I have successfully placed an image into the lefthand ImageView of a default UITableViewCell and this shows up as a white image over the background blue of a selected row. However the image is invisible when the table cell background is white.
The image came from a 3rd party iPhone tabbar icon set, hence it is white. Can I programatically flip the image to black? Or is there an Apple Mac icon editing utility that will allow me to apply this change?
(I know some will be tempted to cast this question out to another end-user stackoverflow site but before you do consider that there are 100's or 1000's iPhone tabbar icons on the net and a few developers would probably be interested in adding these to their iPhone App UI outside of a UITabBar.)
Opacity is one of the best icon editing utilities. It has preview modes for how the icon will look on the iPhone, in the App Store, as well as on the web.
Also, Acorn is popular and easy to use.
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I have an app that I can't update for the new size of the iPhone 5- basically it's built around the asset sizes I have, and there's no way to get updated assets. The app still works fine, but it has a solid white background, and the letterbox (the black bars at the top and bottom) is black, which is really ugly.
Is there any way to set the color of the letterbox to white?
Well, you could just have google searched it. "You cant!". But there is a workaround. All you have to do is just add a "Default-568h#2x.png" file. You app will fill the display. All you have to do now is just add a white graphic on top and bottom if the device is iPhone5.
No, there is no way to do that :) But, you could resubmit your app without using updated assets and support iPhone 5 screen. To achieve that, 1) you have to add iPhone 5 launch screen. 2) make your view and subviews resizable so that they appear on their places (No need to create separate nibs) 3) test with iPhone 5 (iPhone 5 simulator), and you are good to go ;) Good Luck!
I should probably be asking this on some art website, but in my iPhone app I am trying to make a center button on my tab like the one Daily booth has, but mine is coming out fuzzy. Does anyone know how to make then clean and crisp? I used illustrator to create and save the icon as a png.
Try setting the image size to 30x30 and remember to only use black and transparency. You can make this bigger for the retina display.
Also, are you saving the image as grayscale?
If you're struggling to make them yourself, why not try glyphish.com?
I really like Paint.NET on Windows for image editing, mostly because it is free.
I noticed somebody had created an Effect for Paint.NET to create tab bar icons. I haven't tried it myself, so can't vouch for it in any way:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Graphic-Plugins/iPhone-TabbarIcon-Maker-Alpha-from-RGB-Intensity.shtml
I'm using the Default.png method to create a splashscreen. I'm using the same file for my background and the Default.png (except default.png has the 20 pixel status bar at the top).
However, the iphone isn't displaying them in them the same. The Default.png is being displayed darker than the background, so it's painfully obvious when the app is loaded.
As a visual example of what I mean, please see below:
The image on left is the Default.png whereas the image on the right is when the app has loaded. The difference looks subtle here but when the whole image changes, it looks quite drastic.
Is this an issue with the colour-formatting of the pngs? Or is this an iOS feature whereby the Default.png appears slightly darker anyway?
It's probably not worth mentioning but I'm using Monotouch to develop my app, I doubt that would have anything to do with this.
I had a problem like this after editing a screenshot with OSX's Preview to cut out the status bar (as needed for iPad splashes). Preview sticked a color profile, and splash screen appears darker than the real thing in device.
If you open the image with GIMP, it shows a dialog offering to convert the color profile to SRGB. Take it (press "Convert") and save the image. This fixes the color difference.
Solved the problem. The designer sent me new versions of the backgrounds and the Default.png is now displaying the correct colour.
I have a feeling I had saved the previous version with a different colour profile to the background, hence why it was being displayed differently.
Is there a way to create buttons similar to the glossy icon-buttons on the home screen on the iphone but in your own app? The only thing i've found to create image button is to create rounded rect-buttons and set the image or background property on it, but that does not automatically create the glossy surface and rounding.
You'll need to use images. Apple doesn't make the glossy UIGlassButton class public.
If you're after buttons the same size as on the home screen, on black background, you could just set the image as your Icon.png, install the app in the simulator, take a screenshot of the home screen with the generated glossy icon, cut the icon out, and repeat the whole process with the rest of your icons.
Maybe simpler, if you don't have Icon.png set in your app, you'll get the white button on the home screen. Take a screenshot of that, and use it in a layer in Photoshop or similar to lighten up the underlying layer with your icon.
If you need buttons with other sizes, have a look at this blog entry on Cocoa with Love. Those buttons don't look exactly like the ones on the home screen, but you might be happy with that look, or modify the code to your taste.
Originally I though I'll just take a screenshot of my app on the iPhone then tweak it in Photoshop.
The images should be 480 x 320 according to Apple doc, and the dimensions of my screenshot are 480 x 320. But, the screenshot contains notification area (where reception bars, battery life, etc. are displayed)
So, if I chop that part off my image will be a bit shorter and not 480px high.
What do I do? Submit a shorter image? Stretch it up so it's 480px but without the notification bar? Submit it with the notification bar in the image?
How did you create your Default.png?
There is support in Xcode for creating the default image. With the device connected, open the Organizer (Window > Organizer). Click the Screenshot tab, take a screenshot and click "Save as default image..." Choose your project and bingo jingo, you're done.
You can leave the notification area in the screenshot. The iPhone will draw the real notification bar over it.
iOS 7 update: the iOS 7 Transition Guide explicitly requires this:
Update the launch image to include the status bar area if it doesn’t already do so.
I think the best way to do it is to use the Xcode screenshotter & edit some of the GUI elements out, like the artwork or text on your buttons so people don't get frustrated when pushing 'buttons' on the Default.png doesn't make your app respond.
If you have a status bar, then you should design 320x460 (less 20 pixels).
Though it is correct that you can leave it at 320x480 and have the real status bar paint over the default.png, it will look weird when the phone is in Internet tethering mode or has a call on hold (another 20 pixels).
By cropping to 320x460, it looks better when in tethering mode.
Just edit out the notification area to match the background of the rest of the image. As long as your image is 480x320 you should be fine.
However, if your app takes more than a few seconds to load, you may want to rethink using a screenshot of your app as the startup screen. People might get confused and think the app is finished loading, when in fact it is not. I've seen some apps produce a "stylized" version of their UI in Photoshop, making it clear that it's just an image and not the actual UI.
you should remember that you maybe need also some space for an In-Call status bar or the Tethering status bar. this bar has a height of 20 pixels. Even apple does not make it right. Put a call on hold and start "Photos" or the "Weather" app, then you can see what I mean. To test that you can use the menu "Toggle In-Call Status Bar" in the iPhone Simulator app.
you can use a real 480x320 image if you add the boolean key UIStatusBarHidden to your Info.plist file and set it as true.
Take a screen shot as many of the answers already mention. However, if your screen shot includes the status bar, you should remove it/replace it with a transparent strip instead. It is true that the iPhone will cover this part of Default.png with the current status bar however, if you run the iPhone app on the iPad, you will still be able to see this part of Default.png.
I built a slightly modified version of the initial view in IB, ran the app with that and took a screen shot. That way, everything looks very iPhoney, no Photoshop needed. Don't worry too much about clipping the top, it will mirror how the view actually looks when loaded if more stuff covers it.
Apple recommends something similar to what the user will see when the app loads. E.g. for my Sudoku app, instead of the grid, the default.png shows a "please wait" message. When the app is loaded, that disappears and you see the grid you can interact with. It looks fluid, and it's obvious when it's loading and when you can interact.
Finally, the interface uses some toolbar buttons. In the default.png they are in the disabled state (grey text). When the app is loaded, they are enabled and change color.