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Installation

Additional Developer Resources

Before starting to develop your application with the Navigation SDK, you'll need to configure your credentials and add the SDK as a dependency.

Part 1: Create and configure your credentials​

To download and install the SDK, follow the steps below. Start by logging into your Mapbox account, then create and configure a secret access token, and lastly add your public access token to your Info.plist.

Step 1: Log in/Sign up for a Mapbox account​

Login to your Mapbox account at https://account.mapbox.com. If you don't have an account, sign up for free here.

Your account includes a default public access token, and allows you to create a secret access token for use in the installation of the SDK.

Step 2: Create a secret token​

A secret access token can enable access to various products/services at Mapbox, including the ability to download an SDK. To allow download access to an SDK, follow these steps:

  1. From your account's tokens page, click the Create a token button.
  2. From the token creation page, give your token a name and make sure the box next to the Downloads:Read scope is checked.
  3. Click the Create token button at the bottom of the page to create your token.
  4. The token you've created is a secret token, which means you will only have one opportunity to copy it somewhere secure.
Protect secret access tokens

Store secret tokens in secure a location, outside of your project folder to make sure unauthorized users cannot find it.

Step 3: Configure your secret token​

Your secret access token is used only when downloading the SDK binaries for use in your project.

To use your secret token, you must store it in a .netrc file in your home directory (not your project folder). This approach helps avoid accidentally exposing your secret token by keeping it out of your application's source code.

To create a .netrc file follow these steps:

Step 3-1: Check if you have already created a .netrc file on your computer.

  1. In a terminal, go to your home directory.
$cd ~
  1. Run file .netrc to check whether a .netrc file already exists. You will see the following message if there is no .netrc file:
$file .netrc
.netrc: cannot open `.netrc' (No such file or directory)
  1. If you already have a .netrc file, skip the next step.

Step 3-2: Create the .netrc file.

  • From the same terminal, run touch .netrc.

Step 3-3: Open the .netrc file.

  • From the same terminal, run open .netrc.

Step 3-4: Add Mapbox credentials to the .netrc file

Add the following lines of text to your .netrc file, replacing <INSERT SECRET ACCESS TOKEN> with the secret access token you created in step 2:

~/.netrc
machine api.mapbox.com
login mapbox
password <INSERT SECRET ACCESS TOKEN>

Step 3-5: Set .netrc file permissions to Read & Write for the current user

  1. Go to your home directory: /Users/[CurrentUser].
  • If you do not see the .netrc file, press Command + Shift + . (the period key).
  1. Right click on the .netrc.
  2. Click Get Info.
  3. Scroll down to Sharing & Permissions.
  4. Under your current username, make sure to set Privilege to Read & Write.

Step 4: Configure your public token​

Your public access token is used in your application code when requesting Mapbox resources.

To configure your public access token, follow these steps:

  1. Open your project's Info.plist file
  2. Hover over a key and click the plus button
  3. Type MBXAccessToken into the key field
  4. Click the value field and paste in your public access token.
Rotating Tokens

When you need to rotate your access token, you will need to update the token value in your Info.plist file.

GUIDE
Access token best practices

Learn how to keep access tokens private in mobile apps.

Part 2: Add the dependency​

Users expect the SDK to continue to track the user’s location and deliver audible instructions even while a different application is visible or the device is locked. To do this, go to the Signing & Capabilities tab. Under the Background Modes section, enable “Audio, AirPlay, and Picture in Picture” and “Location updates”. (Or, add the audio and location values to the UIBackgroundModes array in the Info tab.)

Installing MapboxNavigation versus MapboxCoreNavigation

MapboxCoreNavigation is a dependency of MapboxNavigation. If you install MapboxNavigation you will also have access to all MapboxCoreNavigation's classes and methods. If you do not plan to use the drop-in UI, you can replace MapboxNavigation with MapboxCoreNavigation in your Podfile or when selecting a library in Swift Package Manager.

Mapbox provides the Navigation SDK via CocoaPods and Swift Package Manager.

The Mapbox Navigation SDK can be consumed via Swift Package Manager (SPM). To add the Navigation SDK with SPM, you will need to configure your environment to download it from Mapbox. This requires a Mapbox access token with the Downloads:Read scope. In a previous step, you added this token to your .netrc file.

You can add the dependency to either an application or another package.

Option 1: Add to an application​

  1. Open your Xcode project or workspace, then go to File > > Add Packages.
  2. Enter https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-navigation-ios.git as the URL and press Enter to pull in the package.
  3. Set Dependency Rule to Up to Next Major Version and enter 2.19.0 as the minimum version. Click Add Package.
  4. Once Xcode finishes fetching and checking out all the dependencies, select the MapboxNavigation library (or MapboxCoreNavigation if you don’t need any UI components). Click Next.
  5. In your code, you can now import MapboxNavigation as well as any of the other packages that were downloaded as dependencies.

Option 2: Add to an another package​

To install the MapboxNavigation framework in another package rather than in an application, run swift package init to create a Package.swift, or click File > New > Package. Then, add the following dependency:

.package(name: "MapboxNavigation", url: "https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-navigation-ios.git", from: "2.19.0")

Notes

  • If you need to update your packages, you can click on File > Swift Packages > Update To Latest Package Versions.
  • Sometimes, artifacts cannot be resolved or errors can occur, in this case select File > Swift Packages > Reset Package Cache.
  • If your Xcode crashes, delete your derived data folder.
TROUBLESHOOTING
Running into problems installing?

Read more about common installation issues in our troubleshooting guide.

Part 3: Request a route​

Request your first route and simulate a navigation experience using our drop-in UI, NavigationViewController.

Insert the following code snippets into your ViewController.

 
import UIKit
 
import MapboxDirections
 
import MapboxCoreNavigation
 
import MapboxNavigation
import CoreLocation

class ViewController: UIViewController {
    private let routingProvider = MapboxRoutingProvider()

 
    override func viewDidLoad() {
 
        super.viewDidLoad()
 

 
        // Define two waypoints to travel between
 
        let origin = Waypoint(coordinate: CLLocationCoordinate2D(latitude: 38.9131752, longitude: -77.0324047), name: "Mapbox")
 
        let destination = Waypoint(coordinate: CLLocationCoordinate2D(latitude: 38.8977, longitude: -77.0365), name: "White House")
 

 
        // Set options
 
        let routeOptions = NavigationRouteOptions(waypoints: [origin, destination])
 

 
        // Request a route using MapboxRoutingProvider
 
        routingProvider.calculateRoutes(options: routeOptions) { [weak self] result in
 
            switch result {
 
            case .failure(let error):
 
                print(error.localizedDescription)
 
            case .success(let response):
 
                guard let self = self else { return }
 
                // Pass the first generated route to the the NavigationViewController
 
                let viewController = NavigationViewController(for: response)
 
                viewController.modalPresentationStyle = .fullScreen
 
                self.present(viewController, animated: true, completion: nil)
 
            }
        }
    }
}

Run the application and you will see a simulated navigation experience along a route.

Additional Developer Resources
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