Search Results for: twitter
Open Source: Excellent Easy To Use iPhone Sliding View Control
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the excellent ViewDeck sliding view controller (which btw has undergone a number of updates). Thanks to the Path 2 and Facebook apps similar sliding views seem to be becoming very popular, and they definitely make for an excellent wya for users to switch between screens.
Recently I came across another excellent sliding view controller which is somewhat more lightweight, but mainly there are differences in usage, and a few small things in the implementation that make this control unique.
Here’s a video of the control in action:
The control is from Mei Wing, and you can find it on Github repository here.
On Mei Wing’s site you can find extensive documentation, and a nice writeup about the control so you can see what makes this control different.
Definitely another one for the bookmarks.
[via @mugunthkumar]
©2012 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.
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Example Source Code: A Cocos2D Color Picker Extension Designed Specifically For The iPad
Some time ago I mentioned some excellent color picker controls for UIKit based apps. For the most part these were basically variations on the controls that you’d typically see on the desktop for picking colors. I’ve also mentioned the terrific Cocos2D extensions project.
Recently i came across a color picker control created for use within Cocos2D based apps that works a little bit different from those previously mentioned controls designed for for drawing apps on the iPad.
Here’s an image of the control taken from the Cocos2D forums:
The color picker is by @creativewax and you can download the extension on the Cocos2D forum here.
Not just a nice color picker, but a great example of creating user interface extensions for use within Cocos2D apps.
©2012 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.
.Open Source: Library For Easy iCloud Image And Document Transfers With A Blocks Based Syntax
I have mentioned some excellent libraries for simplifying the use of the new iOS 5 iCloud feature like this excellent library for synching NSUserDefaults to the iCloud with one line of code, and a library for managing a photo gallery stored in the iCloud.
The functionality of this library is a bit more basic, but like the other mentioned libraries I like how easy it is to use.
This library allows you you to easily upload images and documents from iCloud with a very clean syntax using blocks. You can also download images and documents either all at once or by using a specified key.
The library is from @sergimtzlosa and you can find it on Github along with usage examples here.
A nice simple library with some very clean syntax for doing basic uploading/downloading from the cloud.
©2012 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.
.Giveaway: Get A Unity 3D Or iOS Book (There Will Be 6 Winners) – Enter Here!
UPDATE: This contest is now closed, and winners being drawn. Thanks to all!
After the great success of our recent giveaway with the App design vault I have teamed up with Packt Publishing and wear organizing a giveaway where six lucky winners can pick up a copy of their choice between four great selling books on developing with Unity and iPhone.
Keep reading to find out how you can be one of the Lucky Winner.
The first book is Unity 3.X game Development Essentials:
- Kick start your game development, and build ready-to-play 3D games with ease.
- Understand key concepts in game design including scripting, physics, instantiation, particle effects, and more.
The second book is Unity iOS Essentials:
- Learn key strategies and follow practical guidelines for creating Unity 3D games for iOS devices.
- Learn how to plan your game levels to optimize performance on iOS devices using advanced game concepts.
- Full of tips, scripts, shaders, and complete Unity 3D projects to guide you through game creation on iOS from start to finish.
Read more about this book and download free Sample Chapter here.
The third book is iPhone applications tune-up:
- Tune up every aspect of your iOS application for greater levels of stability and performance.
- Improve the users’ experience by boosting the performance of your app.
- Learn how to build an intuitive interface for your future iOS application
- Avoid app rejection with detailed insight into how to best abide by Apple’s interface guidelines
Here are the rules to enter:
1) Tweet this article – you can use the tweet button at the top or at the bottom of the article.
2) Visit the books above, check out what’s inside and see what you would like to learn most from the books – pick one that you like the best.
3) Enter a comment below (or below this article on ManiacDev.com if you are reading this elsewhere…) with your twitter name and what you’re looking forward to learn most in the above articles.
Example Comment:
Twitter Name: @maniacdev. I would like Unity 3.x development essentials am really looking forward to learning how to use the particle engine in Unity 3D.
4) Be sure that you are following @maniacdev on Twitter when the contest ends at 12 Noon Pacific Standard Time January 18th so you can receive your prize by direct message – or it will go to the next person.
Only one entry per person. Random.org will be used to pick the six winners.
You will be able to choose whether you would like an eBook or physical book.
Good luck on being one of the six winners!
Update: After entering our contest be sure to check out a contest that Hsiao Wei Chen is having for a copy of the Cocos2D 1 Game Development Cookbook also from Packt over on her blog here.
©2012 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.
.Interesting iPhone And iPad App For Easier OpenGL ES 2.0 Learning And Development
OpenGL ES is one of the more complex topics that I’ve covered on this blog. I’ve mentioned some excellent OpenGL ES 2.0 tutorials for absolute beginners, and going from beginner to advanced covering topics such as basic texturing, and shader creation.
Today I came across a new app that is both helpful for beginners learning OpenGL ES 2.0, and for more advanced OpenGL ES developers looking tweaking their vertex and fragment shaders. There are a number of OpenGL ES 2.0 coding examples included with the app.
Something really fun that you can do with this app is create animated video filters and view the results instantly using your iOS device.
The app is GLSL Studio and you can read more about the many other things you can do with this app on the homepage.
The app was created by Mode80 who appears to be fiddling around with quite a few interesting projects.
Looks like a great app for learning and developing with OpenGL ES 2.0.
[via @rwenderlich @airjordan12345 and @triptych]
©2012 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.
.Professionally Designed iOS App Theme Giveaway – Check It Out!
Sorry The Giveaway Has Ended – Winner Is @techilm!
It’s no secret that design is critical for success in the iOS app store.
With hundreds of thousands of apps to chose from your app needs to make a great first impression.
With a poor looking design the user may not feel that impulse to buy, and review site scouts could immediately passover your app.
Unfortunately quality app design can be quite costly.
That’s where the App Design Vault comes in.
On the App Design Vault you will find a listing of several complete app themes including artwork in both .PNG and Photoshop editable .PSD formats along with an example Xcode project using each theme.
The Giveaway:
The guys at App Design Vault have agreed to let me hold a contest and give away two of their themes to one lucky winner along with a special discount to anyone that enters the contest.
Here’s are the rules to follow to qualify for the giveaway:
1) Tweet this article – you can use the tweet button at the top or at the bottom of the article.
2) Visit the App Design Vault gallery and choose any two themes currently for sale that you’d like.
3) Enter a comment below (or below this article on ManiacDev.com if you are reading this elsewhere…) with your twitter name and the names of the two themes you’d like along with why you would like them:
Example Comment:
Twitter Name: @maniacdev. I would like the Newstab and Paperbox themes because I’m working on a news app and can’t afford to pay thousands to hire a designer!!
4) Be sure that you are following @maniacdev on Twitter when the contest ends at 12 Noon Pacific Standard Time January 11th so you can receive your prize by direct message – or it will go to the next person.
Only one entry per person. Random.org will be used to pick the winner.
Good luck on being the winner!
©2012 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.
.Cocos2D iPhone and Cocos2D-X Ninja Finger Slice Example Source Code
In the past I’ve mentioned some excellent libraries for creating special effects with Cocos2D with many featured in a massive Cocos2D example code listing, and this great example of how to create realistic water ripples.
There are many apps in which a trail is drawn following the motion of a user’s finger on the iPhone and iPad screen.
With a few tweaks games such as Sushi Chop, Veggie Samurai, and Fruit Ninja were able with a few tweaks to the width and some smoothing turn this simple effect into a sword slashing effect.
Recently I came across a library that allows you to easily recreate this effect using Cocos2D (versions provided using Cocos2D-iPhone and Cocos2D-X).
The library is known as CCBlade and you can see the Cocos2D-X version of this library in action in the game Rolly Poly:
You can download the Cocos2D iPhone version of the library complete with an example project on Github here.
You can find the Cocos2D-X version ported by the creator of the Rolly Poly game here.
If you are thinking of creating a slicer game with Cocos2D be sure to keep this library in mind.
[via @iurdium]
©2012 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.
.Open Source ShareKit 2.0 Easy Social Sharing Library For iOS Apps Is Released
Almost a year and a half ago I first mentioned the ShareKit library for enabling social sharing within iOS apps for urls, files, images, and text to many different social networks including Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr (among others).
This library became extremely popular because with just a few lines of code you could implement social sharing with a very well made interface.
For some time there have been some issues with the library, but the official build was not updated, and updates have been very infrequent at the official repository. This meant you likely had to tweak it yourself or go searching for a working fork if you wanted to use it in a project.
This is now the ShareKit community repository and includes many updates from numerous forks, and the version has been updated to 2.0.
This build provides numerous fixes, includes support for more social networks (LinkedIn, FourSquare) uses native iOS Twitter support, and promises more frequent updates.
You can find the download repository here.
For up to date instructions you can check out the Wiki.
If you gave up on ShareKit because of the lack updates it looks like time to have another look.
©2012 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.
.Open Source Libraries For Easily Adding Rotary Knob Controls In Your iOS Apps
The other day on twitter I was asked about available libraries for creating rotary knob controls within iOS apps.
In the past I mentioned a couple of different libraries including rotary knob controls which have not been kept up to date by their developers. So here are a couple of up to date libraries.
The first library is DCControl from Domestic Cat Software which allows you to easily create customizable slider controls and rotary knob controls. In the past I mentioned their beautiful custom rounded switch component.
You can download the rotary knob control here.
As you can see in the screenshot below you can adjust the coloring size and shape of the control easily.
The second library is from iOS Apprentice author Matthijs Hollemans. This is a very simple library that handles things properly if you are just looking for a no-nonsense rotary knob control.
You can find the repository here.
Here’s a screenshot:
The third library is for those using HTML5, and this solution was created to emulate the knob controls in Apple’s Garageband.
You can test it out online here, and the Github repository is here.
If you are looking to add a rotary knob control into your apps these libraries should put you on the right track.
©2012 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.
.Tutorial: Using URL Schemes To Open The Settings App To A Specific Page In iOS 5
Something that I saw mentioned back when the iOS 5 sdk was in beta was that you could use custom URL schemes to open the settings app up to a specific page.
While this capability has carried over to the iOS 5 release this capability appears to still be undocumented by Apple.
Alex Curylo has created a useful little writeup on using these URL schemes for location services, twitter, and bluetooth settings:
Turn on Location Services?
[NSURL URLWithString:@"prefs:root=LOCATION_SERVICES"]];
Set up Twitter?
[NSURL URLWithString:@"prefs:root=TWITTER"]];
Hook up a Bluetooth device?
[NSURL URLWithString:@"prefs:root=General&path=Bluetooth"]];
And one commenter on Alex’s site also mentioned how to do it for your own app:
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"prefs:root=Apps&path=Your+App+Display+Name"]];
The url schemes also work just fine when linked in HTML for those browsing on their iOS devices.
Source: Alex Curylo
©2012 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.
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