work with color as a hex string to get around this limitation.

A hex string can be in either the rrggbb or rrggbbaa formats where:

• rr – Specifies the red component as a hex value in the range 00 to FF.
• gg – Specifies the green component as a hex value in the range 00 to FF.
• bb – Specifies the blue component as a hex value in the range 00 to FF.
• aa – Specifies the alpha component as a hex value in the range 00 to FF.

The hex string can optionally start with the prefix of #.

Examples:

// Assign a string from a color
let red: String ~= "FF0000"

// Get a UIColor from a hex string
let uiRed = red.uiColor

// Initialize a string from a color
let white = String(fromColor: UIColor.white)

Working with Images

Because UIImage is not Codable, it cannot directly be included in a data model object as a property. Action Extensions include several helper methods to work with images as Base 64 encoded data to get around this limitation.

Examples:

// Get an image
let icon = UIImage(namde: "Icon.png")

// Assign a string from an image
let base64: String ~= icon

// Get a UIImage from a base 64 encoded string
let myIcon = base64.uiImage

// Initialize a string from an image
let iconString = String(fromImage: icon)