Posts tagged ‘iPhone SDK’

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How to make random entries into the iPhone address book

September 2, 2011, 8:48 am

Are you a frustrated iOS developer working on an app that has to access the built-in address book on the device? Frustrated because you can’t find sample data to populate the address book in your Simulator, and you are too busy to create a bunch of test data?

Well, for a limited time* only, we at the Do Something Here Labs have a deal for you. For just a minimal** postage and handling charge, you too can use this sample code below to create random entries to your hearts content in your very own iOS app.

Here is the code in question. Simply drop this method into your Objective-C source code and call it in your app, and you will soon have contacts, contacts, and more contacts.

#import <AddressBook/AddressBook.h>
 
- (void)addressBookData
{
#define NUMBER_OF_RANDOM_ENTRIES    25
#define GENDER_OF_NAMES             @"m"    // use m for male or f for female
#define URL_FORMAT  @"http://old.wave39.com/roster/generate.php?f=csv&g=%@&num=%d&limit=99"
 
    NSString *urlString = [NSString stringWithFormat:URL_FORMAT, GENDER_OF_NAMES, NUMBER_OF_RANDOM_ENTRIES];
    NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:urlString];
    NSURLRequest *urlRequest = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:url];
    NSURLResponse *response = nil;
    NSError *error = nil;
    NSData *data = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:urlRequest returningResponse:&response error:&error];
    NSString *stringData = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:[data bytes]];
    NSString *areaCode = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%03d", (arc4random() % 799 + 200)];
 
    NSArray *lineArray = [stringData componentsSeparatedByString:@"\n"];
    for (NSString *line in lineArray)
    {
        if ([line length] > 0)
        {
            NSArray *fieldArray = [line componentsSeparatedByString:@","];
            if ([fieldArray count] == 3)
            {
                ABAddressBookRef addressBook = ABAddressBookCreate(); 
                ABRecordRef person = ABPersonCreate();
                NSString *phone = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@-%03d-%04d", areaCode,
                                   (arc4random() % 799 + 200), (arc4random() % 9999)];   
                ABMutableMultiValueRef phoneNumberMultiValue = ABMultiValueCreateMutable(kABPersonPhoneProperty);
                CFStringRef phoneType = (arc4random() % 2 == 0 ? kABPersonPhoneMainLabel : kABPersonPhoneMobileLabel);
                ABMultiValueAddValueAndLabel(phoneNumberMultiValue, phone, phoneType, NULL);
                ABRecordSetValue(person, kABPersonFirstNameProperty, [fieldArray objectAtIndex:1], nil);
                ABRecordSetValue(person, kABPersonLastNameProperty, [fieldArray objectAtIndex:2], nil);
                ABRecordSetValue(person, kABPersonPhoneProperty, phoneNumberMultiValue, nil);
                ABAddressBookAddRecord(addressBook, person, nil);
                ABAddressBookSave(addressBook, nil);
                NSLog(@"Created record for %@ %@ (%@: %@)", [fieldArray objectAtIndex:1], 
                      [fieldArray objectAtIndex:2], phoneType, phone);
                CFRelease(phoneNumberMultiValue);
                CFRelease(person);
                CFRelease(addressBook);
            }
        }
    }
 
    NSLog(@"Done creating address book data.");
}

On a housekeeping note, make sure to include the AddressBook.framework library in your application, and make sure to import the AddressBook.h header file as shown. Although if you are already developing an app that accesses the address book, you probably have this covered.

Also, your device or computer needs to have internet access while the code is running, as the code accesses a simple PHP application that I did a while back to do random sports roster generation. (The PHP application will generate a maximum of 99 entries at a time, so if you want to try and have it generate 42 billion names with one call, go right on ahead and try.) OK, I probably should not be blocking the main thread with the synchronous request, but I did not have time do something other than the most quick and dirty solution possible.

But wait, there’s more.

Happy birthday to Terry Bradshaw. I’m sure that if Terry was developing an iOS app, and he needed to populate some random address book entries, this would be the code he would use. And if it is good enough for Terry, isn’t it good enough for everyone?

(* = For as long as this web site is accessible on the internet)

(** = $0.00)

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Category: iPhone  |  Comment

Batter vs. Pitcher Lite now available

September 1, 2011, 10:38 am

Maybe someone at Apple was reading my blog yesterday, because a couple of hours after I posted my lamentations over the BvP Lite approval wait, the app went into the approval process and was approved then an hour or so after that. Awesome job Apple, thanks.

Here is the link to the Batter vs. Pitcher Lite free app:

Batter vs. Pitcher Lite

No birthday, anniversary, or holiday wishes at this time, but I would like to say that I am totally impressed with my new 13″ MacBook Air. It seems to be more than adequate for building iOS apps, and due to the SSD drive, it actually seems to compile, build, and fire up the simulator much faster than my old MacBook Pro.

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Still patiently waiting

August 31, 2011, 3:21 pm

Well, I took the version 1.0 BvP app and turned this 1 batter vs. 1 pitcher app into a free app, and submitted this new app to iTunes Connect. They seem to be dragging their feet on this new app, as it has been over a week. App revisions seem to go much faster, it only took a few days when I submitted the 2.0 BvP app, which features the ability to have multiple pitchers vs. multiple batters. This is a much more useful mode for fantasy baseball or for statistical research.

BTW, Happy Birthday to John Boker. (Not the John Boker who played baseball for the Ogden Raptors, but “the” John Boker who was formerly a track star and also happens to be Ohio’s pre-eminent bacon tea connoisseur.)

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Two superviews are better than one

August 10, 2011, 5:48 pm

So I have a table view that is built by using a custom cell that I built in Interface Builder and load up in my view controller. This UITableViewCell has a bunch of UIButton controls right off the root of the cell view in it that I need to snag the action on, and of course there can be a lot of cells in the table. In order to do this as compactly as possible, I wanted to just create one IBAction method, and funnel all button presses to that method. Then, inside the method, I would just read the tag of the sender to decide what button was pressed, and then back up one level to get the cell, ask the table for the index path of that cell, and then I would know which row to act on.

Well of course it did not work as expected the first time. For some reason, when I asked the table for the index path of the cell, it would always return a nil index path. So here is the final code that works.

UITableViewCell *cell = (UITableViewCell *)sender.superview.superview;
NSIndexPath *path = [contactsTable indexPathForCell:cell];

As I studied the problem, I discovered that the first superview off the sender does not get you far enough back, you have to go back another superview.

BTW, thanks to Leo Fender, born this day in 1909, for founding a company with such awesome products.

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Category: iPhone  |  Comment

Logging the view hierarchy

July 9, 2011, 3:51 pm

I found some nice code on Stack Overflow for outputting the view hierarchy to the console, and I thought it was worthy of a few mention after some minor modifications of course.

The code takes in a view and iterates through the whole view hierarchy from that view, outputting the vital statistics of the views to the console. I modified the code a bit to pass in a parameter initially to control if the logging routine walks the superviews, and I also made the output show the screen coordinates in integers instead of showing floats with 4 decimal places.

Now, with a line like this in my application (don’t forget of course to import the InspectView header file):

[InspectView dumpViewToLog:self.view findParent:YES];

I can get this in the console:

2011-07-09 16:33:10.475 MyApplication[1038:207] 
Inspect view hierarchy -----------------------------------
Original view is (0x6840800)
UIWindow (0x6314b00): frame origin: (0, 0) size: (320, 480) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   UIImageView (0x6314a70): frame origin: (0, 20) size: (320, 460) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   UILayoutContainerView (0x63190a0): frame origin: (0, 0) size: (320, 480) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   UINavigationTransitionView (0x631a7e0): frame origin: (0, 0) size: (320, 480) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   UIViewControllerWrapperView (0x6149dd0): frame origin: (0, 64) size: (320, 416) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   UITableView (0x6840800): frame origin: (0, 0) size: (320, 416) [tag=0] UIScrollView : UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   UITableViewCell (0x615cad0): frame origin: (0, 290) size: (320, 129) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   UIGroupTableViewCellBackground (0x614b9b0): frame origin: (9, 0) size: (302, 129) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   UITableViewCellContentView (0x615d590): frame origin: (10, 1) size: (300, 126) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   .   UILabel (0x614b2f0): frame origin: (10, 5) size: (279, 21) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   .   UILabel (0x6149800): frame origin: (10, 34) size: (227, 84) [tag=4] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   UIImageView (0x615c950): frame origin: (10, 1) size: (300, 10) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   UITableViewCell (0x6385000): frame origin: (0, 204) size: (320, 66) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   UIGroupTableViewCellBackground (0x615b0f0): frame origin: (9, 0) size: (302, 66) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   UITableViewCellContentView (0x6385710): frame origin: (10, 1) size: (300, 63) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   .   UILabel (0x6379b10): frame origin: (10, 6) size: (277, 21) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   .   UILabel (0x6379eb0): frame origin: (10, 35) size: (227, 21) [tag=3] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   UIImageView (0x6147b70): frame origin: (10, 1) size: (300, 10) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   UITableViewCell (0x6386b60): frame origin: (0, 76) size: (320, 108) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   UIGroupTableViewCellBackground (0x63872c0): frame origin: (9, 0) size: (302, 108) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   UITableViewCellContentView (0x6386d50): frame origin: (10, 1) size: (267, 105) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   .   UILabel (0x6387de0): frame origin: (10, 35) size: (227, 63) [tag=2] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   .   UILabel (0x6388350): frame origin: (10, 6) size: (235, 21) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   UIButton (0x6385c10): frame origin: (267, 1) size: (43, 105) [tag=0] UIControl : UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   .   UIImageView (0x6386d80): frame origin: (7, 37) size: (29, 31) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   UIImageView (0x6387eb0): frame origin: (10, 1) size: (300, 10) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   UITableViewCell (0x63860a0): frame origin: (0, 10) size: (320, 46) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   UIGroupTableViewCellBackground (0x6386de0): frame origin: (9, 0) size: (302, 46) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   UITableViewCellContentView (0x63882e0): frame origin: (10, 1) size: (267, 43) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   .   UILabel (0x6385530): frame origin: (10, 0) size: (247, 43) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   UIButton (0x6385860): frame origin: (267, 1) size: (43, 43) [tag=0] UIControl : UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   .   UIImageView (0x6386000): frame origin: (7, 6) size: (29, 31) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   .   UIImageView (0x6386450): frame origin: (10, 1) size: (300, 10) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   UIImageView (0x615c020): frame origin: (0, 409) size: (320, 7) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   .   UIImageView (0x614a810): frame origin: (312, 1) size: (7, 144) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   UINavigationBar (0x63192c0): frame origin: (0, 20) size: (320, 44) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   UILabel (0x6149360): frame origin: (62, 0) size: (200, 44) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   UILabel (0x61493d0): frame origin: (0, 19) size: (200, 20) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   .   UILabel (0x615c810): frame origin: (0, -1) size: (200, 24) [tag=0] UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
.   .   .   UINavigationItemButtonView (0x6349b80): frame origin: (5, 7) size: (49, 30) [tag=0] UINavigationItemView : UIView : UIResponder : NSObject : 
End of view hierarchy -----------------------------------

Notice above that my table view that I passed in is the first entry that is indented 4 levels in the above listing. This is because I used YES as the boolean parameter, which walks all the way to the top of the view hierarchy before dumping out all of the views.

Here is the code that generates it. First, the InspectView header file:

//
//  InspectView.h
//
 
#define objectString(anObject) [[anObject description] UTF8String]
 
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import <CoreFoundation/CoreFoundation.h>
 
@interface InspectView : NSObject 
{
}
 
+ (void)dumpViewToLog:(id)viewObj findParent:(BOOL)findTheParent;
+ (NSString *)dumpViewToString:(id)viewObj findParent:(BOOL)findTheParent;
+ (NSString *)dumpViewToString:(id)viewObj level:(int)level;
 
@end

And the implementation file:

//
//  InspectView.m
//
 
#import "InspectView.h"
 
#define THE_LOG NSLog
 
@implementation InspectView
 
+ (void)dumpViewToLog:(id)viewObj findParent:(BOOL)findTheParent
{
    THE_LOG(@"%@", [self dumpViewToString:viewObj findParent:findTheParent]);
}
 
+ (NSString *)dumpViewToString:(id)viewObj findParent:(BOOL)findTheParent 
{    
    NSString *s = @"\nInspect view hierarchy -----------------------------------" ;
 
    // go up to outtermost view.
    if (findTheParent)
    {
        s = [s stringByAppendingFormat:@"\nOriginal view is (0x%x)", viewObj];
 
        while ([viewObj superview]) 
        {
            viewObj = [viewObj superview];
        }
    }
 
    s = [s stringByAppendingString:[self dumpViewToString:viewObj level:0]];
    s = [s stringByAppendingString:@"\nEnd of view hierarchy -----------------------------------"];
    return s;
}
 
+ (NSString *) dumpViewToString:(id)viewObj level:(int)level 
{
    NSString *s = @"\n";
    // indent to show the current level
    for (int i = 0; i < level; i++) 
    {
        s = [s stringByAppendingString:@".   "];
    }
 
    s = [s stringByAppendingFormat:@"%@ (0x%x): frame origin: (%d, %d) size: (%d, %d) [tag=%d] ", 
         [[viewObj class] description], viewObj,
         (int) (((UIView*)viewObj).frame.origin.x), 
         (int) (((UIView*)viewObj).frame.origin.y),
         (int) (((UIView*)viewObj).frame.size.width),
         (int) (((UIView*)viewObj).frame.size.height),
         ((UIView*)viewObj).tag
         ];  // shows the hex address of input view.
    //  s = [s stringByAppendingFormat:@"%@ : ", [[viewObj class] description] ];
 
    id obj = [viewObj superclass];
 
    while (NULL != obj) 
    {
        s = [s stringByAppendingFormat:@"%@ : ", [[obj class] description]];
        obj = [obj superclass];
    }
 
    // recurse for all subviews
    for (UIView *sub in [viewObj subviews]) 
    {
        s = [s stringByAppendingString: [self dumpViewToString:sub level:(level + 1)]];
    }
 
    return s;
}
 
@end

If you combine today’s post with yesterday’s post (delayed block execution), you can do something like this at the end of the viewDidLoad method of your UITableViewController:

[self performBlock:^{ [InspectView dumpViewToLog:self.view findParent:NO]; } afterDelay:1.0f];
[self performBlock:^{ [InspectView dumpViewToLog:self.view findParent:NO]; } afterDelay:11.0f];

The result of this is that you will get a dump of your table view hierarchy after 1 second (this gives the table a chance to get drawn), the user will be able to work with the table view for another 10 seconds, and then another dump. This could help you diagnose any kind of issues you may be having with your table views or table view cells.

As usual, keep in mind that since this is code to be used for debugging purposes, this is not production quality code.

BTW, Happy Birthday to one of the all time great Leafs, Red Kelly.

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Category: iPhone  |  Comment

Running a block after a delay

July 8, 2011, 8:51 pm

So I was looking for a way to easily run a block of Objective-C code after a set delay time. I found a few ways to do it, but one blog post I found encapsulated it pretty well. Here is the URL of that blog post:

Delayed Blocks in Objective-C (link redacted)

Using the NSObject category from the blog post, I can now run my block after a delay by using something like this:

[self performBlock:^{ [self myMethod]; } afterDelay:2.0f];

This will come in handy for my next blog post, which I will try to do over the weekend. (Hint: think of unrolling view hierarchies…)

BTW, Happy Birthday to Jack Lambert, one of the greatest Kent State alumni ever.

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Category: iPhone  |  Comment

Batter vs. Pitcher app released

July 3, 2011, 12:29 pm

Well, I have finally released my Batter vs. Pitcher app that I have been working on for months now. The app is all about baseball statistics, so if you are a fan of baseball, please check it out:

Batter vs. Pitcher

BTW, Happy Birthday to John Kundla, former NBA coaching great. (I am not an NBA fan, but I could not find anyone I wanted to mention on the Wikipedia site for July 3, and his entry was the oldest on the births list that had not passed away.)

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Category: iPhone, Retrosheet  |  Comment

A very nice open-source progress display

June 30, 2011, 12:57 pm

I found an awesome progress display that I have implemented in one of my iPhone apps. It is dead simple to use, does exactly what it should do and nothing more, and it is also open-source, which is good for developers on a budget like me.

This project by Matej Bukovinski is on github, here is the link:

MBProgressHUD

I found my way to this project through the awesome [iOS developer:tips]; web site, here is the link to their posting:

iOS Open Source : Heads Up Display with MBProgressHUD

BTW, Happy Birthday to Stanley Clarke. I have a ticket for when Return To Forever plays here in Columbus in August, I can’t wait.

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Category: iPhone  |  Comment

Balance

June 29, 2011, 9:08 pm

Check out this code I was using for calculating text widths in my iPhone app’s PDF generator class (the first comment with the asterisks was added by me for this posting):

- (CGFloat)calculateTextWidth:(NSString *)text 
{ 
    // ********** do not use this method, see below for the fix **********
    CGSize fullSize = [UIScreen mainScreen].applicationFrame.size; 
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(fullSize);
    CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
 
    // calculate the text size
    CGContextSelectFont(context, [fontName UTF8String], fontSize, kCGEncodingMacRoman);
    CGContextSetTextMatrix(context, CGAffineTransformMakeScale(1.0, -1.0));
    CGContextSetTextDrawingMode(context, kCGTextInvisible);
 
    // measure the text
    CGPoint initialTextPosition = CGContextGetTextPosition(context);
    CGContextShowTextAtPoint(context, 0, 0, [text cStringUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding], text.length);
    CGPoint finalTextPosition = CGContextGetTextPosition(context);
 
    return finalTextPosition.x - initialTextPosition.x;
}

Pretty awesome, huh? Well, it worked awesome, my right justified text labels were all lining up great. The problem was that I could do one PDF in the app, maybe two, and the app would throw all kinds of memory warnings and then crash.

Well, as it turns out, it is a good idea to use a UIGraphicsEndImageContext() call when you use a UIGraphicsBeginImageContext() call. After I did this, all was right with the world.

Here is the finished product:

- (CGFloat)calculateTextWidth:(NSString *)text 
{ 
    CGSize fullSize = [UIScreen mainScreen].applicationFrame.size; 
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(fullSize);
    CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
 
    // calculate the text size
    CGContextSelectFont(context, [fontName UTF8String], fontSize, kCGEncodingMacRoman);
    CGContextSetTextMatrix(context, CGAffineTransformMakeScale(1.0, -1.0));
    CGContextSetTextDrawingMode(context, kCGTextInvisible);
 
    // measure the text
    CGPoint initialTextPosition = CGContextGetTextPosition(context);
    CGContextShowTextAtPoint(context, 0, 0, [text cStringUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding], text.length);
    CGPoint finalTextPosition = CGContextGetTextPosition(context);
 
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext();  // !!!!!
 
    return finalTextPosition.x - initialTextPosition.x;
}

BTW, Happy Birthday to Zuleikha Robinson. I miss the boys (and Yves, obviously) from The Lone Gunmen, I wish the show could have gone more than the 1/2 season it lasted.

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Category: iPhone  |  Comment

iPhone/iOS development utilities

June 9, 2011, 1:10 pm

I have really been liking a couple of freeware iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and iOS Simulator tools that I found. They both run great on my iMac, and are super simple to use, while providing some great missing functionality that the Xcode tools do not have.

The first is iExplorer from Macroplant, which allows you to spelunk through the file system of a device connected to your system. It works with stock devices as well as jailbroken devices. Here is the link to download this application:

iExplorer

The other tool is iOS-Simulator Cropper from Curious Times. This tool take screen shots from the iOS Simulator and, shockingly enough, automatically crops them down so that you can use them in your marketing materials or for uploading to the App Store. Here is the link to download this application:

iOS-Simulator Cropper (link redacted, URL not available)

EDIT: I changed the link to iExplorer (the application formerly known as iPhone Explorer), so the link above should not be broken any more.

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Category: iPhone, Macintosh  |  2 Comments
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