Question 1

Is Preheat still worth using in 2024?

Accepted Answer

Preheat is deprecated and primarily useful for maintaining older apps targeting iOS 8 or 9. For iOS 10+, Apple's built-in prefetching APIs are recommended due to better support and native integration.

Question 2

How do I integrate Preheat with Nuke for image prefetching?

Accepted Answer

Create a Preheat.Controller for your collection view, then use its handler to manage preheating requests with Nuke's Preheater. The README example shows how to start and stop preheating based on index paths with low-priority settings.

Question 3

Preheat vs UITableViewDataSourcePrefetching: which should I choose?

Accepted Answer

For iOS 10 and later, use Apple's UITableViewDataSourcePrefetching as it's native, well-supported, and doesn't require external dependencies. Preheat offers more customization but is deprecated and less future-proof.

Question 4

Can Preheat work with SwiftUI or only UIKit?

Accepted Answer

No, Preheat is designed exclusively for UIKit components like UITableView and UICollectionView. SwiftUI uses different frameworks for lists, so developers should rely on SwiftUI's native solutions or other libraries.

Question 5

What happens to prefetching when data changes dynamically?

Accepted Answer

Preheat provides a callback handler that receives added and removed index paths, allowing you to adjust preheating requests in real-time. This is useful for handling data updates, such as from network calls or user interactions.

Question 6

Are there performance downsides to using Preheat?

Accepted Answer

Preheat can improve scrolling performance by prefetching content, but it adds overhead for index path management. Setting low priority on requests helps, but in very simple apps, the extra complexity might not justify the benefits.

Preheat

What is Preheat?

Overview

Use Cases

Best For

Related Projects

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Not Ideal For

Pros & Cons

Pros

Cons

Frequently Asked Questions