Installation
To use the Search SDK, you'll need to configure your credentials and add the SDK as a dependency.
Configure credentials
Before installing the SDK, you will need to gather the appropriate credentials. The SDK requires two pieces of sensitive information from your Mapbox account. If you don't have a Mapbox account: sign up and navigate to your Account page. You'll need:
- A public access token: From your account's tokens page, you can either copy your default public token or click the Create a token button to create a new public token.
- A secret access token with the
Downloads:Read
scope.- From your account's tokens page, click the Create a token button.
- From the token creation page, give your token a name and make sure the box next to the
Downloads:Read
scope is checked. - Click the Create token button at the bottom of the page to create your token.
- The token you've created is a secret token, which means you will only have one opportunity to copy it somewhere secure.
You should not expose these access tokens in publicly-accessible source code where unauthorized users might find them. Instead, you should store them somewhere safe on your computer and make sure they're only added when your app is compiled. Once this configuration step has been completed, you will be able to reference your credentials in other parts of your app.
Configure your secret token
Your secret token enables you to download the SDK directly from Mapbox. In order to use your secret token, you will need to 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. Depending on your environment, you may have this file already, so check first before creating a new one.
The .netrc file is a plain text file that is used in certain development environments to store credentials used to access remote servers. The login should always be mapbox
. It should not be your personal username used to create the secret token. To set up the credentials required to download the SDK, add the following entry to your .netrc
file:
machine api.mapbox.com
login mapbox
password <INSERT SECRET API TOKEN>
Configure your public token
To configure your public access token, open your project's Info.plist
file and add a MGLMapboxAccessToken
key whose value is your public access token.
If you ever need to rotate your access token, you will need to update the token value in your Info.plist
file accordingly.
Learn how to keep access tokens private in mobile apps.
Add the dependency
Mapbox provides the Search SDK via CocoaPods.
To add the Mapbox Search SDK dependency with CocoaPods, you will need to configure your build to download the Search SDK from Mapbox directly. This requires a valid username and an access token with the Downloads: Read
scope. In a previous step, you added these items to your .netrc
file.
-
Add the dependency to your
Podfile
. There are two options:- Option 1: To use the Search SDK with pre-built UI components, add the
MapboxSearchUI
dependency. This will also includeMapboxSearch
automatically.
use_frameworks! target "TargetNameForYourApp" do pod 'MapboxSearchUI', ">= 1.0.0-beta.2", "< 2.0" end
- Option 2: To use the Search SDK without pre-built UI components, add the
MapboxSearch
dependency.
use_frameworks! target "TargetNameForYourApp" do pod 'MapboxSearch', ">= 1.0.0-beta.2", "< 2.0" end
- Option 1: To use the Search SDK with pre-built UI components, add the
-
Run
pod install
to install the dependency.
Add search to an app
You can start by adding a search UI to your application using Swift.
Insert the following code snippets into your ViewController
.
import UIKitimport MapboxSearchimport MapboxSearchUI class ViewController: UIViewController {let searchController = MapboxSearchController() override func viewDidLoad() {super.viewDidLoad()searchController.delegate = selflet panelController = MapboxPanelController(rootViewController: searchController)addChild(panelController)}} extension ViewController: SearchControllerDelegate {func searchResultSelected(_ searchResult: SearchResult) { }func categorySearchResultsReceived(results: [SearchResult]) { }func userFavoriteSelected(_ userFavorite: FavoriteRecord) { }}
Run your application and you will see a functional search UI. Begin typing in the search bar or click on a category to see results.