Handling AVPlayerLayer when wrapping AVPlayer behaviour

Question

I'm trying to wrap AVPlayer in my own class so I can provide a nicer API to use throughout my app and so I can mock player behaviour for testing with other objects (and because the AVPlayer KVOs are quite ugly to use!). Here's a simplified model of what I'm trying to do with just the play and pause functionality:

protocol VideoPlayerProtocol {
    func play()
    func pause()
}

class AVPlayerWrapped: VideoPlayerProtocol {

    private let player = AVPlayer()

    init(playerItem: AVPlayerItem) {
        self.player.replaceCurrentItem(with: playerItem)
    }

    func play() {
        player.play()
    }

    func pause() {
        player.pause()
    }
}

I also have a PlayerView which adds an AVPlayerLayer to a view. From the Apple docs, this is set by providing the view an AVPlayer:

class PlayerView: UIView {

    override class var layerClass: AnyClass {
        return AVPlayerLayer.self
    }

    var playerLayer: AVPlayerLayer {
        return layer as! AVPlayerLayer
    }

    var player: AVPlayer? {
        get { playerLayer.player }
        set { playerLayer.player = newValue }
    }
}

The problem is that when I setup an AVPlayerWrapped object, in order to display the playback in a view I need to reveal the underlying AVPlayer to the player property on PlayerView which defeats the purpose of me wrapping the player.

Is there a way for me to somehow use an AVPlayerLayer without my AVPlayerWrapped having to reveal its underlying player please? Or am I taking the wrong approach?

Any guidance much appreciated!

user_3585796 · Answer

class AVPlayerWrapped: VideoPlayerProtocol {

    fileprivate let player = AVPlayer()

    init(playerItem: AVPlayerItem) {
        self.player.replaceCurrentItem(with: playerItem)
    }

    func play() {
        player.play()
    }

    func pause() {
        player.pause()
    }
}

extension AVPlayerLayer {
    func setPlayerWrapper(_ playerWrapped: AVPlayerWrapped) {
        player = playerWrapped.player
    }
}

And

class PlayerView: UIView {

    override class var layerClass: AnyClass {
        return AVPlayerLayer.self
    }

    var playerLayer: AVPlayerLayer {
        return layer as! AVPlayerLayer
    }

    func setPlayerWrapper(_ playerWrapped: AVPlayerWrapped) {
        playerLayer.setPlayerWrapper(playerWrapped)
    }
}

I believe you don't need a getter for your view - in my practice I haven't used it. But in case you do, you can do it with an associatedObject, but it's much slower than a real property and I would advise you to use this approach only in special cases.

Handling AVPlayerLayer when wrapping AVPlayer behaviour

1 Answers