In iPhone OS 3.0, UIApplication allows you to set a applicationSupportsShakeToEdit flag. The documentation says "The default value is YES. Set the property to NO if you don’t want your application to display the Undo and Redo buttons when users shake the device."
This is all great and it ties in to the new NSUndoManager class nicely. However - I don't want to use the built in NSUndoManager in my app! I'm writing a drawing app, and I already have an undo/redo manager that does some fancy stuff (it manages the data required for each undo operation, and will page it to disk if the app is low on memory). I'd much rather just listen for a notification from the UIApplication and trigger undo myself. (I could just make a bogus NSUndoManager, but I also don't want the "Are you sure?" panel to show...)
Does anyone know if such a notification exists? I figure it must - but I can't find it documented anywhere. Is there a way to monitor all notifications going through the app, maybe?
Thanks!
You may well have solved this issue by now, but in case someone comes across this searching for a Shake solution as I did I laid out how you can get the 3.0 Shake event messsages easily in this thread:
How do I detect when someone shakes an iPhone?
It outlines how you can respond to shake without using an UndoManager or presenting the Undo API. Even if you set applicationSupportsShakeToEdit to NO, these events will still be received..
Related
Im trying to simulate a touch on as UIWebView, how can I programmatically fire a touch event at a certain location? (x and y coordinates)
Just call touchesBegan?
Ideally I'd like to do it without any javascript hack because in the future it may not be a uiwebview
It's not easy to synthesize a touch event on the iPhone: you have to use undisclosed API, so you have a high probability of breaking on every update of the iOS and getting rejecting from Apple.
Here's a link that demonstrates how to synthesize a touch event on the iPhone:
Here's another question on StackOverflow: How to send a touch event to iPhone OS?
It's worth pointing out the KIF framework here. It's intended to run in the simulator but part of the code is simulating touch evens in code. with luck, this will be a good starting point.
https://github.com/square/KIF
Specifically, look at stepToTapViewWithAccessibilityLabel in KIFTestStep.m and the line
[view tapAtPoint:tappablePointInElement];
What you need to do is first create the events you want, and then send them to SpringBoard over the "purple port" eg. mach port. To make them system wide you must forward them to each application over the port. That means you need to actually do what the windowmanager does and looking at which app is active, screen locked, etc.
There are a hand full of private framework APIs that work (IOSurface, GraphicServices, SpringBoardServices, etc.) to get you the pieces you need.
You will have to load these private frameworks at runtime using something like dlopen().
This is 100% possible without jailbreak as of iOS 6.1.4 (current ATM), but you will be loading private frameworks which is not allowed by apple for AppStore ;)
It is possible. Exactly how you mentioned, using GSEvents and sending them to the purple named port of the aplication you are trying to control/simulate. Of course you need KennyTM's GSEvent.h to accomplish this.
I've done this for iOS 4.3, just by changing some of the values that Kenny had (like kGSHandInfoTypeTouchDown), but now I'm trying to do it for iOS 5 and it's not working, till now.
EDIT: It is now working for iOS 5.1.
Without jailbreaking there is no real way to hook a gesture recognizer into all views of the entire system. First off, your app running in the background doesn't have the ability of executing this code.
I really don't think this can be done, but still my boss wants me to provide a link where it says so. What he wants is to add an 'are you sure you want to exit?' warning when the user presses the home button, and if the user says 'no' the app won't go inactive.
It can't be done, can it?
No, you cannot do this - the application has no say in this. Ask your boss whether he has ever seen a single example of an iOS application that would do this. There isn't ... not one I would bet.
The application can continue to execute some functionality in the background - streaming music, getting location information for example, but no application can block the home button. If you could do this, you could block an application from ever closing.
A) You couldn't technically do this and
B) Apple wouldn't allow it to be released on the App Store if that was the distribution route you were taking
If you look at the methods stubs created by XCode when you create an application delegate
-(void)applicationWillResignActive:(UIApplication *)application
-(void)applicationWillTerminate:(UIApplication *)application
That are filled will comments about how you can use this method to pause tasks, disable timers, throttle down frame rates, save data - there is nothing about being able to delay, query the user with an "Are you sure" message.
This whole idea is rather counter to the user-experience of the iPhone/Pad/Pod-Touch.
From the App Store guidelines (slightly abbreviated):
Apps that alter the behavior of switches on the device will be
rejected
This is a proposed change the behavior of the home button - so would be rejected.
This is possible on a jail broken device, using un-aproved API's. The concept is in multiple violations of apple's usage policy however so you would never, ever, ever get an app attempting to implement this in any way on the official app store. Here's just a few reasons:
You can't alter the functionality of any buttons (including the volume buttons, some camera apps used to use them to take pictures, but they got booted from the store as a result).
You can't interfere with standard user interactions with the device. The home button takes people home, you can't prevent that, or ask for confirmation as that would be interfering with the interaction.
There is no public API to detect actual usage of the home button. As such you would need a private API, and you can not use private API's without explicit permission from Apple, which they would never give due to #1 and #2 above.
I'm sure there's plenty of more reasons, but regardless it would be in direct violation of app store policies as well as iOS human interface guidelines.
You can detect when the app is about to lose focus, has lost focus, or could loose focus (such as a phone call is coming in) but you can not alter the flow (i.e. not allow the app to lose focus).
You can continue to execute code in the background within the backgrounding guidelines and limitations. The backgrounded code could submit a notification to the user that would allow them to switch back into the app... that's about as close as you could get, and expect apple to reject you if it happens every time the app closes...
Already answered by numerous others, but no, you can't do this. When the user presses the home button, your application delegate's applicationWillResignActive is called which disables touch events to the application. Then applicationDidEnterBackground is called, which, per the Apple docs:
Your delegate’s applicationDidEnterBackground: method has
approximately 5 seconds to finish any tasks and return. In practice,
this method should return as quickly as possible. If the method does
not return before time runs out, your application is killed and purged
from memory
You need proof to show your boss that obviously isn't an iOS developer.
Apple Human Interface Guide
That should be all the proof you need. But to be clear, Apple will not allow an app to override the home button in any way. You can surely put action sheets or pop ups to warn before logging out, but once the home button is pressed, you are on notice to give up your memory, you are being shut down.
You might want to look into the Store Demo Mode of IOS. This way you can disbale the Home button and lock the device in the first app you start after booting.
I know I'm too late to answer this question.
But I recently came with the issue which Samssonart had.
The answer given by #iandotkelly is deprecated with iOS5. Now none of delegate method will be used to distinguish between locking the device or sending app to background using Home button.
you can now use applicationState variable to define what action is triggered.
applicationState is an inbuilt id provided by appDelegate.
**
if it returns 2 then, it will identify the Home button is pressed
if it returns 1 then, it will identify the lock hardware button is pressed
**
So, in your case you can check out this condition in **applicationDidEnterBackground** method
- (void)applicationDidEnterBackground:(UIApplication *)application
{
NSLog(#"decision >> %d",[[UIApplication sharedApplication] applicationState]);
}
Enjoy Programming!
The best reference I can find is this one. It's not quite explicit, but Apple's Human Interface Guidelines have a couple of headings 'Always Be Prepared to Stop', followed by 'Don't Quite Programmatically', which spell out what the home button does and that you shouldn't be implementing your own quitting strategies.
I know this is an old topic, but I just want to update this answer. In iOS 7 this is not working.
So I use screenbrightness when the app will go to the background to identify difference between the Home and Lock button.
-(void)applicationDidEnterBackground:(UIApplication *)application {
if ([[UIApplication sharedApplication] applicationState] == UIApplicationStateInactive) {
NSLog(#"Sleep button pressed");
} else if ([[UIApplication sharedApplication] applicationState] == UIApplicationStateBackground) {
if ([[UIScreen mainScreen] brightness] > 0.0)
NSLog(#"Home button pressed");
else
NSLog(#"Sleep button pressed");
}
}
I hope this is gonna be of any help for in future for anyone
Don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but I will take my chances.
There is an iOS game called Bug Village that will from time to time automatically pops up an alert about the character in that game needed feeding.... etc. even though the game was not currently active.
Question: What technique or how is it done?
I don't know what you're talking about exactly but outside the app, it must be UILocalNotification.
From what you're telling they either use UILocalNotification or Push Notifications. But Local notifications sounds best for this task.
Read the docs to get started
Im trying to simulate a touch on as UIWebView, how can I programmatically fire a touch event at a certain location? (x and y coordinates)
Just call touchesBegan?
Ideally I'd like to do it without any javascript hack because in the future it may not be a uiwebview
It's not easy to synthesize a touch event on the iPhone: you have to use undisclosed API, so you have a high probability of breaking on every update of the iOS and getting rejecting from Apple.
Here's a link that demonstrates how to synthesize a touch event on the iPhone:
Here's another question on StackOverflow: How to send a touch event to iPhone OS?
It's worth pointing out the KIF framework here. It's intended to run in the simulator but part of the code is simulating touch evens in code. with luck, this will be a good starting point.
https://github.com/square/KIF
Specifically, look at stepToTapViewWithAccessibilityLabel in KIFTestStep.m and the line
[view tapAtPoint:tappablePointInElement];
What you need to do is first create the events you want, and then send them to SpringBoard over the "purple port" eg. mach port. To make them system wide you must forward them to each application over the port. That means you need to actually do what the windowmanager does and looking at which app is active, screen locked, etc.
There are a hand full of private framework APIs that work (IOSurface, GraphicServices, SpringBoardServices, etc.) to get you the pieces you need.
You will have to load these private frameworks at runtime using something like dlopen().
This is 100% possible without jailbreak as of iOS 6.1.4 (current ATM), but you will be loading private frameworks which is not allowed by apple for AppStore ;)
It is possible. Exactly how you mentioned, using GSEvents and sending them to the purple named port of the aplication you are trying to control/simulate. Of course you need KennyTM's GSEvent.h to accomplish this.
I've done this for iOS 4.3, just by changing some of the values that Kenny had (like kGSHandInfoTypeTouchDown), but now I'm trying to do it for iOS 5 and it's not working, till now.
EDIT: It is now working for iOS 5.1.
Without jailbreaking there is no real way to hook a gesture recognizer into all views of the entire system. First off, your app running in the background doesn't have the ability of executing this code.
When my iPhone app resigns active status, the sharedAccelerometer singleton instance of UIAccelerometer stops sending accelerometer:didAccelerate: messages to my delegate.
Is it at all possible to continue receiving those messages, similarly to how the CLLocationManagerDelegate continues to receive updates when the app is inactive?
I would prefer not to have to disable the idleTimer altogether if it can be helped.
No, not in the most recent available form of the iPhone SDK at least.
I would say that it is possible since this app is on the AppStore:
However, since you move differently in
bed during the different phases, the
Sleep Cycle alarm clock is able to use
the accelerometer in your iPhone to
monitor your movement and determine
which sleep phase you are in.
I can't believe it has to run all night with the screen turned on. EDIT: looks like it has to! :P
So they haven't got around that issue either. More chances that you can't achieve it then...
Have you read the documentation of the UIAccelerometer, does it mention anything there? If it just stops sending acceleration events there is not much you can do.
I would however try to set the accelerometer delegate again to my class when my app has lost focus (when the phone got locked). You can get that notification (lost focus notification) from the UIApplication. Try that just in case the accelerometer's delegate gets set to nil when the app loses focus.