It is good programmer practice to build your very own framework.

As a programmer, you would find certain tasks often the same across multiple projects. You might have experienced these before – writing (or copy-paste) the same code to perform certain function, creating projects using a similar framework/design, or reusing some common UI components.

If you have experienced the above, it is a good time to build your own framework.

There are many benefits to doing so:

• Once you started your own framework, you would be more conscious of where a piece of code belongs to.
• Maintaining and fixing the framework will benefit all projects that use it.
• You can send the static library and headers to others, without giving them the source code. This is also the same way Admob and Flurry are sending their libraries to developers.
• You will be able to test your framework and demo how to use it.

I have been wanting to build my own framework for a long time, but has been delaying.

But as I seek to create more iPhone apps in the coming days, I know I need to create my own framework to become more productive.

How to do so?

Firstly, the solution does not belong to me.

I searched on the Internet on how to create your own framework, or static library, and there are a number of articles that came up. But I couldn’t find in a single article for what I wanted.

I merely wanted 2 things:

1. Create a project that encompass both a framework and a demo app.
2. Simple and illustrated way to create a universal static library.

There are 2 separate articles that will achieve what I wanted, when combined. Hence, my guide here will simply be made up of 2 steps by following the 2 articles, and the final step on how to use the static library.

Step 1 – Create Project from a Static Library Template

Follow the instructions from iPhone OS Static Library Template by Jeffrey Sambells.

Jeffrey Sambells article is helpful as he provided a Xcode template, with clear instructions on how you can create your library.

Not only does the template has a target for a static library, it also includes a target for building an iPhone app. This allows the programmer to create test cases for the static library and also demonstrating how to use the framework, all in the same project.

Step 2 – Creating a Universal Build

In Step 1, you would have created a project that builds your static library.

You may follow the guide in Jeffrey Sambells’ article on how to use the static library (basically includes the project in another project), but there is a better way if you follow this step.

(There is a disadvantage if you follow the guide in Jeffrey Sambells’ article – you will not be able to distribute the static library to others.)

Instead, from the same project you created in Step 1, continue and follow the instructions from Universal Static Library by Dr Touch.

One important aspect of Dr Touch’s article is that it combines the library for both simulator and device, and merge them as a single universal build. In other words, it builds a fat binary that works for arm6, arm7 and i386 (for simulator).

After following the instructions from Dr Touch’s article (working on the same project from Step 1), you should have a similar project structure to mine.

Step 3 – Using the static library

To use the static library, find the ZIP file that is produced.

Unzip it, and place them in a project that you will be working on. Or send the ZIP file to a developer!

That’s it!

If you are implementing application settings using iPhone’s Application Preferences, then you will want to take note of this pitfall.

Referring to the schema reference for PSTextFieldSpecifier, you would notice that there is a DefaultValue key. You might thought that this key is to return a default value, when the preference is not set.

In terms of code, you might thought that myvalue would return the default value.

NSString *myvalue = [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] stringForKey:@"mykey"]

But no, that is NOT the case. myvalue will always return nil, until you go to the Application Preferences page. In order to read a default value correctly, you will have to do more.

Refer to AppPrefs Sample Code on how that can be done. The code is copied here for reference.

	NSString *testValue = [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] stringForKey:kFirstNameKey];
	if (testValue == nil)
	{
		// no default values have been set, create them here based on what's in our Settings bundle info
		NSString *pathStr = [[NSBundle mainBundle] bundlePath];
		NSString *settingsBundlePath = [pathStr stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"Settings.bundle"];
		NSString *finalPath = [settingsBundlePath stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"Root.plist"];
		NSDictionary *settingsDict = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:finalPath];
		NSArray *prefSpecifierArray = [settingsDict objectForKey:@"PreferenceSpecifiers"];
 
		NSString *firstNameDefault;
 
		NSDictionary *prefItem;
		for (prefItem in prefSpecifierArray)
		{
			NSString *keyValueStr = [prefItem objectForKey:@"Key"];
			id defaultValue = [prefItem objectForKey:@"DefaultValue"];
 
			if ([keyValueStr isEqualToString:kFirstNameKey])
			{
				firstNameDefault = defaultValue;
			}
			// Handle for other preferences you might have
			// ...
		}
 
		// since no default values have been set (i.e. no preferences file created), create it here		
		NSDictionary *appDefaults = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
										firstNameDefault, kFirstNameKey,
										nil];
		[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] registerDefaults:appDefaults];
		[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] synchronize];
	}
 
	// we're ready to do, so lastly set the key preference values
	firstName = [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] stringForKey:kFirstNameKey];

I refuse to pay an extra $20, for a smaller SIM card.

With dignity, I cut my Singtel standard SIM card to fit for my iPhone 4.

As you can see, it is not hard. Just cut around the metal piece.

Apple seems to lack a MapKit programming guide. I have to look through the MapKit reference, search on the Internet, and read blog articles in order to do a few simple tasks with MapKit.

I thought it would be great if there is a MapKit programming guide, similar to the Push Notification Service programming guide provided by Apple.

But there isn’t. So I am here writing one for developers who are interested to use MapKit for that few simple tasks. This post contains 8 code snippets for 8 tasks.

1. Adding a map view

If you simply want to add a map to your view, simply create a MKMapView object and insert it. That’s our first big step!

- (void)viewDidLoad {
	[super viewDidLoad];
	// Init our map view 
	mapView = [[MKMapView alloc] initWithFrame:self.view.bounds];
	[self.view insertSubview:mapView atIndex:0];
}

2. Configuring the map

With a map, you could now configure various aspects by setting the mapView properties. Examples below:

	// Set the map type such as Standard, Satellite, Hybrid
	mapView.mapType = MKMapTypeStandard;
 
	// Config user interactions
	mapView.zoomEnabled = NO;
	mapView.scrollEnabled = YES;
 
	// Set the region and zoom level
	MKCoordinateRegion region;
	MKCoordinateSpan span;
	CLLocationCoordinate2D location;
	location.latitude = 1.302851; // Singapore!
	location.longitude = 103.85523;
	span.latitudeDelta = 0.02;
	span.longitudeDelta = 0.02;
	region.span = span;
	region.center = location;
	// Set to that region with an animated effect
	[mapView setRegion:region animated:TRUE];
	// Lastly, set the MKMapViewDelegate (we will use this later) 
	mapView.delegate = self;

3. Showing the user’s location

To show the user’s location on the map, we set this one special property.

	mapView.showsUserLocation = YES;

4. Creating custom annotations/landmarks

If you want to display some landmarks, aka annotations, on the map, you will need to create your annotation class that implement the MKAnnotation protocols.

Say you want to display some shops on the map, this is want you would do.

// ShopAnnotation.h
@interface ShopAnnotation : NSObject <mkannotation> {
	Shop *shop; // Assuming this class contains info about a shop
}

// ShopAnnotation.m	
// Required to implement
- (CLLocationCoordinate2D)coordinate {
	CLLocationCoordinate2D theCoordinate;
	theCoordinate.latitude = shop.latitude;
	theCoordinate.longitude = shop.longitude;
	return theCoordinate; 
}
 
// Optional
- (NSString *)title {
    return shop.name;
}
 
// Optional
- (NSString *)subtitle {
    return shop.address;
}

5. Adding annotations to the map

To add the annotations to the map, you would create the ShopAnnotation earlier and add them to mapView.

	for (Shop *shop in allMyShops) {
		ShopAnnotation *shopAnnotation = [[[ShopAnnotation alloc] initWithShop:shop] autorelease];
		[mapView addAnnotation:*shopAnnotation ];
	}

6. Handling the annotation views

Annotations are not views. After you added your annotations to the map, you would still need to provide its views. The mapView delegate methods will be called to ask for your annotations’ VIEWS. You will need to create the view and return it for mapView to display.

In our example, we create a MKPinAnnotationView, which is a standard pin that you see in Maps app. You could otherwise create your custom view that extends MKAnnotationView.

- (MKAnnotationView *)mapView:(MKMapView *)theMapView viewForAnnotation:(id <mkannotation>)annotation {
	// If it's the user location, just return nil.
	if ([annotation isKindOfClass:[MKUserLocation class]])
		return nil;
	// If it is our ShopAnnotation, we create and return its view
	if ([annotation isKindOfClass:[ShopAnnotation class]]) {
		// try to dequeue an existing pin view first
		static NSString* shopAnnotationIdentifier = @"ShopAnnotationIdentifier";
		MKPinAnnotationView* pinView = (MKPinAnnotationView *)[mapView dequeueReusableAnnotationViewWithIdentifier:shopAnnotationIdentifier ];
		if (!pinView) {
			// If an existing pin view was not available, create one
			MKPinAnnotationView* customPinView = [[[MKPinAnnotationView alloc] initWithAnnotation:annotation reuseIdentifier:shopAnnotationIdentifier] autorelease];
			customPinView.pinColor = MKPinAnnotationColorRed;
			customPinView.animatesDrop = YES;
			customPinView.canShowCallout = YES;
 
			// add a detail disclosure button to the callout which will open a new view controller page
			UIButton* rightButton = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeDetailDisclosure];
			customPinView.rightCalloutAccessoryView = rightButton;
 
			return customPinView;
		} else {
			pinView.annotation = annotation;
		}<strike></strike><strike></strike>
		return pinView;
	}
}

7. Selecting a pin

When a user selects a pin and press the UIButtonTypeDetailDisclosure button within the callout, we can present more details about the annotation. Implement another MKMapViewDelegate to handle this.

- (void)mapView:(MKMapView *)_mapView annotationView:(MKAnnotationView *)view calloutAccessoryControlTapped:(UIControl *)control {
	// Handle it, such as showing another view controller
}

8. Open Maps app

If want to provide a route from the user location to the selected annotation, you would need the help of iPhone’s Maps app. This means that your app will exit and Maps app will be opened, with you telling Maps the source and destination to route.

You can open Maps with the schema as such.

	NSString *url = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=%f,%f&daddr=%f,%f";, userLatitude, userLongitude, [shop.latitude floatValue], [shop.longitude floatValue]];
	[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:url]];

With that, we have come to the end of a few simple tasks with MapKit!

WP-Syntax is the answer.

For example, this is how I highlight an iPhone’s Objective-C code in this post.

- (void)viewDidLoad   
{    
    [super viewDidLoad];    
    NSString *title = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"My %@ syntax", @"AWESOME"];    
    self.title = title;    
}

 
To use WP-Syntax, simply surround the code with <pre lang=”LANGUAGE”> and </pre>, where LANGUAGE is the programming language.

To find out what to use for LANGUAGE, look under supported languages here. ]]> http://just2us.com/2010/05/how-to-highlight-code-syntax-in-wordpress/feed/ 1 http://just2us.com/2010/05/how-to-resolve-force-close-caused-by-market/ http://just2us.com/2010/05/how-to-resolve-force-close-caused-by-market/#comments Sat, 01 May 2010 07:36:06 +0000 samwize http://just2us.com/2010/05/how-to-resolve-force-close-caused-by-market/

This is an issue where an application that is opened from Android’s Market might encounter a force close. txeet had the same issue:

This is due to the application having two launcher components, and Market is confused and therefore not able to launch. Strangely, some phones do not face the same problem.

Though this is a bug on Android side, the application can resolve by simply adding a line in the manifest file.

<activity-alias android:name="com.android.internal.app.ResolverActivity" android:targetActivity=".Main" android:exported="true"/>

A while ago, this blog was not showing correctly some chinese (UTF-8) characters.

It was due to the WordPress that I have set up using a wrong character set. It was using latin1 instead of UTF-8.

To solve the problem, you could go to phpMyAdmin, and run the following SQLs.
Note: Change wrdp1 to your wordpress database name accordingly.

ALTER TABLE wrdp1.wp_comments CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
ALTER TABLE wrdp1.wp_links CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
ALTER TABLE wrdp1.wp_options CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
ALTER TABLE wrdp1.wp_postmeta CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
ALTER TABLE wrdp1.wp_posts CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
ALTER TABLE wrdp1.wp_terms CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
ALTER TABLE wrdp1.wp_term_relationships CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
ALTER TABLE wrdp1.wp_term_taxonomy CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
ALTER TABLE wrdp1.wp_usermeta CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
ALTER TABLE wrdp1.wp_users CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;

The result should be like the table above.

But note that we are not able to recover any UTF-8 characters that were in a post before this operation. You would need to edit the post, enter the correct UTF-8, and save.

If you have a non-US iTunes account, and would like to download some US-only content, you need to do this.

It is easy to register for another account, and

• you do NOT need another email address (if you use gmail),
• you do NOT need a US credit card,
• you do NOT need to stay in US (for address)

Follow these steps..

In iTunes, go to App Store and click on a FREE app.

Create a new account.

Continue, accept the terms, and continue (no screenshots provided)..

Fill in the account details. Note that we used a trick here. Let’s say your real email is jason.bourne@gmail.com, then you can register jason.bourne+1@gmail.com. The verification email will be sent to your real email!

You can use +1, +800 or +dog. This is a gmail feature and might not work for other email providers.

Click Continue.

In the next screen, select None for Credit Card (if you have not follow the first step, you will not see None option). Many of the fields are required and will be validated eg. 7-digit number. You could enter some bogus US address. One way is to go to maps.google.com and search for Starbucks in US.

Click Continue.

Almost done. iTunes will send you an email for verification. It will be sent to your real email eg. jason.bourne@gmail.com.

Click on the verification link, login and you are done!

To use promo code from iTunes, go to Home > Redeem (under Quick Links) > enter the promo code.

Apple’s app review is flawed – when users delete an app, it ask to rate. But if users like an app, it does not ask to rate. That is bias.

If a user did not delete your app, it should not be a worthless app and should have a positive review. As a developer, we should prompt users to rate and comment an app after using it a number of times.

What we can do is to detect that the app has started a number of times, and show a polite prompt to the user to ask him to rate the app. If user choose to rate the app, he will be redirected to App Store to rate and comment.

I am not directly providing the code to do that, as Arashpayan has done that excellently.

Arashpayan has written Appirater (read as Appi-rater). The code he provided at http://github.com/arashpayan/appirater/ works like a charm for txeet.