Facebook/Unity SDK basics - facebook

I have some basic questions that I couldn't figure out after searching for quite some time now. All tutorials and guides I've come across have the code already set up and I can't find them of much use. For instance, the Friend Smash example has the code integrated with buttons and other scripts that I can't use it in my own game.
I used Parse to upload my game and test it on facebook and it's working fine, but I want to add the social features to it (login, share, score etc.)
Picking up the code snippets that I'm supposed to use either brings me up errors (undefined variables etc.) or messes things up (I get the not-working, bugged login window on top of the running game inside Unity, while nothing happens if I build and run it).
Where am I supposed to put the code? For example:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/unity/reference/current/FB.Init
In the "Example" part, where am I supposed to put this line?
FB.Init(SetInit, OnHideUnity);
Same thing here:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/unity/reference/current/FB.Feed
If I use the "Example" code as it is I get errors.
Do I have to use specific names for the scripts?
This is my first time uploading a game and trying to add social features to it so these questions may seem simple, but I couldn't find an answer anywhere.

You should create your own class instead of "Example" class, where you put all your Facebook specific functions. Then you should invoke your methods with your own components, buttons, triggers, whatever.
It is also you, who should take care of pausing the game while running social functions (login, share etc.).

Related

What has replaced Application.CaptureScreenshot in Unity

My goal is to convert a block of text that is on the screen into an image and save it to the user's gallery (or downloads folder, or anywhere on there phone that allows them access to it)
On searching through the many many threads on this subject it seems the best way is to take a screenshot with the "camera".
However, the manual tells me to use Application.CaptureScreenshot but in unity it says that is depreciated.
All i can find on searching for alternatives are paid for assets (seems dodgy for something that should be so simple) and examples of using Application.CaptureScreenshot
ScreenCapture.CaptureScreenshot is what you are looking for now.

OwnCloud enhance core features with App (eg. user registration)

I started looking into OwnCloud app development to add some capabilities I would like to my server. To me it seems like Apps can't modify anything like the Login page or User Management page. Is this the case?
I want to build a user registration app and would love to integrate it into the user management page (if not and it has to exist as its own app page not a big deal). The one big problem I see so far is not being able to add a "Register" link to the login page. I could just go in and add it to the source manually, but I would like to keep the App self contained so others can use it too.
If this is not possible to do in an App I may just need to modify the core application and then see if they will accept my feature addition in a pull request.
Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on this for me. I don't want to waste my time trying to figure out how to do it with an App on the platform if it wont be doable.
After a lot of digging around I did figure out a way to do this.
In the App's app.php file, you can force a script to be loaded if the plugin is enabled:
$api->addScript('script_name'); // without .js
In that script jQuery can be used to add the elements to the page where you need them.
This was a good solution for me since I only needed to add a single button to the login page. I can see this being a bad idea if you want to make vast modifications. At that point you might as well just create a separate page that you have full control over.

How can I program a button on an Access form to link to a browser window that looks up multiple addresses on Google Maps?

My problem is very similar to the one posted here:
http://www.utteraccess.com/forum/Plotting-Addresses-Maps-t1968130.html
except that thread never found any solutions. Basically, I'm working on an Access form that has a datasheet as a subform. Upon clicking a button on the main form I'm trying to make it so that a browser window opens up and, using the address columns from the spreadsheet data in the subform, plot all the address markers listed. I've looked up a lot of ways to attempt this but I've yet to find a way that seems to work.
I'm not even sure if it's possible to plot multiple markers on Google Maps, but according to research (and after trying it myself) it seems like it isn't, although I don't want to rule it out entirely because I'm still not 100% sure. However I know both Google Earth and batchgeo.com do allow this. I still want to try and do this on Google Maps, but if that doesn't work I want to try to do it using batchgeo.com and if that still doesn't work, then Google Earth (I don't want to make the user download external software if possible).
If it helps, from what I've read API's seem like a useful tool, though I'm not sure how to apply it to an Access form, it seems more like a way to embed to already existing websites.
I'd really appreciate if someone could help me figure out how to approach this problem!
Maybe this would help?
http://ramblings.mcpher.com/Home/excelquirks/getmaps/mapmarkers
It is Excel but should be translatable.
Here is another example, this time using Access:
http://www.utteraccess.com/forum/Google-Maps-Multiple-Mar-t1973499.html
...from what I've read API's seem like a useful tool, though I'm not
sure how to apply it to an Access form, it seems more like a way to
embed to already existing websites.
You're right. There's no way, that I'm aware of, to embed a Google Maps object in a form (like an ActiveX control). Microsoft MapPoint is a software product that lets you do Map integration by way of an ActiveX control (no need to use HTML and/or javascript).
What I usually do on a project like you're working on is I get my HTML page working the way I want it to, outside and independent of MS Access. You should be able to program and test the HTML file locally without having to use an actual web server. Just use something like NotePad++ or Sublime Text Editor 2 to write your HTML and Javascript and then open the file in your browser to see if it works. I'm quite sure you'll need to use Javascript in your HTML page to make this work. That's what the Google Maps API is all about.
After you have your webpage working, then you will have to go into Access and write code to create that web page on the fly with the address data for the current data set. You can just write it out to the Windows Temp folder and then open your browser control that that web page.
Julian Knight's answer links to more specifics on how to create the HTML page on the fly. It looks like gobble-de-gook, mostly because it is. Outputting HTML/Javascript/CSS from VBA is far less than optimal. This is why you troubleshoot it outside of Access, as much as you can.

Porting Max/MSP .app to iOS

I've read a number of posts on Apple's forums, and a number of posts on the Cycling '74 forums (with my own questions scattered around both) and nobody seems to be able to help me.
I used Max/MSP to write a 'patch' that takes samples and generates music. I'm going to release it as an album similar to Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon, but wanted to make it available to people so they can have the music last for more than the hour a CD can hold.
What I don't know how to do, and can't figure out is HOW. It looks just like a regular OS X app, and the only difference I see in the directory structure is that my Max/MSP made application has extra .framework folders as well as the objects I use (which I guess are similar to 'functions' in JScript). I've looked at the package contents of both OS X files and the unpacked .ipa files from the App Store. Being so similar I would imagine it'd be pretty easy.
Where do I start? Has anybody on this forum done this? Thanks for your time!
[edit] - I just wanted to let you know I've discovered RJDJ, an iOS app that allows users to create 'scenes' in Puredata (Pd) and load them on their RJDJ program. I'd rather not go this route.
[edit2] - ok. I agree that it's very different. Especially having 4 (i could cut it down to 3) additional frameworks that aren't part of the SDK. But Ive been thinking. I can add a JavaScript object inside of my program, or make a special new object (object in max is sort of like a class in JS, i think) using C. Is there anything in these languages that would be able to convert a simple 'touch' to a 'mouseclick' in my app?
My application is very very simple. Basically just samples, played at randomly generated time intervals with some a 'conductor' to bring in/out the groups the samples are drawn from (piano, fx, etc...). So the user just clicks the 'start' button and off it goes. So the .nib file I would need to create is very simple. In my head it seems like the .ipa package/ios .app both contain unix executables and so long as these are basically the same it should work, right?
Max6 has been released.
A new object/concept named gen~ is available.
As far as I discussed with C74 dev, I know gen~ WILL provide its source code output. This code produce by the gen~ object could be useable in any other framework. basically, it will be C++
So it would really open A LOT of possibilities ; Max becoming a real graphical framework producing output that can be used in programming world.
It would save time for some part of the code.
As far as I can see from poking around at the Cycling '74 site and forums, there's currently no Max engine available for iOS. libpd is probably your best bet, really. (I'd note that the Inception app uses this Pure Data engine with a custom interface and it works very well.)
Unfortunately OSX and iOS apps are completely different under the hood. Outwardly they look similar (eg. you've noted the .app extension) but the internals are completely different.

iPhone SDK: Ideas on how to implement a help facility for application

We we wondering what are some ways developers have added a help function to their apps. What are some techniques people have used?
One way we were thinking of is to us UIWebView to display a HTML file with help instructions.
Thoughts appreciated.
I'm using UIWebView right now which pretty much contains all the help in a single page, along with some JQuery things to display popups, etc. But I like the way iCab Mobile (et al.) are doing things which is a sectioned UITableView with each row a separate topic or section within their overall help information (complete with icons...) then in their bundle they have each section in its own html file, organized by localization.
Another thing in my queue for the next release is to provide a dynamic "News" view. The rough idea is as follows... I have on my server a file or CGI where I can place small bits of news I'd like to push out to users. On startup, my app checks for network availability and if present, start a thread to see if anything has changed on the server since last updating the News data. If changes present, post an alert letting user know, and asking if they'd like to read it now. At that point, the latest news is already downloaded and cached, so they can simply read it later if they want, and I won't post anymore alerts until the server file changes again. (And one could add a preference/setting to disable these alerts.)
I'm thinking this would be a good way to let people know that some nasty bug is known and fixed and an update is sitting in the queue, solicit beta testers, promote upcoming features or other apps, etc. I can see where constant alerts everytime I've got something new to promote would get annoying, so having a setting to disable them means the user never has to read them unless they want to. Although some kind of override to warn of recently discovered/fixed bugs seems sensible.
FWIW, the author of Mover+/Mover has just started doing a similar thing, though I think Emanuele is perhaps only showing one Notelet at a time, whereas I envision a bit more of a history (shown in UIWebView) until I decide to age stuff off the bottom of the stack.
I'm using a scroll/page view to show several images containing small notes. Each image then tells the user about the more advanced functions on a specific part of the app.
In my opinion the help should only contain information that isn't a 100% relevant for the use of the application. It should be things the advanced user should use to make more use of the app. It should contain gold for the power users. The "basics" should be so obvious that no help would ever be needed. If that's not the case, I think, you've failed as a developer on the iPhone platform.
(Here's a screen shot from my demo app)
I'm currently creating a fairly complicated app. I'm thinking of doing help as a semi-transparent overlay - help in text form is hard to swallow for users; it's much more helpful to just point at stuff and say "this does that".