Transparent iphone application - iphone

I'm trying to build an application that is launched has a transparent background, in practice, showing only the objects in view (buttons, labels etc etc) but not the background so you can see the background the user's home.
In the example file you can see the purple square image at the center of the screen, in theory should be a normal UIView with a picture in the center but does not see the background of UIWindow/UIView.
Is possible to realize such a thing? Can anyone help me?
thanks

No. It's not possible using the official SDK. I'm interested to know why you would want to do this?

It might be possible, try setting the window background color to clear, as well as the view controller's view background color.
I say it might be possible because I've seen my home screen while using some apps, for example, the Facebook app sometimes shows it during a transition (it might be a bug on either Facebook or the OS).
Anyway, I'm pretty sure that kind of app would be rejected from the App Store, so be advised.

Related

iPhone App Icon Submission

I have submitted my iPhone app for approval and uploaded my icon.
Now, I get the feeling the corners on my icon aren't the right shape. I noticed this when uploading my app as in iTunes Connect it displays my icon with a pre-made shadow behind it and makes it look like my corners come in to tightly.
See the image here. Zoom in on it to get a better look.
You see the corner of my icon, then the shadow further out, below that. Anyone experienced this before? Will it look funny if I leave it? Black out that space? Or will it just stay transparent?
Thanks.
iTunes Connect has had this issue for sometime but it does not affect the main product, for piece of mind you can check the correct icon inside your uploaded versions detail page, it should show the 'Large App Icon' correctly

Which Launch Image Should I Use?

I'm building a game for the iphone, and the main window displays an image in the background describing the game, and I have few other layers of images which are the buttons such as Start New Game, Options and Help.
Should the launch image be only the background image describing the game without the extra image layers or should it be image including the other layers which are Start New Game, Option and Help?
Thanks.
The bit covering launch images can be found here. Below is an example launch image (left) provided by Apple.
Their docs specifically site concerns about localization, so it's probably best to do without the text and provide an image that just has your background chrome for the view.
The launch image should give the illusion of a really fast launching of your app. So the better image in your case is an hybrid of your proposal.
You should have the background image describing the game with the extra image layers without the text inside your buttons (Start new game, etc.) If you include the text, the user could think that your app is loaded and would tap on it.
Hope this helps
All the Apple guidelines on launch images are available here (scroll down to "Launch Images" section). It seems like the convention is to show buttons but not table view data, based on the examples show and from observing other Apple apps.
It's probably up to you to determine which looks better. I have seen many apps on the app store that totally ignore all of these things you aren't supposed to do:
An “application entry experience,” such as a splash screen
An About window
Branding elements, unless they are a static part of your application’s first screen
So I don't think it's that important for App Store acceptance, but it is very important for user experience.

custom uiwindow iphone

I want to customize default UIWindow. My aim is that the first window should be of size 320,100 so when user launches the application then he will just see window of size 320width and 100height (0,200,320,100) while remaining screen will be transparent and user will see other applications through transparent screen.
please help me out.
This is just not possible! Read some introduction stuff. Search for sandboxing for the reason why this does not work.

iPhone App Tutorial/Help Screen UI

What is the best way to create tutorial or help screens that can be viewed in an iPhone App on launch?
I'm debating between using two paradigms:
Edit a screenshot of the app with an image editing program to add static help text. Interaction is tapping or scrolling through the tips. This involves creating a custom UIViewController to advance to the next help screen.
Create a custom iPhone UIControl on top of the App user interface that can be tapped to advance to the next tutorial tip. The application will transition between the modes and will be active, rather than static. It involves adding hooks into the App's custom ViewController's to handle "TutorialUIControl" objects.
Here's some screenshots of the application that I need to make help screen UI for, it's an application that creates artwork. More App Information
Screenshot 1: View mode that allows viewers to scroll through an image list, like the UIImagePicker, but for custom image collections.
Screenshot 2: Action mode - allows viewers to select images to save to the "My Saved" album from the active art generation album "My Evolution" or evolve images using sexual/asexual image reproduction.
The "right" answer really depends on the application you are designing. I would highly suggest getting as many apps as you can and looking at how they do help. See what works and what doesn't and think about how that is related to your own design.
In my app (a game) I chose to build a set of static images that could be scrolled through to provide detailed help (based on Apple's sample code). But, I also built an interactive tutorial that plays the first time you run the game. I also pop up a welcome overlay the first time the app is run and suggest what button to press to start a game.
It also helps if you test your tutorial with a lot of different people. After several designs with things too complex, I boiled down my instructions to something extremely simple: "Press the green buttons", and then built up from there.
You can easily store a preference to say whether the app has been launched before, and if that entry is blank you run the tutorial again.
You can create an HTML tutorial that you view through a UIWebView. In on of my iPad apps, I just made a large image that I presented modally with images and text explaining how to use the app.
For iPhone, the best way to include a "How-To" tutorial for your app would have to be a web document, seeing as how you can add images and formatted text.
Alternatively, You can add more views to your controllers with transparent backgrounds and animated buttons and text, for a more interactive feel.
To answer my own questions many months later.
I revamped and used WEPopover to show my help popups, as seen in the iPhone/iPad App, Wallpaper Evolution Lite. The help disappears only if tapped or the button it was attached to was pressed. Using this flow I could highlight a series of buttons to the user.
I added help images within the application to highlight interaction behaviors with the content. The tap, zoom, and drag images are fully interactive.
As #WrightsCS mentioned HTML is another avenue. I use the UIWebView to provide a more in depth help/tips screen with contact information.
In my upcoming app, I'm making use of a paging UIScrollView with help content highlighting app features. The help screen is loaded on the first start of the app, and is accessible through a help menu option.
Here's my fork of the WEPopover github project: https://github.com/PaulSolt/WEPopover

How to make an iPhone view transparent?

I have developed a project that has a single view. Now I want the view to be transparant so that I can see the iPhone menu. Is this possible and if so, how?
Thanks.
No, you can't see the springboard in your apps.
It is NOT possible to do that. You can't make the whole app transparent so that you see the springboard icons.
Of course, you could set a homescreen screenshot as background image in your app. But, as already said, it's not possible to do that what you want.