I have an algorithm that takes a few seconds to load some stuff, and I want to first set the string on a label to say "loading" before the actual loading begins. This is all within the same layer, this is not switching between scenes.
I thought I could simply do this:
-(void)startLoading{
[self unscheduleAllSelectors];//just in case the update is already scheduled
[self.loadingLabel setString:#"Loading...."];
[self scheduleUpdate];
}
Then, I have this:
-(void)update:(ccTime)delta{
[self unscheduleUpdate];
[self beginLoading];//another method that loads all the stuff
}
My understanding is that my method beginLoading should not run until the next frame. Thus my label should get updated correctly. However this is not happening. There is a slight freeze while all my assets get loaded and my label never gets updated before the loading begins.
Am I missing a step?
Nope ure not missing anything. I stopped fighting this and now use this kind of 'delayed' task catapult. It should make certain you will get a draw in the transition from the first to the second tick:
-(void) startLoading{
_loadTicker=0; // an NSUInteger iVar declared in the .h
[self schedule:#selector(tickOffLoading:)];
}
-(void) tickOffLoading:(ccTime) dt{
_loadTicker++;
if(_loadTicker==1) {
[self.loadingLabel setString:#"Loading...."];
} else {
[self unschedule:#selector(tickOffLoading:)];
[self beginLoading];
}
}
Related
How can I check if a method is or isn't running, in an if statement? For example-
if ([(UIButton *)sender isEqual:blueButton] && **showBlueText method is running** )
{
Keep playing.
}
else if ([(UIButton *)sender isEqual:blueButton] && **showBlueText method is NOT running** )
{
Game over.
}
-(void)showBlueText
{
blueText.hidden = NO;
[self performSelector:#selector(hideText) withObject:nil afterDelay:textDelay];
[self performSelector:#selector(showGreenText) withObject:nil afterDelay:hideDelay];
}
Just to clarify, 'showBlueText' is a part of its own loop that runs independently of this if statement. I'm just trying to check if showBlueText is currently running.
You want to record state here. Make a new instance variable in this class.
// new iVar
BOOL textIsShowing;
// method
-(void)showBlueText {
textIsShowing = YES;
blueText.hidden = NO;
[self performSelector:#selector(hideText) withObject:nil afterDelay:textDelay];
}
// method
- (void)hideText {
textIsShowing = NO;
blueText.hidden = YES;
}
// button press
- (void)buttonPressed {
if (textIsShowing) {
NSLog(#"Keep playing");
} else {
NSLog(#"Game over");
}
}
Between the time you call this method, and the animation stops, don't think of it as "running". It schedules code to be executed later. Instead you want to be notified after it has finally run.
And in this case it's easiest to keep track of the state yourself. Use a new variable to track the state of things, and change it's value when that state changes.
But can't you just check if (blueText.hidden)? Yeah, you could. But it's bad practice to store state about your program in some obscure property of a random unimportant object.
Examine your state to figure out what you show. Don't examine what's showing to figure out your state.
I suggest replace Keep playing or Game over or Doing stuff with NSLog() statements. I always use it to keep a track of the changes in program if I am getting unexpected result.
So your statement may look like:
NSLog(#"Keep playing");
I hope this helps.
Just check if the text is hidden. No need to store parallel state in your controller - all that does is create the possibility that they'll be out of sync.
I'd like to display an activity indicator BEFORE the work undertaken by willAnimateRotationToInterfaceOrientation:duration: begins. Most of the time in my app, this work is quickly completed and there would be no need for an activity indicator, but occasionally (first rotation, i.e. before I have cached data, when working with a large file) there can be a noticeable delay. Rather than re-architect my app to cope with this uncommon case, I'd rather just show the UIActivityIndicatorView while the app generates a cache and updates the display.
The problem is (or seems to be) that the display is not updated between the willRotateToInterfaceOrientation:duration and the willAnimateRotationToInterfaceOrientation:duration: method. So asking iOS to show UIActivityIndicator view in willRotate method doesn't actually affect the display until after the willAnimateRotation method.
The following code illustrates the issue. When run, the activity indicator appears only very briefly and AFTER the simulateHardWorkNeededToGetDisplayInShapeBeforeRotation method has completed.
Am I missing something obvious? And if not, any smart ideas as to how I could work around this issue?
Update: While suggestions about farming the heavy lifting off to another thread etc. are generally helpful, in my particular case I kind of do want to block the main thread to do my lifting. In the app, I have a tableView all of whose heights need to be recalculated. When - which is not a very common use case or I wouldn't even be considering this approach - there are very many rows, all the new heights are calculated (and then cached) during a [tableView reloadData]. If I farm the lifting off and let the rotate proceed, then after the rotate and before the lifting, my tableView hasn't been re-loaded. In the portrait to landscape case, for example, it doesn't occupy the full width. Of course, there are other workarounds, e.g. building a tableView with just a few rows prior to the rotate and then reloading the real one over that etc.
Example code to illustrate the issue:
#implementation ActivityIndicatorViewController
#synthesize activityIndicatorView = _pgActivityIndicatorView;
#synthesize label = _pgLabel;
- (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation
{
return (interfaceOrientation != UIInterfaceOrientationPortraitUpsideDown);
}
- (void) willRotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)toInterfaceOrientation duration:(NSTimeInterval)duration;
{
NSLog(#"willRotate");
[self showActivityIndicatorView];
}
- (void) willAnimateRotationToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)toInterfaceOrientation duration:(NSTimeInterval)duration;
{
NSLog(#"willAnimateRotation");
[self simulateHardWorkNeededToGetDisplayInShapeBeforeRotation];
}
- (void) didRotateFromInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)fromInterfaceOrientation;
{
NSLog(#"didRotate");
[self hideActivityIndicatorView];
}
- (void) simulateHardWorkNeededToGetDisplayInShapeBeforeRotation;
{
NSLog(#"Starting simulated work");
NSDate* date = [NSDate date];
while (fabs([date timeIntervalSinceNow]) < 2.0)
{
//
}
NSLog(#"Finished simulated work");
}
- (void) showActivityIndicatorView;
{
NSLog(#"showActivity");
if (![self activityIndicatorView])
{
UIActivityIndicatorView* activityIndicatorView = [[UIActivityIndicatorView alloc] initWithActivityIndicatorStyle:UIActivityIndicatorViewStyleGray];
[self setActivityIndicatorView:activityIndicatorView];
[[self activityIndicatorView] setCenter:[[self view] center]];
[[self activityIndicatorView] startAnimating];
[[self view] addSubview: [self activityIndicatorView]];
}
// in shipping code, an animation with delay would be used to ensure no indicator would show in the good cases
[[self activityIndicatorView] setHidden:NO];
}
- (void) hideActivityIndicatorView;
{
NSLog(#"hideActivity");
[[self activityIndicatorView] setHidden:YES];
}
- (void) dealloc;
{
[_pgActivityIndicatorView release];
[super dealloc];
}
- (void) viewDidLoad;
{
UILabel* label = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(50.0, 50.0, 0.0, 0.0)];
[label setText:#"Activity Indicator and Rotate"];
[label setTextAlignment: UITextAlignmentCenter];
[label sizeToFit];
[[self view] addSubview:label];
[self setLabel:label];
[label release];
}
#end
The app doesn't update the screen to show the UIActivityIndicatorView until the main run loop regains control. When a rotation event happens, the willRotate... and willAnimateRotation... methods are called in one pass through the main run loop. So you block on the hard work method before displaying the activity indicator.
To make this work, you need to push the hard work over to another thread. I would put the call to the hard work method in the willRotate... method. That method would call back to this view controller when the work is completed so the view can be updated. I would put show the activity indicator in the willAnimateRotation... method. I wouldn't bother with a didRotateFrom... method. I recommend reading the Threaded Programming Guide.
Edit in response to a comment: You can effectively block user interaction by having the willAnimateRotation... method put a non functioning interface on screen such as a view displaying a dark overlay over and the UIActivityIndicatorView. Then when the heavy lifting is done, this overlay is removed, and the interface becomes active again. Then the drawing code will have the opportunity to properly add and animate the activity indicator.
More digging (first in Matt Neuberg's Programming iPhone 4) and then this helpful question on forcing Core Animation to run its thread from stackoverflow and I have a solution that seems to be working well. Both Neuberg and Apple issue strong caution about this approach because of the potential for unwelcome side effects. In testing so far, it seems to be OK for my particular case.
Changing the code above as follows implements the change. The key addition is [CATransaction flush], forcing the UIActivityIndicatorView to start displaying even though the run loop won't be ended until after the willAnimateRotationToInterfaceOrientation:duration method completes.
- (void) willRotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)toInterfaceOrientation duration:(NSTimeInterval)duration;
{
NSLog(#"willRotate");
[self showActivityIndicatorView];
[CATransaction flush]; // this starts the animation right away, w/o waiting for end of the run loop
}
- (void) willAnimateRotationToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)toInterfaceOrientation duration:(NSTimeInterval)duration;
{
NSLog(#"willAnimateRotation");
[self simulateHardWorkNeededToGetDisplayInShapeBeforeRotation];
[self hideActivityIndicatorView];
}
- (void) didRotateFromInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)fromInterfaceOrientation;
{
NSLog(#"didRotate");
}
Try performing you work on a second thread after showing the activity view.
[self showActivityIndicatorView];
[self performSelector:#selector(simulateHardWorkNeededToGetDisplayInShapeBeforeRotation) withObject:nil afterDelay:0.01];
Either execute the heavy lifting in a background thread and post the results in the foreground thread to update the UI (UIKit is only thread safe since iOS 4.0):
[self performSelectorInBackground:#selector(simulateHardWorkNeededToGetDisplayInShapeBeforeRotation) withObject:nil]
Or you can schedule the heavy lifting method to be executed after the rotation took place:
[self performSelector:#selector(simulateHardWorkNeededToGetDisplayInShapeBeforeRotation) withObject:nil afterDelay:0.4]
But these are only hacks and the real solution is to have proper background processing if your UI needs heavy processing to get updated, may it be in portrait or landscape. NSOperation and NSOperationQueue is a good place to start.
So I have a subclass of a CCSprite object, and in its init method, I call:
[self scheduleUpdate]
I later release this object from its parent CCNode like so:
[self removeChild:sprite cleanup:YES];
In addition, I call [self unscheduleUpdate] in the sprite's dealloc method.
However, I'm getting a bad memory access, so it appears that the update method is still attempted after the object is released (I've narrowed it down to this, as it works perfectly if I comment out the [self scheduleUpdate] line.
Any ideas?
Found this post in an attempt to ask the same question. I tried unschedule update (within my init method as well) with no luck, but then realized that by moving the [self unscheduleUpdate]; to the actual update method (which is running continuously, unlike the init method) based on a condition it worked!
So, for those looking for copy paste, here's a progress bar example that I'm implementing from http://www.ccsprite.com/cocos2d/using-ccprogresstimer-cocos2d-example.html#HCB_comment_box
-(id) init
{
//initialize progress bar, make sure to add a file named green_health_bar.png to your
//resource folder
timer = [CCProgressTimer progressWithFile:#"green_health_bar.png"];
//set the progress bar type to horizontal from left to right
timer.type = kCCProgressTimerTypeHorizontalBarRL;
//initialize the progress bar to zero
timer.percentage = 0;
//add the CCProgressTimer to our layer and set its position
[self addChild:timer z:1 tag:20];
[timer setPosition:ccp(100, 280)];
[self scheduleUpdate];
}
and in your update method:
-(void)update:(ccTime)dt
{
//get progress bar
CCNode* node = [self getChildByTag:20];
timer.percentage += dt * 10;
if (timer.percentage >= 100)
{
[self gameOver]; //used to stop parallax and show gameover menu
[self unscheduleUpdate];
}
}
I usually don't allow forum reply emails, but feel free to ask questions via #russ152!
Hmm.. try not to use scheduleUpdate? I tried looking for self unscheduleUpdate but there is not such function in a CCNode.. You can try [self unscheduleAllselectors], which stops all selectors of the object , including the update selector, if you are not using the object anymore.. Or use custom selectors instead..
I have a loading screen that I initialise with a label to display the loading progression.
I want to call my DataManager AFTER initialising the loading screen, and then call a method to switch scenes. Here is my code:
-(id) init {
if((self=[super init]))
{
loadingLabel = ....
[self addChild:loadingLabel];
/***** This is what I want to call after the init method
//DataManager loads everything needed for the level, and has a reference to the
//loading screen so it can update the label
[[DataManager sharedDataManager] loadLevel:#"level1" screen:self];
//this will switch the scene
[self finishLoading];
*****/
}
return self;
}
-(void) setLoadingPercentage:(int) perc {
//changes the label
}
-(void) finishLoading {
[[CCDirector sharedDirector] replaceScene:[Game node]];
}
So I can't call the datamanager in the init, because the label will not get updated as content gets loaded, and I can't switch scenes in the init method. So How do I run my datamanger and finish loading AFTER the init? My plan was to set a schedule at an interval of 1 second that does this, but it doesn't seem right to have to wait a second.
EDIT: another way I could do it is to schedule at every frame and ask the datamanager where its at... This seems better already, since the datamanager wouldn't need a reference to the loading screen.
Any ideas?
You can use performSelector:withObject:afterDelay: to force the execution of the specified selector during the next iteration of the current threads run loop:
[self performSelector:#selector(finishLoading) withObject:nil afterDelay:0.0f];
The above answer is correct, but you should use the Cocos2d way to schedule methods to run later:
[self schedule:#selector(finishLoading) interval:0.1];
-(void)finishLoading
{
[self unschedule:#selector(finishLoading)];
//Do your stuff
}
I am able to download a ZIP file from the internet. Post processing is done in connectionDidFinishLoading and works OK except no UIView elements are updated. For example, I set statusUpdate.text = #"Uncompressing file" but that change does not appear until after connectionDidFinishLoading has completed. Similarly, the UIProgressView and UIActivityIndicatorView objects are not updated until this method ends.
Is there any way to force an update of the UIView from within this method? I tried setting [self.view setNeedsDisplay] but that didn't work. It appears to be running in the main thread. All other commands here work just fine - the only problem is updating the UI.
Thanks!
Update: here is the code that is NOT updating the UIVIEW:
-(void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated {
timer = [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:1.0 target:self selector:#selector(processUpdate:) userInfo:nil repeats:YES];
downloadComplete = NO;
statusText.text = #"";
}
-(void)processUpdate:(NSTimer *)theTimer {
if (! downloadComplete) {
return;
}
[timer invalidate];
statusText.text = #"Processing update file.";
progress.progress = 0.0;
totalFiles = [newFiles count];
for (id fileName in newFiles) {
count++;
progress.progress = (float)count / (float)totalFiles;
// ... process code goes here ...
}
}
At then end of processUpdate, I set downloadComplete = YES. This builds & runs without errors and works as intended except nothing updates in the UIVIEW until after processUpdate completes, then everything updates at once.
Thanks for your help so far!
As Niels said, you must return control to the run loop if you want to see views update. But don't start detaching new threads unless you really need to. I recommend this approach:
- (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSConnection *)connection {
statusUpdate.text = #"Uncompressing file";
[self performSelector:#selector(doUncompress) withObject:nil afterDelay:0];
}
- (void)doUncompress {
// Do work in 100 ms chunks
BOOL isFinished = NO;
NSDate *breakTime = [NSDate dateWithTimeIntervalSinceNow:100];
while (!isFinished && [breakTime timeIntervalSinceNow] > 0) {
// do some work
}
if (! isFinished) {
statusUpdate.text = // here you could update with % complete
// better yet, update a progress bar
[self performSelector:#selector(doUncompress) withObject:nil afterDelay:0];
} else {
statusUpdate.text = #"Done!";
// clean up
}
}
The basic idea is that you do work in small chunks. You return from your method to allow the run loop to execute periodically. The calls to performSelector: will ensure that control eventually comes back to your object.
Note that a risk of doing this is that a user could press a button or interact with the UI in some way that you might not expect. It may be helpful to call UIApplication's beginIgnoringInteractionEvents to ignore input while you're working... unless you want to be really nice and offer a cancel button that sets a flag that you check in your doUncompress method...
You could also try running the run loop yourself, calling [[NSRunLoop currentRunLoop] runUntilDate:...] every so often, but I've never tried that in my own code.
While you are in connectionDidFinishLoading nothing else happens in the application run loop. Control needs to be passed back to the run loop so it can orchestrate the UI updating.
Just flag the data transfer as complete and the views for updating. Defer any heavy processing of the downloaded data to it's own thread.
The application will call your views back letting them refresh their contents later in the run loop. Implement drawRect on your own custom views as appropriate.
If you're receiving connectionDidFinishLoading in the main thread, you're out of luck. Unless you return from this method, nothing will be refreshed in the UI.
On the other hand, if you run the connection in a separate thread, then you can safely update the UI using the following code:
UIProgressView *prog = ... <your progress view reference> ...
[prog performSelectorOnMainThread:#selector(setProgress:)
withObject:[NSNumber numberWithFloat:0.5f]
waitUntilDone:NO];
Be careful not to update the UI from a non-main thread - always use the performSelectorOnMainThread method!
Do exactly what you're doing with the timer, just dispatch your processing code to a new thread with ConnectionDidFinish:. Timers can update the UI since they're run from the main thread.
The problem turned out to that the UI isn't updated in a for() loop. See the answer in this thread for a simple solution!