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iOS
iOS8 Widgets
Quick post, today I was asked to look in to making a simple iOS8 widget that displayed some contacts with status updates, A Widget is a kind of iOS8 extension that is part of your main app but a separate target. The widget needed to be displayed under the Today notification center.
The first guide I followed showed that Apple had done a really good job on making this super simple!
iOS8 : Creating a Today Widget
Then I needed to share simple data between my parent app and the widget
Sharing NSUserDefaults between your app and a Today Extension on iOS8
The last bit was to make it clickable so that it took you to the main app
iBeacon
A bit more fun than the normal day at work, I was asked to investigate iBeacons. We had been sent 4 3rd party iBeacons to try out which had been setup with different Major and Minor settings and transmitting frequency (seconds).
To be honest, I did not know where to start, however a nice tutorial on Raywenderlich.com covered everything I needed to know to complete the tutorial.
UISearchController and custom cells
I have just spent the last hour banging my head against the table and I thought I would blog about it incase others use UISearchDisplayController.
This allows you to add a nice search box to a UITableView, and is really easy to implement.
Except!
If you are using custom UITableViewCells, performing a search will not return the cell you think it is in cellForRowAtIndexPath. It looks for a cell in the SearchController (not visible or in the storyboard), not your table that’s in the storyboard.
A simple fix that seems to work is. (fingers cross)
From:
TalkListTableViewCell *cell = [tableViewdequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:cellId];
To:
TalkListTableViewCell *cell = [self.tableViewdequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:cellId];
However custom height cell’s may require more work. See:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15892651/uisearchdisplaycontroller-not-correctly-displaying-custom-cells
How to enable Open all files in your iOS app.
I needed to enable Open In in an application that I am currently working on and came across this useful document on how to enable all types of files for your application. I only needed DOC, DOCX and PDF but thought it would be useful for others.
Xcode 6 Beta 5 : Swift changes
So having a quick look around, there has been quite a few changes to Swift in the latest Beta.
Instead of me listing them, check out this awesome post on it:
Changes in the Swift Standard Library in Beta 5
Hack24 : Whats coming next?
So Hack24 has seen some downloads, and some regular players. 1.01 was a fast update to fix a few issues however 1.02 (which may become 1.1) will hopefully see quite a few improvements.
New stuff coming (hopefully) soon
- Steal player buildings (done)
- Rob player item (master key for players basically) (done)
- Claim all money for buildings (would save a lot of time)
- Scan renamed to probe. (done)
- New scan item to list online players
- Some in game help to guide you on your way (done in a basic way)
- Avatar colour changes based on level / rank?
- APN’s (may not make 1.02)
- Some server securities (done)
- More game levels (may not make 1.02)
- Joystick improvements (done)
Near Future:
- In game messaging
- Customise buildings
- Heads up display of near users (may not make 1.02)
Don’t do server updates in your lunch break!
I decided to have a rest today as I have been training for a marathon and a few other things. I thought this lunch break I would do some important fixes to Hack24 server.
DON’T do this, lunch breaks and servers do not mix.
I assumed my fix would sort out the issues, it did, but it brought on a whole load of more because I cleared out some corrupted records and forgot the client side would have a cache that now does not match the server side. Oh boy what a mess.
Backup, nope because I was rushing as it was my lunch break!
Luckily, one of my friends managed to do some database magic. He will receive a burger on me .
So again, don’t do server upgrades at lunch time, it ruins your day when it goes wrong!
Hack24 : 1.01 Submitted : Whats new?
We have submitted 1.01 to iTunes and hopefully it gets accepted. It is mainly a few important bug fixes.
HACK24 : Submitted
Finally, a month and a week late, the first version of Hack24 has been submitted. Emotional moment, trying to write even a simple MMO single handedly is a massive task, trying to do it in a month with a family and full time job, is practically impossible. I did it in 2 months 🙂
I will write more on it soon, enjoying a beer at the moment.
Version 1.0 supports (I wanted to call it 0.1):
Hacking, buying, entering, claiming from buildings
Scanning and Robbing players
Items allow players to teleport, scan, brute force hack, enter buildings, shield, speed up and invisibility.
I will be updating the website, and writing a how to play guide 🙂
