Is there a good place to get starter apps for iPhone, where you choose from any of a large set of permutations?...for instance with a nav bar and a flip screen and a 3 deep table view, with Core Data support etc. I guess what I was hoping for is some kind of wizard where you can check a few boxes and have a working app as a starting point....but more than just the 3 or 4 choices that come with xCode. If not a wizard, just a nice set of a couple dozen permutations.
Also....is there any good sample apps out there that show the difference between identical apps, one which uses Interface Builder and one not?
Aside from being handy for myself, I'd think these would be great as a teaching tool. I've googled a bit and come up with nothing.
http://www.appsamuck.com/ may not be all you want but is a good place for you to start.
http://developer.apple.com : each part of the SDK has numerous examples, although the focus is on the parts of the SKD they represent, you will find pretty good overall coverage.
Related
I recently found out that Scala is an absolutely interesting programming language.
Since I'm not a real desktop application developer but more a webdeveloper I wanted to try out the play framework and if it works well for my purposes.
So far, I really like it, it seems to be easy to use and the developers really think it through.
BUT
I wanted to create an application with different templates, like an "internal", "external" and "admin" area. I already figured out to try out the "modular application" thing which seems to work good but I can't see any possibility to create something like multiple "template" files..
After a few hours of googling, I thought I should just ask..
Has anybody of you done it yet? Any tips how to organise it the best way?
Thanks a lot!
You can have as many views as required and you can also organize them in packages (under the app.views package) in many levels. All you need is just to learn how to reference required view from the controller.
Take a look to this sample schema.
In other words the most importantis clear and comfortable for you order, which you will be able to work with after 3 years without additional notes.
I wish I could pose more specific questions on this topic, but what I'm really looking for is a bird's eye view - a blog post, something from Adobe, documentation or even a book that outlines an approach, because I've had a tough time finding something comprehensive.
I've primarily been developing in a 2 man team with Flash Pro for years - an artist and developer. I've also worked in larger teams, using the same workflow:
AS code written as class files using Flash Pro editor, with minimal code on the timeline (only stops and an occasional function call when the timeline hits a certain frame).
Library assets are linked to AS3 classes where needed
Assets are placed on the main stage & main timeline, for maximum convenience of the designer.
Apps are published and built by exporting to swf with Flash Pro
No source control whatsoever except telling each other if we are going to change the fla.
Our shop is on the verge of bringing in more coders to develop a series of Flash browser games, and I'm thinking it's time to bring this workflow into the current reality. We'll want to have something that suits both artists and coders (minimizing complaints from either camp), as well as git support for source control.
Finally, my questions:
How are most developers authoring games currently? I've read a popular approach is to create art assets in a fla using Flash pro, link them to classes and export to a SWC. Code is then developed in Flash Builder, where assets are embedded.
If I take the SWC approach, is all code stripped from the timeline of MovieClip assets?
I'm aware that Flash Builder has an option to create a 'Flash professional' project which integrates the two and seems ideal, but going back and forth between Builder and Pro seemed to be crash prone. Does anyone use this approach reliably?
Will CS6 give us any advantages over CS5.5 to make it more developer friendly; ie. code-completion, etc.
Is there a way to set up workflow so the artist could make changes and then build/run the game from Flash Pro, and the developers could do it from Flash Builder - or would everyone need Flash Builder to run?
Are there any good 3rd party tools that provide code completion and an all around better development environment then the flash IDE (as an alternative to Flash Builder)?
Do people see Flash Builder as a 'must have' when working in teams or in general Flash dev?
Thanks for answering any part of these questions, or just simply sharing your experiences, opinions, and personal preferences. Any knowledge will be a big help at this point!
That is a lot of questions for one question. I'll try to somewhat cover the main topic of workflow.
The approach you describe with a pure ActionScript project with swc:s linked in is probably the most common approach (at least when it comes to more complex projects) as you want to separate code from content as much as possible. Usually I work with one artist so we sync up on functional design and then I define how the scene objects should be structured (i.e. a container clip, with XYZ child clips, naming, linkage and everything) to make it fit in with current framework or new supporting code.
You do not want any code in the flash pro timeline whatsoever, you want it all in your ActionScript files. Ideally as a programmer you shouldn't have to go into the flash scene project. However, in reality you probably will. I usually try to keep this to my own placeholder scene so I don't contaminate the production files with test and placeholders. You also really don't want several people editing in the same scene at once. One approach is to split up into several different scene projects. If you make a card game you could have something like this: card.swc, mainScene.swc, opponents.swc. That also allows for some concurrency if you are working with multiple artists.
Keeping the flash pro files in xfl format makes it a bit more source control friendly and you could actually merge two versions of the same scene but it can be a bit complex at times.
I usually solve this by making quick functional placeholder graphics that can later on is replaced by an artist (or render graphics from code).
When it comes to IDE:s, I think the most popular ones are FlashDevelop, Flash Builder and IntelliJ IDEA (With Flash Builder as my personal favourite). Get started with one and try some of the others in due time. Make sure the functions you use all day long are really good. However, if you have only been working with the flash professional environment before anything will be a drastic improvement on productivity.
I for one prioritize searching, refactoring and ease to follow the program flow, which simplifies debugging and getting into other peoples code quickly. But it all really comes down to finding a tool that runs on a frequency you can tune your mind into.
I hope that answered some of your thoughts and questions. Do not hesitate to follow up with more of them.
I want to show my designer something so he ccan build it for my iPhone app.
Is there any website or tool in which I can easilie draw something with iPhone patterns or something and show him what I want to have?
some easy and free tool I have been using in the past: http://mokk.me/
But beware - it's still in beta, but compared to other tools which require either Adobe AIR ( http://www.balsamiq.com/ ) or are bound to a single platform (Mac, Win) and somewhat expensive this is a really good way to draw mockups for an iPhone App.
These are some of the tools for iOS. But most of them are at a cost. you can try whichever is convenient for you.
http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnigraffle/
http://graffletopia.com/
http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/iphone-gui-psd-v4/
http://balsamiq.com/download
http://keynotopia.com/
https://gomockingbird.com/
Another approach would be to use the "Storyboard" feature within newer versions of Xcode. Even though it's designed to produce actual interfaces for programs, it also works well as a high-level design tool for describing a sequence of screens and how they relate to each other.
In my current project, I'm not using a storyboard for the actual UI (because I need a little more control over view logic than it allows) but I do use it to sketch out how the visual portions of the application should appear and how they should interact with each other.
I have recently been asked to make an Eclipse Rcp view that would be "pretty".
In that purpose I had fist looked at Java2D (after my boss advised me so) before the client's query turned to be more like
"It would be smooth if you could do some flash or something ..."
From there JavaFx seemed appealing to me however I never had a chance to use it before. I then were wondering if before to dive "head first" anyone (who would have preferably used it seriously) had any advice, warning or any constructive comment to do about using this product in an RCP view (so based on SWT).
I really long to know if JavaFx meets it's promises.
Thanks in advance and have a good day !
[EDIT]I dont want an Eclipse Fancy skinning or to make views appear with light effects or in a CompizFusion way,
What I want is to display fancy animations and pretty visual effects within a specific view that will be called sometimes. (Sorry I wasn't clear in the first place :s)[/EDIT]
*I'll pass on the "What's pretty and what's not ?" and other "Tastes are a personnal thing" debates, here "pretty" simply means to qualify a view containing convoluted transparancies and subtle animations ...
Eclipse RCP can also be customized in the way it looks, e.g. when you dont want to have the Eclipsi-L&F. Its called Presentation API, I saw a quite amazing UI once in a presentation but I cannot find it right now. Anyway, I just want to point you the direction, since I personally havent used this API (yet).
There are also some "skins" available for download.
Nebula
MP3 Manager
EDIT: Just found the slides. It goes quite into detail, but when you have a look at the last slide...it doesnt look like the Eclipse you know :-)
JavaFX uses Swing as default layout engine, so you'll gain nothing using it rather than Java2D.
On the other hand, using either your home-grown toolkit or Swing is generally a bad idea when working with Eclipse, as it already embeds the SWT toolkit. The main advantage of SWT over Swing is that it use the OS native widgets. Using another toolkit will lead to the following issues:
Poor integration with Eclipse look&feel.
Poor integration with Eclipse views and editors management.
The answer is simple. No, you can't use JavaFX yet. The problem is that JFX script can't be embedded into Swing nor Eclipse SWT. We already know about such an issues. (The is some kind of hack how to embed JFX into Swing APP only.)
Is there a quick-reference guide to the iPhone SDK that's as fast and easy to use as one of those little O'Reilly books, or JavaDoc?
I'm new to iPhone SDK programming. I need reference material. Let's say I want to know if the string class has a "reverse" function. For Java I go to http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/ and browse down to find "String". Then I can see everything about String, with hyperlinks to Serializable and Character. I don't see a "reverse" method, but look, there's a hyperlink to StringBuilder -- aha, there's StringBuilder.reverse(). Total elapsed time 30 seconds.
For the iPhone I go to http://developer.apple.com/iphone and log in. Everything seems to be slower here. There are fewer cross-links than in the Java documentation, and each link seems to pull in a big page that takes a long time to load. Just the page for NSString takes 30 seconds to load fully. Maybe I just don't know my way around the documentation yet, but it seems to be much harder to browse for what you want. There's no equivalent of flipping through a book, or if there is it takes 30 seconds to turn the page.
The iPhone platform is immense -- for almost anything you'd want to do, there's got to be a class somewhere that does it. The built-in help in XCode is good but I'm still lost with it.
How do YOU go about finding that class you need? Is there a better way?
I just use XCode's built-in help system. Right-click a class or symbol name, and choose "Find Selected Text in API Reference". You can also do "Jump to Definition", which will open the header file where that symbol is defined.
More info on this stuff here.
When I started with iPhone dev I used the iPhone Developers Cookbook, it has examples of how to do specific things. It's easy to pick out one piece of functionality to try out.
I'd highly recommend checking it out.
Use the XCode hot keys to jump to documentation on anything - in XCode for Leopard, you can double-click on something like "NSString" while holding down "Option" and it will take you to the documentation for that class. You can do the same thing for method names.
In Snow Leopard that key combo opens up a little help box with a summary of what you clicked on, "Cmd-Option double-click" brings up the docs as with Leopard.
The built in docs are very good and even provide links to sample code (if any exists for the subject in question).
There's also a way to generate your own XCode compatible documentation with Doxygen, just like you could with Javadoc:
http://developer.apple.com/tools/creatingdocsetswithdoxygen.html
If the speed of browsing documentation is the issue, I recommend downloading the related doc sets and browse them locally in Xcode. In Xcode's preferences, select the last "tab" (Documentation) and click the "GET" button next to the documentation test you want. (I'm on Snow Leopard and Xcode 3.2, but it should be similar on Xcode 3.1.x as well.)
If finding what you need is the issue, I second #paulsnotes's answer — the "cookbook" approach is very helpful form a task-based exploration standpoint. Also, when you find something you were looking for, and it took much longer than usual, provide feedback on Apple's documentation. Each page has links at the bottom. You can suggest what classes, sample code, etc. would be useful to cross-link to make it easier to find what you need.
If we are recommeding books, this is excellent for a beginner, it gets you up to speed very quickly while leading you through creating highly functional apps you can use as a jumping point for your own:
Beginning Iphone Development