iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips » Tag: objective-c

Best Resources In iOS Development – July 25th 2011

John — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 06:19:20 +0000

Another week gone by, and welcome to this listing of resources shared in the last week in order of popularity.

This week once again yet another beta was released of iOS 5 for us to install. The release date is slowly creeping up.

Some great resources were posted on the site including open source libraries for interface improvement, free game graphic sources, and some excellent tutorials.

If you would like us to submit a resource you can do so on the submit page.

Open Source: Drop In UILabel Replacement For Beautiful Text Easily - A library utilizing NSAttributedString, and core text allowing you to quickly create labels with styled text.

Design: Free Game Graphic Sets Made Specifically For iOS Games - Some great looking sets of game art styled specifically or the iPhone and iPad complete with backgrounds, characters and game objects.

Tutorial: Easy Game Controls In Cocos2D With SneakyInput - Describes how to use the SneakyInput library in your Cocos2D game so you can quickly add a virtual joystick.

Tutorial: Using And Building OpenCV (Open Computer Vision) On iOS Devices - Tutorial along with a build script for those looking to use the OpenCV library in their apps.

Open Source: Behavioral Driven Development Testing Framework - A framework made with Objective-C and specifically for Objective-C apps enabling BDD testing.

Tutorial: Objective-C Blocks (Closures) For Beginners - The basics of using Objective-C blocks including an overview of using them in concurrency programming.

Tutorial: Building Complete Games With SpriteHelper And LevelHelper - A couple of tutorials on the usage of these excellent tools to quickly build games with Cocos2D and Corona.

Open Source: Real-Time Congress App Phonegap And Native Source Code - The source code to both a Phonegap and native app that displays real time data.

Tutorial: Texturing 3D Objects In OpenGL ES 2.0 - An excellent step-by-step tutorials for beginners to OpenGL ES demonstrating how to Texture 3D objects.

Design: Creating An App with HTML/CSS And Sencha Touch - A tutorial on how to design iPhone style interfaces with HTML/CSS and Sencha Touch.

Thanks for reading, please bookmark and share this post!

. Tags: opengl es, phonegap, ios, iPhone, objective-c, open computer vision, opencv, open source libraries, ipad, programming tutorial

Open Source: Behavioral Driven Development Testing Framework

John — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 18:29:36 +0000

For those unfamiliar with the term behavioral driven development testing (BDD) frameworks are used so that you can test applications using logical English like syntax.

I have come across an open source framework designed specifically for iOS devices. What’s cool about this specific framework is that it can easily be attached to Objective-C methods, runs in the simulator, and let’s you store your different stories in different files so you could easily demonstrate your software’s ability to cope with different scenario’s.

Here’s an example of the types of a story used for testing:

Story: Example story showing the basic syntax.
Given Simon is working
Then I should be able to see abc and 5 in the log and say goodby at the end.

The framework is known as Simon, and was created by Derek Clarkson.

It can be found on Github here:
https://github.com/drekka/Simon

UPDATE: Got feedback about another framework known as Kiwi you may want to check out if this interests you.

I had never used one of these frameworks before, but it looks like a great way to illustrate an app does exactly what it should do. HKSAB58YGFWN

. Tags: github, ios, objective-c, bdd, Software testing, open source framework, ios (apple), open source, development

Tool: Objective-C Code Generator For Faster App Development

John — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 08:06:01 +0000

Found a very interesting tool that I have been using today that is absolutely brilliant for anyone programming in Objective-C on iOS and Mac. The tool is known as Accesorizer.

What this tool does is allow you to generate repetitive Objective-C code using fully customizable parameters. It’s tough to explain exactly what this tool does as it is completely different from anything I have used before, and it will take awhile for me to exploit the power of this tool.

If I did have to explain it though, I would call it super code complete on steroids.

Looking through the quick start guide should give you a very good idea about the coolness of this tool.

This video from the creator might make things a bit clearer (sorry it’s a download – previous Youtube video was removed):
Accessorizer Demo Video

You can find a trial version on the Accessorizer homepage which lasts for 30 days.

A great timesaving tool for sure.

[via Cerebral Gardens]

. Tags: objective-c, mac os x, iPhone, app store, programming, apple, ios

Open Source: Restkit Library For Easier Communication With RESTful Web Services

John — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 20:09:06 +0000

Communicating web services can be a pain on iOS. Some of the Cocoa classes for web communication are not available which doesn’t help. Fortunately there are a number of open source projects that have made things easier for communicating with web services in Objective-C.

One such project is Restkit, and what Restkit provides is a very high level framework for communicating with RESTful services. Restkit works on the iOS and Mac OS X platforms. What really makes Restkit different from the similar projects out there is simpler usage syntax, and direct integration with Core Data so you can easily persist remotely loaded objects locally.

There are some great examples on Git included with Restkit demonstrating usage with a message board built in Ruby on Rails, an example of how to communicate with Twitter, and a step by step tutorial demonstrating commonly used functionality.

You can find the homepage of Restkit here:
Restkit

The Github project can be found here:

https://github.com/twotoasters/RestKit/tree/master/Examples

Looks like a great framework for those looking to integrate Restful web services into their apps as quickly as possible.

. Tags: twitter, open source, github, ios (apple), languages, programming, iPhone, objective-c

The Best Resources In iOS Development – February 6th 2011

John — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 07:02:11 +0000

It’s been another very active week for the site, and I appreciate everyone sharing the resources from this site. It really keeps things going. The community is getting more active, and there were so many great resources shared in the last week.

If you have a specific resource you’d like to share there’s two great ways to share them.. you can tweet them at me @maniacdev or you can post them on the iPad and iPhone Development Forum.

These are the top resources shared in the past week:

Latest edition here: iOS Development Resources

Tutorials: How To Create Great Looking iOS Apps Even If You Are A Design Noob – An excellent set of tutorials and guides from an app design expert for those without a design background looking to design a great looking and user friendly app.

Open Source: Libraries For Custom Status Bar Notifications And UIBarButtonItems – Open source project enabling customizable status bar notifications, overlays, and UIBarButtonItem’s similar to the Reeder, Evernote, and Google Maps apps.

Open Source: Generate Objective-C iOS App Code Using A Simple Domain Specific Language – An open source project that generates app source code from a very brief domain specific language.

iOS Beginner Screencasts – Xcode And Objective-C From The Start - A set of high quality screencasts for those who are absolute beginners to Xcode and Objective-C.

Open Source: Library With A Massive Number Of Useful UIKit Interface Enhancements – A very useful, and rapidly growing library of useful user interface enhancements.

Example Source Code: Face Detection And Augmented Reality – Source code from an upcoming book demonstrating face detection, and location based augmented reality.

Tutorial: How To Build An iOS Chat App Using Cocoa Classes – A step-by-step guide demonstrating how to use Cocoa networking classes such as NSUrl by creating a simple chat application.

Tutorial: Detailed Adwhirl Cocos2D Guide – A newly updated guide for those having difficulty integrating Adwhirl and Cocos2D.

Open Source: Beautiful App Sales Tracking Tool MyAppSales – A newly open sourced app with a beautiful interface, and extensive historical statistics for those looking to track app sales data.

Building An iOS App With Sencha Touch And Phonegap From The Start – A step-by-step guide starting at the absolute beginning for those looking to build an application with Phonegap and Sencha Touch.

Thanks for reading, please share this — you can use the buttons below!

. Tags: ipad, open source, source code, augmented reality, domain-specific language, ios (apple), objective-c, iPhone

2 Great New Open Source iOS Apps: iStrobe and Ecological Footprint

John — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 07:37:43 +0000

I’ve extended the open source iPhone apps list with two great new apps.

The quest for quality iPhone and iPad programming examples continues and both of these apps are app store apps that the creators generously decided to open source. While there are a lot of great examples on the list with the continuous release of new features more are always welcome.

The first app is very interesting because I know that the topic of controlling the iPhone 4′s flash is searched for quite frequently on this site. This app features a strobe lite, see video:

You can find the homepage here: iStrobe.

The other app is Ecological Footprint, which shows how to share data using Facebook connect and e-mail, utilizing Core Data and more. See video:

You can find the homepage here: Ecological Footprint.

Check here for more information on the other 37 open source iphone app store apps.

Please share this by using the buttons below to tweet or bookmark!

. Tags: project, source, programming, ios 4, iPhone, example, apps, ios, development, objective-c

Beginners iPhone Action Game Tutorial: Source Code

John — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 01:16:50 +0000

A few weeks ago I posted a short video similar to this one:

UPDATE: Tutorial Has been posted!

I’ve been asked since then when I would come out with the tutorial. I was finally able to get around to completing the source file, and I’ve added line by line (well pretty close) comments in plain english to make it easier to follow.

The above video utilizes the exact source code from this tutorial running in the iPhone simulator.

Following the suggestions of a friend of mine who is just starting to learn this I’ve used as few methods as possible, and made extensive use of autorelease objects to make the flow easier to follow for beginners.

The tutorial features:

Loading/Placing Images
Animation
Touch Events
Text
Sound Effects
Background Music
Buttons
Resetting The Game

Coming up next week I will be posting a more comprehensive tutorial, but I am posting the source code now. If you look through this code and the comments you should be able to grasp what is going on, and I hope that the upcoming tutorial will fill in the gaps. Be sure to come back next week when the full tutorial is posted!

I recreated this from scratch using Sparrow Framework and Objective-C because in my findings it was easiest to follow for a beginner looking to create an action game.

Things could change a little as I haven’t really looked through it myself.. just quickly coded it and wrote line by line comments. If you open it up, and are wondering which files to look at to understand things go to the Game.h and Game.m files.. the app delegate files were created automatically with the Sparrow project and I didn’t comment those.

Update! I have modified the project to remove an error that occurred on some systems due to a recursive search being done in the project for already included files. Please re-download if you encountered this problem.

You can download the source with music/sound effects here:
BalloonGameTutorial

Graphics are included so the example will run but are slightly different because I am using graphics similar to those in the video in my own game.

As far as licensing goes feel free to use this in your own apps, and if you do send me a message or post a comment about it, and I’ll mention it on this site. You may not use any portion of this project in your own tutorials, books, etc. (and definitely don’t submit it to a site buying tutorials.. you know who you are!) without permission.

Please be sure to check back next week when the entire tutorial is posted which will give you a much better idea of how to extend/use this source code and utilize the Sparrow Framework.

If you have any questions as to why I did something or have any suggestions for the tutorial then please post them below — it will help to make the final tutorial better.

Also, if you could share this post that would be great too and help motivate me to make more!

. Tags: game, iPhone, objective-c, source code

Phonegap And iWebKit Demo (Video and Source)

John — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:00:32 +0000

Randy McMillan sent me information on an example that he has posted this time illustrating the usage of Phonegap and iWebKit.

I have created a short video demoing the example in action:

No knowledge of Objective-C is necessary to create an app using these technologies, and as you can see the look and feel is just like a native application. In the demo the app is running in the simulator as a native app, not in Safari. While action games will suffer a noticeable performance lag, apps that are non-graphically intensive have pretty good performance.

You can download this example here:

The example can be downloaded here: iWebkit/Phonegap

iWebKit is a UI framework commonly used in web apps, and Phonegap is a framework used for running web applications as native iPhone/Blackberry/Android applications.

[Update: Sorry Links Removed. Looks like the author has removed the advice, and decided to just forward the links to his about page. Will fix if this gets corrected.]

. Tags: objective-c, iwebkit, web programming, phonegap

Custom Behavior On Return For A UITextView

John — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 07:45:28 +0000

The default behavior for a UITextField on pressing the return key is to execute the textFieldShouldReturn: method of the UITextFieldDelegate.

What if we wanted to create similar behavior with a a UITextView which does not have an equivalent method and by default just creates a new line?

Nick Dalton has come up with a snippet of code that uses the:

textView:shouldChangeTextInRange:replacementText:

method of the UITextViewDelegate to do just that.

You can check the article out here: Handling The Return Key In A UITextView

It’s a very handy bit of code to have as there are many situations where you may want to implement custom behavior when the return key is pressed in a UITextView.

Thanks Nick.

Please post any comments below, thanks.

. Tags: objective-c, uitextview, cocoa touch, return

Getting Subclasses in Objective-C

John — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 07:17:38 +0000

One of the things that makes the Objective-C language “different” from most other object oriented programming languages is that there is no simple command that allows you to print the subclasses of a class. I noticed this early on when using the language, and had to work around this. I don’t know why Objective-C doesn’t have a simple command for doing this (to be honest I never thought about it until this moment), but recently I saw an article on exactly this, and found a few ways to print out those subclasses.

The article I saw was on Cocoa With Love, and entitled Getting Subclasses of Objective-C Class that explains Matt Gallagher’s approach to getting the subclasses. Overall this isn’t the most complex task in the world, but as he explains there are considerations to be made as to why you would choose his first approach over the obvious “hackers” approach which he also explains.

It’s a great read if you ever need subclasses, but as said in this Stackoverflow discussion on getting subclasses you may want to change things up if you are in need of this functionality.

. Tags: cocoa, getting subclasses, objective-c, Objective-C Programming