How hard would be be to recreate Windows Phone 7 UI animations on an iOS device using UIKit?
More specifically, making animated boxes gradually move from side-to-side, and appear in a chained manner.
For example, windows phone 7 transitions here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUeNCzRhhDE
At 0:30 - the parallax scrolling effect (relatively easy?);
At 1:22 - the chained animation of the home screen;
Is this possible with CoreAnimation and UILayers, if so how complex would it get?
Thanks
It's not incredibly hard. For some things like parallax scrolling you can just use some of the basic view animation code and set different timings for different elements to get the effect.
Look at the animations Apple has in the Apple stores for providing help (similar to some of their screen savers). These are similar to what Windows is doing.
The bigger question would be whether it improves the user experience or just makes them wait longer to be able to interact your application.
Related
I have a very intriguing obstacle to overcome. I am trying to display the live contents of a UIView in another, separate UIView.
What I am trying to accomplish is very similar to Mission Control in Mac OS X. In Mission Control, there are large views in the center, displaying the desktop or an application. Above that, there are small views that can be reorganized. These small views display a live preview of their corresponding app. The preview is instant, and the framerate is exact. Ultimately, I am trying to recreate this effect, as cheaply as possible.
I have tried many possible solutions, and the one shown here is as close as I have gotten. It works, however the - (void)drawLayer:(CALayer *)layer inContext:(CGContextRef)ctx method isn't called on every change. My solution was to call [cloneView setNeedsDisplay] using a CADisplayLink, so it is called on every screen refresh. It is very near my goal, but the framerate is extremely low. I think that [CALayer renderInContext:] is much too slow.
If it is possible to have two CALayers render the same source, that would be golden. However, I am not sure how to approach this. Luckily, this is simply a concept app and isn't destined for the App Store, so I can make use of the private APIs. I have looked into IOSurface and Quartz contexts, but I haven't been able to solve this puzzle so far. Any input would be greatly appreciated!
iOS and OSX are actually mostly the same underneath at the lowest level. (However, when you get higher up the stack iOS is actually largely more advanced than OSX as it is newer and had a fresh start)
However, in this case they both use the same thing (I believe). You'll notice something about Mission Control. It isolates "windows" rather than views. On iOS each UIWindow has a ".contentID" property and CALayerHost can use to make the render server share the render context between the 2 of them (2 layers that is).
So my advice is to make your views separate UIWindows and get native mirroring for free-(ish). (In my experience the CALayerHost takes over the target layers place with the render server and so if both the CALayerHost and the window are visible the window won't be anymore, only the layer host will be (which the way they are used on OSX and iOS isn't a problem).)
So if you are after true mirroring, 2 copies of it, you'll need to resort to the sort of thing you were thinking about.
1 Option for this is to create a UIView subclass that uses
https://github.com/yyfrankyy/iOS5.1-Framework-Headers/blob/master/UIKit.framework/UIView-Rendering.h#L12
this UIView private method to get an IOSurface for a target view and then using a CADisplayLink once per second get and draw the surface.
Another option which may work (I'm not sure as I don't know your setup or desired effect) is possibly just to use a CAReplicatorLayer which displays a mirror of a CALayer using the same backing store (very fast and efficient + public stable API).
Sorry I couldn't give you a fixed, "this is the answer reply", but hopefully I've given you enough ideas and possibilities to get started.
I've also included some links to things you might find useful to read.
What's the magic behind CAReplicatorLayer?
http://aptogo.co.uk/2011/08/no-fuss-reflections/
http://iphonedevwiki.net/index.php/SBAppContextHostManager
http://iphonedevwiki.net/index.php/SBAppContextHostView
http://iphonedevwiki.net/index.php/CALayerHost
http://iky1e.tumblr.com/post/33109276151/recreating-remote-views-ios5
http://iky1e.tumblr.com/post/14886675036/current-projects-understanding-ios-app-rendering
I'm looking for help with a performance issue in an Objective-C based iOS app.
I have an iOS application that captures the screen's contents using CALayer's renderInContext method. It attempts to capture enough screen frames to create a video using AVFoundation. The screen recording is then combined with other elements for research purposes on usability. While the screen is being captured, the app may also be displaying the contents of a UIWebView, going out over the network to fetch data, etc... The content of the Web view is not under my control - it is arbitrary content from the Web.
This setup is working but as you might imagine, it's not buttery smooth. Since the layer must be rendered on the main thread, there's more UI contention than I'd like. What I'd like to do is to have a setup where the responsiveness of the UI is prioritized over the screen capture. For instance, if the user is scrolling the Web view, I'd rather drop frames on the recording than have a terrible scrolling experience.
I've experimented with several techniques, from dispatch_source coalescing to submitting the frame capture requests as blocks to the main queue to CADisplayLink. So far they all seem to perform about the same. The frame capture is currently being triggered in the drawRect of the screen's main view.
What I'm asking here is: given the above, what techniques would you suggest I try to achieve my goals? I realize the answer may be that there is no great answer... but I'd like to try anything, however wacky it might sound.
NOTE: Whatever techniques need to be App Store friendly. Can't use something like the CoreSurface hack that Display Recorder used/uses.
Thanks for your help!
"Since the layer must be rendered on the main thread" this is not true, as long as you don't touch UIKit.
Please see https://stackoverflow.com/a/12844171/136305
Maybe you can record at half resolution to speed up things, if that fits the requirements?
i need to merge 5 monitors in XNA (something like Eyefinity).
I have two graphics cards (HD 5450), which have DP connector, of course,
5x flat monitors with resolution 1024*768.
I need to merge/group this monitors in XNA, because i want fullscreen this over 5 monitors.
(fullscreen over multiple monitors)
I just need the visual studio to detect one graphics device with resolution 5120x768.
How i should modify GraphicsDeviceManager / GraphicsAdapter, make it work ?
I cant use Eyefinity, because i have two graphic cards and that i'm trying do "my own eyefinity" in xna.
In my app, i have 5 models dividing to 5 viewports, which are moved every 1024px.
OR, how i should to make it looking like a fullscreen. I don't want the border being visible and i want to have in the middle of screen - how center it ?
Thanks for answers.
To be honest this is going to be difficult if not impossible to do using XNA. And you'd have to get so far outside of what the XNA framework is providing you that there would be little benefit in the end to even using XNA at that point.
Here's a great thread on the App Hub forums talking about different ways of potentially hacking around the XNA framework to achieve multiple monitor fullscreen using XNA.
http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/5562/571993.aspx
As you can see, no one really had any great suggestions and by the time you were dong you were basically programming at such a low level that you might as well be doing C++ and DirectX. Which is exactly what I would recommend to you.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb206364(v=vs.85).aspx
Using DirectX you can see that you're going to get a game/application running fullscreen with a multiple monitor setup much faster and without having to hack your way into it.
I am developing an RSS-reader-type application. I am toying with the possibility of using a normal TableView application but showing the articles as a film-strip. I am mainly thinking for an iPad application (but possible it works on the smaller iPhone as well).
The idea is to have the cells passing/scrolling across the screen using swipe touches (but horizontal, and not vertical as with the normal TableView). They will be some-kind of miniatures of the full article, and when tapped (or with multi-touch zoom to have better control) can be enlarged to read. Then can then just be be moved on as soon as the user has seen enough of it.
Does anybody know if there is an easy way of accomplishing something like that?
The most obvious solution that springs to mind would be to use a UIScrollView, as this will provide the inertial effects, etc. for free - all you'd have to do it populate it with the relevant sub-views. (UITableView's actually use a UIScrollView.)
For more information and sample code, see Apple's UIScrollView docs.
If you want horizontal scrolling, take a look at Jeremy Tregunna’s JScrollingRow. It’s open source under a public domain licence.
I'm about to finish an app and now I wanted to add an animated splash screen with my company logo after the app finishes loading and launching. I can just use an animation with openGL for this, but I was wondering if it would be better to use a video..it's easier for me and the artist because he will only provide with an small video which i would reproduce after my app finish launching..less work.
I wonder if it's a good idea to do so...can I reproduce a small short video with the logo of my company or should i stick to making an animation ?
Also, reproducing video is memory intensive ?, because I'm loading some texture after my app finishes launching, and im wrried about that.
If i end up reproducing an small video, can i make it non interactive ? ( no pause, play stop, ect) so it looks like just as another animation to the eyes of the user ?
My other preocupation is quality...the quality of the video will look dramatically different to my animations in openGL ?
Thanks !
I can't tell you about the technical stuff, but what I can tell you is: don't use a splash screen. Directly from the Human Interface Guidelines:
Supply a launch image to improve user experience; avoid using it as an opportunity to provide:
• An “application entry experience,” such as a splash screen
...
Because users are likely to switch among applications frequently, you should make every effort to cut launch time to a minimum, and you should design a launch image that downplays the experience rather than drawing attention to it.
The HIG guidelines are intended (as far as I can tell) for Apps on the iPhone.
This is different from Games on the iPhone.
If your app provides some utility to the user, I agree completely with #Costique, #fabian789, and the HIG. The app should start instantly, with minimal loading and other distracting crap.
For a game, however, intros and the like are not only expected, but can also lead to a better user experience. My recommendation is to use a UIView Animation for only a small portion of the screen (the logo only). See Angry Birds as an example - their "animation" starts the same time the user's options do, so your animation (while quite pretty) doesn't block the user from using your app.
Disclaimer: the following is an entirely subjective humble user opinion. Please, don't take it to heart.
I hate video splash screens on my iPhone/iPad, however beautiful and stylish. What I like is apps which launch instantaneously. On iOS 4 chances are, I will see the startup animation once a month when the OS decides to terminate your app when the device is low on memory. So, now I tap the app icon and see the animation, now I tap it and don't (because it's already launched). It's inconsistent, out of your (and my) control, and ultimately makes little sense.
From both quality and aesthetics points of view, I think GL animation would better fit (hopefully) intense addictive action which follows. I'm not sure, however, that you will be able to load any resources in the background, while the animation plays, without making the animation stutter.