iOS (iPad) application on Flex/Flash Builder 4.5 - SplitView component? - ios

(Disclaimer: I'm a beginner in mobile application development and I'm quite weak with programming but I'm willing to learn new things and take on new challenges. I apologise in advance if my question turns you off, or if it seems as though I haven't done any research. I did all the research I could but it didn't help me much.)
I'm new to developing iOS applications and my school gave me approximately 5 months to develop an iPad application. I have no knowledge or practice on Objective C so since Flash Builder 4.5 allows the development of mobile applications (and I have experiences with Flash Builder), I decided to develop my application on Flash Builder instead.
Everything is going fine until I was told to include a SplitView in my application. I implemented a List on the left side of the application. Clicking on any of the list items will navigate the user to a to another view but i also included and retained the list on the left side of the new view in order to simulate a "SplitView".
Initially it felt as though it will do the job of a SplitView like how it does when I attempted it on XCODE but it doesn't look or feel natural.
I found this video which shows that it is possible to create a SplitView on FB but I've cracked my brains and I really can't figure out how it is done. Is there anyone who can provide me with a rough guide on how to implement this? Thank you very much in advance.
Edit:
At the moment I implemented
<s:Application
xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark">
<s:ViewNavigator id="MainView" left="292" width="732" height="748" firstView="views.MainView"/>
</s:Application>
this way, i can manage to navigate through the views without effecting the Root View Controller. this might not be the best way but it'll suffice at the moment. Are there are any better way to do this?

Take a look at the eskimo library
It has a lot of nice mobile features like "native" look and feel for both android and iOS.
Furthermore, it features some mobile components.
I believe the one you are looking for is called SplitViewApplication.
You will have to download the zip file though to unveil it since it is currently not on the feature list on their website.
EDIT
Apparently, Flex SDK 4.6 also supports this feature.
It has been released 2 days ago. You might want to check that out as well.
Cheers

Looks like HDividedBox is a right component for you.

Related

Embed Unreal Engine 4 project into another app

I've been trying to work on a proof of concept (POC) where I can embed a UE4 project into an existing application (in my case NativeScript) but this could just as easily apply to Kotlin or ReactNative.
In the proof of concept I've been able to run the projects on my iPhone launching from UE4 pretty easily by following the Blueprint and C++ tutorials for the FPS. However the next stage of my POC requires that I embed the FPS into an existing NativeScript application, this application will manage the root menu, chat, and store aspects of the platform in the POC.
The struggle I'm running into is that I cannot find how to interact with the xcode project generated from the blueprint tutorial and the C++ tutorial generates a xcode project that i'm unsure where the actual root is that I need to wrap.
Has anyone seen a project doing this before and if so are there any blogs or guidance that you can point me to? I've been Googling and looking around for a couple weeks and have hit a dead end. I found a feedback post here from April of 2020, that was referring to a post in January 2020 that talked about how Unity has a way to embed into other applications additionally a question from 2014 here. But other than that it's a dead end.
A slightly different approach
Disclaimer: I'm not an UE4 developer. Guilty as charged for seeing an unanswered bounty too big to ignore. So I started thinking and looking - and I've found something that could be bent to your needs. Enters pixelstreaming.
Pixelstreaming is a beta feature that is primarily designed to allow for embedding the game into a browser. This opens a two way communication between a server where the GPU heavy computations happen and a browser where the player can interact with the content - the mouseclick & other events are sent back to the server. Apparently it allows some additional neat stuff, however that is not relevant for the question at hand.
Since you want to embedd the Unreal application into your NativeScript tool(menu of some kind if I understood correctly), you could make your application a from two separate parts:
One part would run the server.
The second part would handle the overlay via the pixelstreaming.
This reduces the issue of embedding the UE4 into an application to the(possibly easier) issue of embedding a browser into your application. (Or if your application is browser based - voila, problem solved.)
If you don't want to handle the remote communication, just have the server-side run on the localhost.(With the nice sideeffect of saving bandwidth.)
Alternatively, if you are feeling adventurous, you could go and write your own WebRTC support on the application side to bypass the need for the browser alltogether. It might not be worth the effort though.
Side note: The first of the links you provided is a feature request which hints at the unfortunate fact that UE4 doesn't support embedding. This is further enforced by the fact that one of the people there says somethig along the lines "Unity can to this, it would be nice if UE4 could as well."
Yet a different approach:
You could embedd and use a virtual display to insert the UE4 part into your controller - you would be basically tricking UE4 into thinking that the desired display device is a canvas inside your application.
This thread suggests a similar approach:
In general, the way to connect two libraries like this would be through a platform dependent window handle, e.g. a HWND under Windows. Check the UE api if you find any way to bind the render target to a HWND. Then you could create a wxWindow in wxWidgets and tell UE to render into that window. That would be a first step.
I'm not sure if anything I've listed will be of much help but hey, at least I tried :-). Good luck with your game.
At the same time, the author suggests to:
Reverse the problem:
Using the UE4 slate framework and online subsystem. You would use the former to create the menus you need directly in the UE4 and then use the latter to link to the logic you want to have outside of the UE4. However that is not what you asked for so I'm listing it only for the completeness sake.

Is there a tutorial for coding a GUI without the inaccessible Interface Builder?

I am totally blind and want to code for IOS and/or OS X. In Xcode 5.1, accessibility is improved, but the interface builder still seems unaccessible for voiceover users (like me).
With that in mind, is there a tutorial for coding OS X and iPhone apps without using interface builder in Xcode? Alternatively, is there a way to use interface builder with voiceover (without sight)? I would deffinately like to use gui tools if any exist, but if I have to hard code the thing, so be it.
Thank you in advance!
My sense of the matter is that you should simply code the interface.
First, autolayout makes this much more sensible than it has been in the past. The "visual" constraint language is really symbolic; made for you.
Second, the binding pane simply won't work for you. Bad design, I guess. But there we are. Use the API.
A number of sighted coders, including Brent Simmons (netnewswire, vesper) scarcely use interface builder. You'll be fine without it.
I have not listened to it but give the following podcast a listen. The description states that it covers interface builder basics.
http://maccessibility.net/2013/01/17/the-maccessibility-dev-podcast-1-using-xcode-with-voiceover/
You may want to consider RubyMotion as an alternative.
Austin Seraphin talks about using RubyMotion as a blind developer in this talk MP3 with slides here at the #inspect2013 conference. I found the talk through a blog posting that mentioned Austin's amazing presentation.
For pure XCode use, I tried experimenting with PaintCode but it was useless in Voice Over mode. You may find Erica Sadun's book on Auto-Layout useful as she goes into detail on the code-based approach. The iBooks link to the second edition is here.
I am humbled by the effort that people like Austin and yourself put forth to overcome your obstacles and try to remember this whenever I'm irritated by the minor inconveniences in my life and software development. It seems fatuous to say thank you but I'd just like to offer my congratulations on what you've achieved so far.

Phonegap iOS app: change keyboard appearance to UIKeyboardAppearanceAlert (again)

A couple of months ago, I posted a question asking if and how phonegap users can alter the keyboard appearance to the dark alert ui keyboard (UIKeyboardAppearanceAlert) without targeting individual textfields. I did some extnsive reaearch myself and offered a bounty but yet the question remained unsolved.
Alter keyboard appearance in native, phonegap/Cordova built iOS App
As of today, I'm still struggling to get this resolved and simply over with. I do realize much probably hasen't happened since last time I bothered you with this question, however, two things have in fact changed which somewhat justifies this seemingly double post:
Phonegap has released version 2.1 which does some new stuff, perhaps this is possible now?
As my client expects me to solve this in any way possible, this time I would also like to ask you for an alternative approach. If it still can't be done, would it be possible to custom make a "keyboard" of my own? I know this of course is technically doable, but is it in any way a recommended approach that would be considered in at least some way smart and justified? As I said, my client pushes hard for this and is not in favor of rebuilding the app completely natively.
Conclusively, as of today is there any way to do this with phonegap / Cordova? If not, would you recommend me to custom make a keyboard using HTML CSS and JavaScript, bearing in mind this is a major comsern for my client? If so, are there any good plugins that I can use as a start? Please check out my old post (linked above) to see what has already been tested.
Thanks in advance,
Jonathan
I know this is quite old but I came accross it looking for the same thing. Anyway, I have found a possible solution which would be to create a plugin for Cordova http://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/2.6.0/guide_plugin-development_index.md.html#Plugin%20Development%20Guide
It does require some native coding but would atleast avoid starting an app from scratch which has already been built in Cordova.

iOS sample projects to learn from

I am just starting iOS development. I read some tutorials, watched stuff on iTunes U and wrote some sample code myself. Now I want to take the next step. I want to learn about best practices for iOS development in XCode.
Are there any well written and well organized iOS projects that one could take a look at?
(As I see it, iOS is not exactly the place for open source enthusiasts, however.)
Thanks
Mike.
I agree with several of the other answers that state that looking at many, many projects for mini-examples of what you want to do in your own app is the way to go.
However, you asked for an example of an app demonstrating best practices.
You could do worse than to read Matt Gallagher's blog, Cocoa with Love from beginning to end. However, the app example you asked for is right here.
Not only will it show a variety of techniques, some novel design and best-practices, but also he points out where he feels that he might have done something better.
It's a great read.
I would suggest the following process: (it worked for me)
Think of an advanced app. that you eventually want to be proficient enough to create.
Make a top-down problem-solving tree containing the necessary skills required to build your final app.
Use this tree to divide your final app. into 'sub apps'. Start at the bottom of the tree, find a tutorial specifically for that skill, and make a "Hello World" app. that uses that skill.
Keep progressing upwards, creating 'sub apps' as you go.
When you are finally ready to make your final app. (it will take a while), you will have a good handle on how iOS development works. It will also be a great test of your knowledge via direct application!
Getting the hang of iOS development can be tricky; it really does require a top-down approach, and every online resource I've found takes a linear one. The only way that I think a linear approach to learning iOS development would be manageable, is to take it one small task at a time.
As for specific resources, I always google "[what I want to do] iPhone SDK" and browse the tutorials and forum posts that come up.
Here are some open source iOS apps. However, they aren't very well documented and are also very advanced.
TKAWebView - A subclass of UIWebView that handles authentication and downloading.
Welcome to your Mac - An iOS app. to VNC into a PC/Mac and do some cool stuff.
InAppSettingsKit - A settings screen creator for your apps.
Good luck!
The people behind the Parse platform have made two complete projects.
For each project there is the complete source code, a tutorial and the resulting app is also available from the AppStore.
Anywall: https://parse.com/anywall
Anypic: https://parse.com/anypic
They both rely heavily on the Parse platform as the data source, but you still get a feel for an iOS project.
Molecules is a great open-source app that uses 3D OpenGL to render complex models of molecules.
Just keep coding my friend. You'll learn over a period of time. The best way to get dirty in a mud fight is to jump into it... Weird analogy but you get the point.
Maybe someday, we all will learn from you then !
Like you said there many and many source codes are available internet, but most are incomplete.
I found some Open source codes of REAL application currently available through Apple app store are given here
Free iPhone App Source Codes of real apps
and also, you can find many answers here on stackoverflow question - Are there any Open-source iPhone applications around?
You can download free IOS sample projects from http://devcodemarket.com
I realize this is an old thread but I've also been looking for good objective-c code examples recently and I just realized that TextEdit's source code is available at the Mac Developer Library webpage.
Also, here are some popular objective-c libraries that have caught my attention:
CocoaPods
AFNetworking.
you can also go through UICatalog from Developers Library and download the sample code. just google it and you will find a project containing all basics of iphone.
I don't think there is any perfect project that can demonstrate all the qualities of great code. Developers have stylistic preferences and may make mistakes. That said, you should look at a lot of different projects and try to look at the conventions used.
I'd suggest starting on GitHub. Besides for seeing code, you'll see what libraries are out there, which may help further your projects later on. Here's the Objective-C page on GitHub.
(Also, I (GitHub link) think you're wrong about iOS devs not being in favor open source. Yes, there's money to be made, but you can't sell a CSV paring library on the App Store as is.)
Have a look at https://github.com/mozilla/firefox-ios
That is Firefox for iOS, written in Swift.
Cocoacontrols has a wide range of controls written using Objective-C & Swift.
I believe these days, this is one of the most famous website for iOS Developers.
But, before you jump onto this, you have to learn Objective-C & Swift very well, so that you will understand how to use the controls in your app which makes your app smooth.

First Application on IPad: where to set the button event?

I have 4 years experience on DotNet, not much.
I now learned developing for IPad.
I made a new project and opened the MainWindow.xib by double click in the interface builder. Not I put there a label, a textbox and a button.
But how to make the button event?
Kovu, "Paull" already told you. Please understand that I am not being short, cruel or otherwise negative when I suggest that you read more about XCode and MVC. In order to program for iPhoneOS you really need to understand the MVC method of programming. If you don't know what those initials stand for, it means you really should read more before you try your hand at it. iPhoneOS is so totally different than .net that you need to understand basics.
I suggest Erica Sadun's book: (her website is: iPhone Developer's Cookbook) or a great starter article at: BIT-101.
It will get you up and going VERY quickly (inside of a week for me) and does not skimp on the basics. TRUST ME--if you do not understand the basics from the very beginning you will be lost when it comes to developing for iPad (or even iPhone/iPod). The iPad is such a very different beast than Windows .net that you will be surprised the change you will have to go through (for the better) in order to grasp it.
On the positive side, you will become a better programmer. Using the MVC method is really freeing in a lot of ways. Event-driven programming is a wonder to behold when done right, and believe me, Apple did it right (for the most part) in the iPhoneOS.
Read through the getting started guides in the Documentation window of Xcode (under Help).
You just create an IBAction in your controller, and drag a connection from the button to the controller.

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