Category Archives: Programming

UIButtons with pseudorealistic perspective

Posted on by
Reply

For a little side-project I wanted buttons to look like they’re being pushed ‘inside’ the interface when active. To match the overall look of the project the first step was to create two embossed images in Photoshop. One with emboss direction ‘up’ and one with emboss direction ‘down’. Then assign these images to the relevant control states of the button. Simple enough – and already looking the way I want it to. (Hover over the image to see what I mean.)

Embossed Button Continue reading →

The WINGStand

Posted on by
Reply

A while age I saw a ridiculously cool project on Kickstarter (the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects) but totally forgot about it until recently. Yesterday it was delivered – the WINGStand. It’s basically a docking-station for you iPad so you can type effortlessly on your Apple Wireless Keyboard.

It consists of just two plastic elements which slide onto the Keyboard. On top of those two elements you can rest your iPad or iPhone and type away. Their website advertises that it also fits with the Samsung GalaxyTab, Blackberry Playbook, HP Touchpad, Acer Iconia, HTC Flyer and Droids. But honestly… who cares?.

Continue reading →

Better get it right the first time

Posted on by
Reply

I am doing a complete revamp of my second app – SweetTooth – a Match-three game. I know lots of people hate Bejeweled clones but it was fun to develop and a good learning experience. There are even some people who like it!

As I said, this was my second app. In other words, it was my second-worst app. I did not follow the MVC pattern to the letter. In part because I thought I could take shortcuts without any ramifications and in part I guess because I did not understand the concept fully. I did follow it where necessary, but I did stray from the right path more than I should have. I knew that I could have done better, but I was lazy and cocky. I also knew that it could come back to bite me in the ass if I ever had to update it or create another version of it. Continue reading →

Fun with words and Hyphenation

Posted on by
Reply

tl;dr – I wrote a Hyphenation-based word generator.

In contrast to the title of this post, the idea to write it was born while I was not having a lot of fun with words. I am certainly not the most creative person when it comes to words, so I struggled for several days when I had to come up with a name for my business and domain.

Isn’t there an app for that?

It would have been really cool to find a word generator which takes a set of words as input, juggles them around a bit and outputs words or word combinations. I thought to myself: “There must be an app for that!” but after a brief unsuccessful search I gave up and came up with “Vigorous Coding” the old-fashioned way: Pen and Paper (and Sweat).

But the idea for a Hyphenation-based word generator stuck with me for a while so I started to work on a solution.

Continue reading →

JavaScript Brainf*ck Interpreter

Posted on by
Reply

Today I found this nifty little JavaScript Brainf*ck interpreter and started playing with it. That site is actually quite a nice place for anyone interested in JavaScript Tips&Tricks.

Up until now I never really got around to taking a look at Brainf*ck so today was the day to do that. Brainf*ck was invented with the intention to write a really small compiler. I could write some more, but I would just be copying stuff off of Wikipedia, so here is the link to the article: Brainf*ck on Wikipedia :)

Continue reading →

Custom UIViewController transitions (updated)

Posted on by
Reply

Update: Um yeah… I can see now that there was a mistake in the code. I replaced self.mainNavController with self.navigationController and removed that nonsense with the delegate. Now it works.

Today i tackled the task of creating custom transitions between UIViewControllers. Before i started i thought this might be hard, but far from it! All you have to do is subclass UIViewController.

Please note that I am creating a FadeIn/FadeOut Transition. If you need something else, the process is basically the same, you just have to change the properties that are animated.

Step 1: The Basic Idea

At first I subclassed UIViewController. Lacking creativity in that department i named the class MyCustomUIViewController :)

Continue reading →