iPhone - Get user interaction event and automatic logout - iphone

In my iPhone app I want to logout the user if nothing happens till about 2 minutes (e.g. the user puts down the phone). Does anybody has such issue? What is the best way to implement this feature? I think I save the date of last event to NSUserDefaults, then on the next event first I check the current date. If the difference is larger than 2 minutes go to login screen, else refresh the stored date. But how can I get the touch event generally?
Thanks, madik

There's a method in UIApplicationDelegate for that:
- (void)applicationWillResignActive:(UIApplication *)application
{
/*
Sent when the application is about to move from active to inactive state. This can occur for certain types of temporary interruptions (such as an incoming phone call or SMS message) or when the user quits the application and it begins the transition to the background state.
Use this method to pause ongoing tasks, disable timers, and throttle down OpenGL ES frame rates. Games should use this method to pause the game.
*/
}
Note that it also will be called when the app is going to background state. That will help you store the data whenever the app is going to inactive state. If you want to check if a certain amount of time has passed, you will have to use a NSTimer and store the last touch event. I think it cannot be done because you can't intercept all the touch events (Maybe it's over an object managed by the system. The status bar is an example). I guess is better to let the system to manage all the activity/inactivity stuff and store your data when necessary.
EDIT: I didn't understand what you mean the first time. Check this accepted answer, it accomplish what you need. Basically you have to subclass UIApplication and override sendEvent method.

'NSTimer'
When you say "how can I get the touch event generally?", if you mean how can you tell if the user is idle or not, you'll have to set up some system to gather all touch events at a higher level in your app. You could update the last touch time you mentioned in NSUserDefaults but that may be inefficient during the run of the app, so you could just post the touch event to your main app delegate and have it save the time of last touch. Which would also be where you could set up the 2 minute timer.
Something like:
- (void) someAppDelegateMethodThatYouCallForAnyUserEvent
{
[self.idleTimer invalidate];
self.lastEvent = [NSDate now];
self.idleTimer = [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:120 target:self selector:#selector(logoutAndGotoLogin) userInfo:nil repeats:NO];
...
}
You'll also have to do some cleanup in your app delegate methods when the app goes to background etc if you support that behavior.

Related

Where to register for applicationWillResignActive using UIStoryboard

Looking at the example in Beginning iOS 5 for persisting your application state, in the first viewController that is shown for the app, they register for applicationWillResignActive in viewDidLoad:. So that makes sense to me in that you register for that notification when your first view is shown.
I'm confused on whether you always do this, or where you typically register for this notification. Q1) Like do they register for this notification in this viewController so they can recreate this view? Q2) If so, do I do this for each viewController?
Q3) I'm using UIStoryboard and my first viewController is a UITabBarController. So do I register for the notification in the first tab's viewController?
I also have a singleton DataManager object that holds the data for the app if that helps anyone guide me in the right direction of where I should save my data. Thanks!
These methods are in the AppDelegate.m
- (void)applicationWillResignActive:(UIApplication *)application
{
/*
Sent when the application is about to move from active to inactive state. This can occur for certain types of temporary interruptions (such as an incoming phone call or SMS message) or when the user quits the application and it begins the transition to the background state.
Use this method to pause ongoing tasks, disable timers, and throttle down OpenGL ES frame rates. Games should use this method to pause the game.
*/
}
You can perform your actions here. You can however register to "listen" to that event in another view controller (like your example) but that is just to make it easier to send that event notification into that viewcontroller.
1) no, only to ensure that whenver this VC is loaded it will be able to listen to this event.
2) no, only for the ones you want to pass the even easily like this. However using the appdelegate.m and each's vc view did appear is better.
3) depends on the kind of data you want to save, but typically you create your own file and just save it to disk like in any other OS. ios gives you access to the "documents" folder of your app and each folder is used for something specific, read the documentation.

iPhone: NSTimer stops temporarily when a touch action is performed?

I am developing an iOS application where I trigger the NSTimer repeatedly for every 0.5 seconds and based on that timer I move a song progress bar. I handle touch events when the user touches on some images, which I keep in the same view.
However, when the user touches the images, the timer for moving the progress bar stops temporarily and continues again. Are there any problems that we should cater for when wanting to handle the timer and touch events at the same time in the same view?
Is there a reason for the temporary stoppage when touching the images?
It sounds like there is too much going on on the main thread of the app. The timer method calls are delivered on the main run loop as are the touch events. Make sure that neither your touch event handler nor your timer handlers are doing any serious computational or IO work on the main thread.
In working with the highest level audio framework in iOS (AVPlayer) it only updates the current position in the audio track once a second. So, maybe having the timer call every 0.5 seconds is overkill, maybe every 1 or 0.9 seconds would reduce the contention a bit.

How to schedule events programmatically in ios?

I have been tasked to write an app that allows a user to schedule emails to be sent out in future.
The user selects a date time from a date picker, composes the message and recipient and then schedules the event. When the date/time occurs the message is sent out.
Can someone guide me to how to get about scheduling lets say a text message. I know how to send a text message. Just was not sure on the scheduling aspect of things.
Any pointers will be much appreciated.
The first response will technically allow you to establish a timer that will fire every 2.5 seconds, however the original poster asked for a solution that would fire at a specific time. For that you need to use the following method of NSTimer:
- (id)initWithFireDate:(NSDate *)date interval:(NSTimeInterval)seconds target:(id)target selector:(SEL)aSelector userInfo:(id)userInfo repeats:(BOOL)repeats
The first argument is an NSDate indicating when the timer should fire.
The original poster did not specify, but if this is an iOS app then it is important to understand that timers scheduled to fire at a distant date/time will not fire if your app is not the foreground app. In fact there is no way to schedule such an event to occur when your app is in the background on iOS, so you must take that into account.
Here's a snippet of code which sets a one use timer to call self's imageSavedLabelOff: selector with itself (the timer) as the object parameter to the method. The timer schedules the call to be made in 2.5 seconds.
NSTimer *quickie = [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:2.5 target:self selector:#selector(imageSavedLabelOff:) userInfo:nil repeats:NO];
You may have already found the answer by now but for future visiters like me I would like to suggest an answer- i.e. EventKit :
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/DataManagement/Conceptual/EventKitProgGuide/ReadingAndWritingEvents.html
You can schedule/fetch events for any time and do your stuff accordingly. Hope this helps somebody.
You should be able to achieve this using NSRunLoop. Check out the Threading Programming Guide.
Apart from the use of NSTimer, you should be aware that sending of the E-Mail can fail for several reasons (no network available and others). Then you need to reschedule the request, maybe give up after 3 retries and notify the user about this.
You can use -
[self performSelector:#selector(myFunc:) withObject:nil afterDelay:5.0];

iPhone 4: when to save data?

I have an app (a game) which saves data: game state, high scores, achievements, etc. Currently the app delegate does this on applicationWillTerminate:. After playing around with iPhone 4 for a bit, it seems that applications pretty much never terminate: they just run in the background forever, unless the user goes out of their way to quit them, or restart the phone.
So my question is, should I find another place to save my data, and if so, when?
To minimize the amount of time spent in the delegate method call, you should find a place that makes sense to save during the game (level completion, checkpoints, etc). You can also add a new delegate method to your application delegate which will be called when your application transitions to the background where you can duplicate some of the things you may have done previously in applicationWillTerminate:. The new delegate method to implement is -applicationDidEnterBackground:.
You will also receive a notification that the user switched back to your app as applicationWillEnterForeground:.
you can do so in the views diddisappear delegate method
-(void)viewDidDisappear:(BOOL)animated
{
//CODE FOR SAVING
}
There are 2 App delegate methods you can use
applicationDidResignActive: //pausing the app, used when a msg comes up. if multitasking this wont help
applicationDidEnterBackground: // called in iOS 4 for when the app is in the background
you can see when it loads into the foreground using
applicationWillEnterForeground:
check out the reference for more info
You should save in applicationDidEnterBackground. Make sure to wrap your saving code with – beginBackgroundTaskWithExpirationHandler: and endBackgroundTask, since without that, you have less than a second (or something like that) before execution suspends.

IPhone - How to fire the event immediately

I am working on Iphone application and new to dev. I am sorry if my question is very basic one. I searched net, but could not get answer.
My question is, when user touches the iphone, I want to get that event to be exexecuted immediately instead of waiting for the previous event to complete.
I call while loop(present in different class) inside touchBegan method. I want to stop that loop when I get another touch event. But touchBegan event is not called (instead queued) as I am still present in the touch began.
Can anybody please help me how to fire the touch event immediately instead of waiting for the previous event to finish.
Thank you in advance.
On the iPhone, one event has to run to completion before the next event is processed. Basically you want to have code which does not run for a long time so that your app remains responsive to user input.
There are a number of way you can handle this.
Put some of the code in a new thread and start that thread from your touchBegan method.
Or turn the loop into multiple events on the main thread. You can do this by calling:
- (void)initializeLoop
{
loopCounter = 0;
[self performSelector:#selector(nextLoop) withObject:nil afterDelay:0.0];
}
- (void)nextLoop
{
loopCounter++;
if (loopCounter<MaxCount)
[self performSelector:#selector(nextLoop) withObject:nil afterDelay:0.0];
}
That way the new touchEnded event can be handled between these other events. Setting the delay higher than 0.0 will make the app even more responsive.