How to access a layer inside UIView custom class generate with Paintcode? - ios

I'm using Paintcode V3 and last Xcode for my project.
In Paintcode I draw a red path, kind of "clock hand" with a radius variable to be able to rotate it.
In my Xcode project, this custom UIView is added to a main view.
When the red path is rotating, I need to know when it intersects with another element of the view.
I tried:
if self.redPathView.frame.intersects(self.anotherView.frame) {
//do something...
}
but it can't work because redPathView is the entire Paintcode canvas (the square frame) and not only the red path.
I'm searching a way to access to the red path of my view.

Interesting problem.
I don't think there is a way to do exactly what you are looking for...
Like you mentioned, when we use PaintCode, our custom drawings become an entire UIView.
We can't access its specific elements (like your redPathView).
(I'm favoriting this question in case anyone knows if we actually can. I may be wrong.)
Anyway, there is a workaround. You could use PaintCode itself to tell you when "collisions" happen. Of course, then you would need to draw everything there... And implement some sort of internal control that would make sense to you.
For example, in the picture below I created this "clock hand", with functions to detect when the red thing touches other UI elements (key point there is the touchedElementID expression -- observe how it updates itself with the "ID" of the rectangles):
There are some issues you may find with this approach, for example the need to know the exact position of other elements on the screen and possibly complex ternary constructions like:
(rotationSanitized <= -352 || rotationSanitized >= -8) ?
1 :
(rotationSanitized <= -82 && rotationSanitized >= -98) ?
2 :
(rotationSanitized <= -172 && rotationSanitized >= -188) ?
3 :
(rotationSanitized <= -262 && rotationSanitized >= -278) ?
4 : 0
Also, how to "export" and consume this information along with the StyleKit in Xcode?
The trick I did was to add an empty (no Fill, no Stroke) UI element in PaintCode and associate the touchedElementID expression result to the alpha value of the element.
This way I could access the expression in my custom view, for example via StyleKit.touchedElementID. But that introduces a new problem since now I have to change the generated StyleKit every time it is exported (two lines of code, but still). That is kind of a fragile solution.
However, if you are ok with that, then it's just a matter of consuming this new information...
For that I created a protocol, so my ViewController can act as the delegate of my custom view, and perform whatever it needs to do when the most internal UI elements in PaintCode are "touched".
Here is the final result:
Finally, check this project in GitHub with all the code and samples.

Related

How can I get the CIAttributedTextGenerator filter to break onto multiple lines?

I'm working on an app that overlays text onto an image. We want to be able to constrain the width of the text and have it break onto multiple lines, much in the same way that UILabel does when we set numberOfLines = 0. In my mind, this should be possible by constraining the extent that the filter has to work within somehow, or by chaining it with a clamp (since the output bitmap is generated lazily.) Unfortunately, nothing I've run into seems to do the trick:
The CIClamp approach generates a nil outputImage when provided a CIVector(cgRect:) argument
There doesn't seem to be a way to specify a CIFilterShape to draw the text within when using the bundled filters
You can provide a CIFilterShape when invoking CIKernel.apply but a) I don't have a custom CIKernel (and am hoping not to write one) and b) I don't have a way to extract the kernel from the CIAttributedTextGenerator filter
I'm resigning myself to manually computing line breaks but it really seems like Core Image ought to be able to handle this use case. Am I just missing something?

How to always show Sirius Label in foreground

For the context, I'm working with Capella, an Eclipse RCP application based on Sirius (hence, EMF, GMF and draw2d). This application is used for MBSE, that basically means diagram representations for industrial systems.
I'm developping an add-on (viewpoint) to display custom labels next to diagram elements. These diagram elements are, to put it simply, boxes inside boxes. My problem is that usually the label text is larger than the space between a box and its container, so the label gets hidden. What I need is these labels to always be in foreground. As I'm more used to web development, what I'm looking for would be the equivalent of the z-index CSS property.
Currently I have no idea of how to achieve this, I'm using a custom .odesign that allows me to control some rendering options, like labels text, the color of some elements or to add decoration, but I dont think its the way to go for my problem. Maybe I should use a custom EditPart or a custom StyleConfiguration (I already used these components for other projects) but I have no clue where to start for this issue.
Any leads will be greatly appreciated.
We recently did this kind of changes to keep some labels in Sirius Sequence diagrams always on top: the combined fragments are placed behind the lifelines (z order) but we wanted to keep the labels of the CombinedFragments visible event their bounds intersects Lifelines, Executions or States).
This has been handled in Bug 564239 for Sirius 6.3.2 (used in Capella 1.4.1).
You could find some hints the bugzilla (Gerrits and commits can be retrieved from the See also section).
In Sirius Sequence diagram , we use org.eclipse.sirius.diagram.sequence.ui.tool.internal.layout.SequenceZOrderingRefresher to control the z-order of CombinedFragments : all the figures that composes them comes from some expressions in the odesign, and synchronization with the Capella model for exemple.
But in your case you want to control only the label, so it must not be dealt on the edit par level, but on the figure one. The "overlay" layer and figure lead might be a good one.
Do not forget another thing: in GMF/GEF, the labels of an element is displayed/shown/rendered/visible if it fits to the visible area of the parent container: in the case of a node in a container with scrollbar, the visible are will impact the visibility of the sub nodes (extended to their border nodes, edges, labels, ...)
Regards
Maxime

Lua script for iOS getColors within range?

I am trying to capture the pixel color of a specific letter in a font within an iOS app. I'd then use that color in an if/then statement to determine the next action of my script. I'm finding no easy way to determine if the color/colors I'm finding are the right ones. Here's my current process: I start recording my inputs and continuously click around the letter. I end up with something like touchdown(123,456). I change that to alert(getColor(123,456)) and run, which produces a popup that tells me the color such as 3094841 (not sure why the colors are in numeric format, but they are). I do this for each touchdown line that is captured. The problem is, I don't know an easy way to determine which color is the small letter I'm trying to tap.
Is there a lua function that will capture and display a range of colors between 2 points? If there were, I could see the commonality of all of the colors within the 2 points and make at least an educated guess as to which is the color in the font. Or even more useful - is there a tool I can use to type in the color I'm getting back and have it display the corresponding color, so I can compare them. That'd be the easiest. Hope this makes sense. Any help would be awesome. In case it matters, I'm using Autotouch 8 on an iPhone 5.
TIA
I use this function often in my games.
I find the easiest way to get a color you want to execute every single time is to take a snap of the screen you're checking and then use the helper on getColor(x, y)
And you can use this to alert your color.
local color = getColor(x, y)
alert(color)
-- You can also use:
log(color)--this one keeps it in your log in case you can write it down immediately.
To use this in an if/then statement
function = namedfunction()
local color = getColor(x, y)
if color == YOURCOLOR then
else
end
end
namedfunction();
Note that I have the iPhone 5 iOS 8.3 and I have the most recent AutoTouch from Cydia. If you don't have the helper when you're scripting it might be worth it to check if Cydia offers a capatable version.
Edit: I am running version 3.5.3-8 of Autotouch.

Corona SDK dynamic width objects

I'm trying to implement a game mechanics of "Hooking" objects... Here's picture of what i'm talking about:
But I have a problem with the chain/string of the hook.
I've tried create it step by step when the hook is on the fly, using timer and enterFrame events, but they both generate huge gaps between chain segments.
I've tried creating big image of whole chain and changing width dynamicly, but it only stretches and looking funny :D
Maybe anyone faced the same problem?
I would suggest you to try following.
Create whole chain
place it inside container (display.newContainer)
change width of container.
Container automatically generates masks so instead of stretching you will have just part of your chain hidden under mask.
here is link to container docs http://docs.coronalabs.com/daily/guide/graphics/container.html
This is not a complete answer - I have given you a bit of a broad answer to a broad question but I hope it can help you in creating what you need.
I created a very similar mechanic recently -
I used enterFrame to call a function, lets call it BuildHook, this would check the position of the hook and the position of the starting point and then calculate how many pieces of images would be needed to fill out the space. The graphic I had as my "hook" was partially larger then the chain pieces allowing for it to overlap and only put a new image once enough space between the last piece and hook was created.
This ment that it was the hook moving forward and backwards and then having a static "chain" between it and the starting point. Either consuming "links" as would move backwards ontop of them or created "links" as it moved away from them.
Keep in mind this is pseudo code but should give you an idea how to make it.
local arrayOfPieces = {}
local function BuildHook()
-- Bunch of variables you need to get
startX,startY,
hookX,hookY,
lastPieceX,lastPieceY,
singlePieceWidth
-- The hook pseudo code
if(hookX - lastPieceX >= singlePieceWidth) then
local newPiece = display.newImage('singlePiece.png');
newPiece.x = lastPieceX + singlePieceWidth/2
newPiece.y = lastPieceY
table.insert(arrayOfPieces,newPiece)
end
if(hookX < lastPieceX) then
lastPieceArrayPos = table.getn(arrayOfPieces)
table.remove(arrayOfPieces,lastPieceArrayPos)
lastPiece = arrayOfPieces[lastPieceArrayPos - 1]
end
end

XNA 4.0: How to remove text after drawn to screen?

Good day everyone.
I'm trying to draw the text "Pass Complete!" to screen with this code:
spriteBatch.DrawString(font, "PASS COMPLETE!", new Vector2(30, 130), Color.White);
Which does fire off the proper IF statement. However, how do I go about then removing that text from the screen? I'm really not sure at all where to go on from here and my instructor wants me to google the answer or find it in textbook. I have been all over my XNA textbook and I have found no outlet to removing that text.
Thanks for any and all help.
Update:
protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime)
I have the IF statement included in here. Basically it checks collision with p_Receiver and if it the bool checks out, it draws the DrawString. Should I maybe be looking at this from a different angle?
Final:
I went ahead with the following as the answer and it's working better then before. :)
if (PassInfo == 3) {
(timer code)
(IF timer not "used up" then run the draw)
Working good for now.
I appreciate it.
I'm doing this by function that add text with some parameters into generic list. and then i update and draw items from that list. in pseudo code:
function addText(text,position,duration)
texts.add(new t(text,position,duration))
end function
function updateText()
for each t as text in texts.findall(where t.active)
t.duration -= 1
if t.duration < 0 then t.active = false
next
end function
function drawText()
for each t as text in texts.findall(where t.active)
//draw it
next
end function
so by this you can add unlimited number of texts on different position and duration on screen.
A lot of games redraw the entire window / screen each time through the draw cycle so there's a distinct chance that the solution to removing it is simply to stop drawing it.
i.e. have your if condition not draw the text when it is no longer required.
If, on the other hand, you've some more complex drawing logic that only draws portions of the window / screen that need updating then you'll need to include logic to redraw that part of the screen that contained the text once it is no longer needed.

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