I'm picturing a graph paper like interface, as you click on any given box within the graph it gets colored in. I'm doing this to draw rough shape outlines.
My question is what is the best approach to do this? Draw the lines for the graph and track where the touches occur and color accordingly? Make some array of buttons? Maybe using spritekit?
I'm not too worried about efficiency as I'm not doing anything too complicated but I'm just trying to find some common design ideas behind it.
Something visually similar to this.
You can accomplish some pretty complex behaviours with a UICollectionView and a custom layout. UICollectionView is nice because it manages taps and drawing each cell individually, which should vastly simplify things for you.
Related
I'm consider the following usage scenario:
The user adds a new shape to a page
He or she places the shape freely on the current view (e.g. using a pan gesture)
Also, the user can resize the shape (e.g. using a pinch gesture on it)
The shape snaps to already existing shapes on the drawing
Implementation details: A page is a custom UIView. The user can add as many shapes as he or she likes. Shapes are instances of different custom UIViews which needs to adapt their content to the new size (see step 3). Overlapping shapes are not possible. And the user must be able to select shapes for operations like "remove".
Question:
I could simply instantiate the shape UIViews and add them as subview to the page UIView. But then I would need to implement all the details like tracking touches to move UIViews to new positions, running the collision detection, handle resize and so on.
Are there controls/classes/... in UIKit, CoreGraphics or the like available which would make my life easier?
I found UIDynamicBehaviors in UIKit. Would this is be way to go or would you suggest a different approach?
Thanks a lot in advance!
Cheers,
Chris
I'm having a segment control design like this
How to design my segments so that the selected one should look like the "ALL" like in the image above. What I could think of to use different images on selection but if I do that then some part of the curve which is going in "Others" won't be visible. Any suggestion on designing UISegmentControl like this ?
I have two suggestions:
Find an alternative approach that avoids this.
A lot of apps try to add delight by designing custom components and UI when actually it doesn't really add that much to the app. At worst you might frustrate people by using non-standard components that don't work the way they expect, or increase cognitive load as they're trying to use you're app.
Go 100% with a custom subclass.
Don't just settle for setting a static background image, but invest in creating a component that not only looks like this in a selected state, but also provides animations as people change the selected item.
This is going to be a fair amount of work, but would be something like this:
subclassing UISegmentedController -- it provides the base of the functionality that you're looking for which is good;
adding a new CAShapeLayer as to the controls background layer
figuring out a dynamic bezier curve that can update for all your states (will probably end up having control points for each segment) you might be able to do this by hand, but I'd have to use a tool like PaintCode to generate the bezier curve code, and Illustrator to make the initial curve
add listeners for event changes of the segment changing, and recalculate the curve control points as needed
The positive note of this is that the path property on CAShapeLayer is animatable, so when the segment changes and the curve updates the animation will probably be the easiest part!
How would I go abouts getting an effect in a view controller like the wonderful work of art attached in the following link?
Circles
I do have some idea, ranging from actually using ASCII text (I know, super wrong way) to a collection view of pictures, to what I suspect is the "right" way, done with core graphics. But I am asking in case there is a super easy/right methodology I will one day discover and facepalm.
You are correct that there are two primary ways for you to draw a grid of circles.
The primary way is to draw them using UIBezierPath or by using a collection view of images of circles.
For simple shapes, it is recommended that you choose the first option simply because your choices of circles aren't restricted by your images.
Here is a link for you to get started.
So I'm looking into UIKit Dynamics and the one problem I have run into is if I want to create a UIView with a custom drawRect: (for instance let's say I want to draw a triangle), there seems to be no way to specify the path of the UIView (or rather the UIDynamicItem) to be used for a UICollisionBehavior.
My goal really is to have polygons on the screen that collide with one another exactly how one would expect.
I came up with a solution of stitching multiple views together but this seems like overkill for what I want.
Is there some easy way to do this, or do I really have to stitch views together?
Dan
Watch the WWDC 2013 videos on this topic. They are very clear: for the sake of efficiency and speed, only the (rectangular) bounds of the view matter during collisions.
EDIT In iOS 9, a dynamic item can have a customized collision boundary. You can have a rectangle dictated by the frame, an ellipse dictated by the frame, or a custom shape — a convex counterclockwise simple closed UIBezierPath. The relevant properties, collisionBoundsType and (for a custom shape) collisionBoundingPath, are read-only, so you will have to subclass in order to set them.
If you really want to collide polygons, you might consider SpriteKit and its physics engine (it seems to share a lot in common with UIDynamics). It can mix with UIKit, although maybe not as smoothly as you'd like.
I am looking into making an iOS app that has little creatures. I plan on having these creatures grow and change shapes based on user interaction. So the creatures could end up looking very different based off what the user does.
My problem is animating these creatures. I have dealt with simple animations in the past with cocos2d, but nothing like this.
How can I animate these creatures being different sizes and shapes without having my graphic designer draw every possible image that could be used. In the game spore a user can create an animal of whatever shape or size they want and these animals animate. My question is how can I do something similar in 2d? I know this can't be a simple answer, but a point in the right direction is all I am looking for.
You could use some CGAffineTransforms to scale your drawing and custom filters with Core Image maybe to change the color.