MendeleyKit — the Mendeley SDK for Objective-C/Swift

Latest Release: September 2018 (3.4.1)

About MendeleyKit 3.x

MendeleyKit is a standalone framework providing convenience methods and classes for using the Mendeley API in iOS and macOS applications.

Since its launch in October 2014, MendeleyKit has gone through a number of changes and improvements. Version 3 of the SDK provides builds for iOS and macOS dynamic frameworks. The latest release also supports static libraries (requires Xcode 9). In addition to that, some API additions were introduced (e.g. Mendeley features API enabling remote feature enabling).

Much of the code in the SDK is still based on Objective-C. However, over the coming months we will be gradually migrating towards Swift (4.2 or later).

Minimum requirements

• Xcode 8
• iOS 8.0 or higher
• macOS 10.9 or higher

Installation (CocoaPods)

The easiest way to include MendeleyKit in your project is to use CocoaPods. There are 3 pods: one is cross-platform and can be used as a static library; the others are platform-specific and can be used as dynamic frameworks:

• MendeleyKit.podspec: iOS/macOS static library (requires Xcode 9 and CocoaPods 1.5)
• MendeleyKitiOS.podspec: iOS dynamic framework
• MendeleyKitOSX.podspec: macOS dynamic framework

CocoaPods for frameworks

Your client Podfile using the iOS Framework

Use this in your Podfile:

use_frameworks!
pod 'MendeleyKitiOS'

post_install do |installer|
  installer.pods_project.targets.each do |target|
    target.build_configurations.each do |config|
      config.build_settings['GCC_PREPROCESSOR_DEFINITIONS'] ||= ['$(inherited)', 'MendeleyKitiOSFramework']
      #add any other build settings 
    end
  end
end

(for CocoaPods versions earlier than 0.38, use installer.project.targets.each instead of installer.pods_project.targets.each)

Note: Using use_frameworks! means that all included dependencies will be interpreted as frameworks. At this stage, there is no provision in CocoaPods to selectively mark some pods as frameworks and others as static libraries.

Once done, do a:

pod install

Note: CocoaPods is generating an umbrella header in its Pods folder. This has been known to cause problems when compiling or doing a pod lint MendeleyKitiOS.podspec. The error message is '...include of non-modular header in framework...'. CocoaPods has a whole message trail for this problem which first appeared with Xcode 7.1. The line below is a workaround, which basically comments out the #include "MendeleyKitiOS.h" line in the pod generated umbrella header. This seems to fix the issue. The example below demonstrates how this can be used in a post-install instruction in a Podfile:

post_install do |installer|
  installer.pods_project.targets.each do |target|
    target.build_configurations.each do |config|
      config.build_settings['GCC_WARN_INHIBIT_ALL_WARNINGS'] = 'YES'
      config.build_settings['GCC_PREPROCESSOR_DEFINITIONS'] ||= ['$(inherited)', 'MendeleyKitiOSFramework']
      config.build_settings['ARCHS'] = '$(ARCHS_STANDARD)'
    end
  end
  `sed -i '' 's,\#import \"MendeleyKitiOS.h\",\/\/#import \"MendeleyKitiOS.h\",g' 'Pods/Target Support Files/MendeleyKitiOS/MendeleyKitiOS-umbrella.h'`
end

Alternatively, you may clone the public MendeleyKit from our GitHub repository.

Upgrading from previous versions of MendeleyKit

Upgrading the headers/import in Objective-C code for Framework

Using the MendeleyKitiOS framework means you will need to change your headers. All public headers in MendeleyKit are included in the framework umbrella header MendeleyKitiOS.h. Please, replace all explicit MendeleyKit imports in your code with this one header.

#import <MendeleyKitiOS/MendeleyKitiOS.h>

You may want to use the more modern syntax:

@import MendeleyKitiOS;

Upgrading the headers/import for use of static library

Note: if you are using the static library version of MendeleyKit, you will need to use the following syntax (as the workspace has now modules enabled in the build sittings):

#import <MendeleyKit/MendeleyKit.h>

Client build settings

• client should have Enable modules set to Yes
• MendeleyKit currently has bitcode generation disabled in its settings for backward compatibility reasons. You may need to do the same in the client using the MendeleyKit framework/library.

Getting started

The MendeleyKit Xcode workspace includes a MendeleyKitExample project. This demonstrates basic functionality such as authenticating with the Mendeley server, obtaining a list of documents, files and groups.

It is recommended to consult with the classes contained in the MendeleyKitExample project.

In addition, the GitHub repository includes a MendeleyKitHelp.zip file. This contains a complete reference set in HTML and Docset formats.

When running the MendeleyKitExample app, please ensure you have:

• client ID
• client secret key
• redirect URI

They need to be entered in the ViewController.h file. Note: code containing client IDs, client secrets, redirect URI will not be accepted in pull requests!

Mendeley API has links to create your app client ID, key and redirect URIs.

Registering a client with the Mendeley Dev Portal

Every client communicating with the server needs to be registered with the Mendeley developer portal Mendeley API.

Registration is quick, painless and free. It will give you the 3 essential ingredients you will need to supply when using MendeleyKit in your app:

• client ID
• client secret key
• redirect URI

These values need to match exactly the ones from the dev portal. The redirect URI should be a fully formed URL, such as http://localhost/myredirect (rather than just localhost/myredirect). This avoids any pitfalls or 'Frame load interrupted' messages in UIWebView.

How to submit code

We welcome your thoughts and suggestions. If you would like to make active contributions, e.g. code changes/additions:

• code submissions should only be made to Development branch via pull requests.
• you may create your own subbranches from Development and submit to it at will. However, if you want to merge it into Development then you would need to create a pull request.
• Note: code containing client IDs, client secrets, redirect URI will not be accepted in pull requests!

Software releases

All official releases of MendeleyKit are tagged versions on master. Mendeley reserves the rights to merge changes made to Development into master. Each release will contain a RELEASE text file outlining changes made.

Reporting issues

Please use the Issues feature on GitHub to report any problems you encounter with MendeleyKit. For feedback/suggestions, please contact: [email protected]