I started out with Director and moved to Flash a million years ago. Building interface elements and widgets, moving into entire sites and then serious applications. The tools got better with time, the language when graduated to AS3 made a whole lot more sense to everyone, and things were humming along. And then change blew in from the side fills and now it seems that Flash is choking on it’s own vomit in the back of the van.

The one thing remaining cool in my quick take on e landscape is notion of author once and run on iOS and Android. So you’ve got AIR for Android doing it’s thing and some magic compiler doing it’s thing for iOS. You’re not authoring to the languages yourself which always left me feeling a little weird as a developer. Always releases behind without direct access to powerful features that you might need to subclass, etc.

I haven’t touched Flash in well over a year. I’ve been straight Objective-C, iOS, with a smattering of HTML/PHP/JavaScript. If you spend a little time with iOS and Objective-C, I think you pick it up quickly and love it. Personally I love Xcode. I’ve struggled with signing things in the past, but as a tool it’s freaking amazing.

Anyway, sorry to witness the decline of Flash. Happy I was part of it’s pinnacle.

I however found a very simple and elegant bit of code that provides this functionality. All you need is an NSTimer and a selector (example only here):

- (void)changeSlide
{
    slide++;
    if(slide > 6)//an array count perhaps
        slide = 1;
    //create the string as needed, example only
    NSString *theName = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"img_%d.png", slide];
    UIImage * toImage = [UIImage imageNamed:theName];
    [UIView transitionWithView:self.view
                      duration:1.75f
                       options:UIViewAnimationOptionTransitionCrossDissolve
                    animations:^{
                        self.photoViewer.image = toImage;
                    } completion:NULL];
}

With a single line of code you’re able to gracefully crossfade the current image with the new image. No need to create multiple UIImageViews, etc. Easy peasy and it works extremely well.

In an iOS application I am working on I found the need to be able to launch Apple’s Music player application. After googling a lot and posting to a developer email list, I found no solutions. I was however pointed to a wiki that lists iPhone URL schemes [link]. This shows various ways to call up other applications on iOS devices. However the Music application isn’t listed there.

I took a shot in the dark and tried “music:” – and it works

NSString *stringURL = @"music:";
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:stringURL];
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:url];

So now you know too.

Today I needed to add a few UIButtons to an interface I had created as a Storyboard. However I am heavily using touchesBegan, touchesMoved, and touchesEnded. UIButtons swallow touch events like that and won’t allow them pass through into my touches<Condition> code. That was a problem for me. You could subclass a UIButton and use it, but I am rather fond of placing some elements myself into a Storyboard. I found a nice solution online. Before the implementation in your view controller, add this code (I think I found it on StackOverflow somewhere):

#pragma mark PassTouch

@interface UIButton (PassTouch)
@end

@implementation UIButton (PassTouch)
- (void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event
{
    [super touchesBegan:touches withEvent:event];
    [self.nextResponder touchesBegan:touches withEvent:event];
}
- (void)touchesMoved:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event
{
    [super touchesMoved:touches withEvent:event];
    [self.nextResponder touchesMoved:touches withEvent:event];
}
- (void)touchesEnded:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event
{
    [super touchesEnded:touches withEvent:event];
    //[self.nextResponder touchesEnded:touches withEvent:event];
}
@end
...

This was a lot easier than subclassing a button, etc. The only thing is that all of your UIButtons are now going to pass events along. I commented that one line out in touchesEnded for the button since that bit was interfering with some of my code. Handy stuff that.

A for loop that won’t quit

I wanted to use a while loop for something (just a random number that wouldn’t be a repeat of the previous number). I stumbled upon some documentation that showed something I haven’t seen before. This is a style thing really as there are other ways to achieve the same and commonly needed results.

    int rndValue;
    for(;;){
        rndValue = 0 + arc4random() % ([songsArray count] - 0);
        if(rndValue != currentRandomTrack){
            currentRandomTrack = rndValue;
            break;
        }
    }

Check out that for loop. Until that condition is met to break, that for loop will run until someone kills the battery. Just another way to do it, but I hadn’t seen it before so I thought I’d pass it along. Pretty cool looking with the Snidley Whiplash eyes in there.

That’s all – have a great weekend.

I feel lucky to have been able to get a ticket since they sold out so quickly. I’m lucky to be on the East coast and also lucky someone at work was talking with someone early in the morning who noticed tickets went on sale before I got my SMS message about it. I definitely would have missed out if not for that.

Pilgrimage.
Jeff LaMarche used to help run a bus pilgrimage to Apple on the Sunday before things kicked off, but it looks like this isn’t happening this year. If anyone has heard of something else please leave a comment. I was thinking of renting a car but it’s a pretty long drive (2 hours?) to arrive someplace where I’d know not where to go or where to park, etc. It would be tough to do during the week and miss out on a lot. Perhaps I’ll just have to pass on it.

Anyway, my Twitter account: @eric_dolecki

2 lbs. holiday kielbasa (has marjoram)
1 lbs. pork spare ribs

Place in a large pot (huge) an cover with water 1/2 to 3/4″ over. Boil until the kielbasa is cooked and the rib meat is gracefully falling from the bone. Remove from heat, remove the meat and place on a platter and refrigerate. Save the water as this will be used the next day to create a broth. Refrigerate. I don’t keep the pork usually, but you’re free to. Why waste it.

Next day:

Skim the fat that has congealed on the top of the water  and throw it away. Heat the water back up again and bring it to a boil.

In a small bowl, beat 2 eggs and 1/3 cup evaporated milk. Beat until blended.

Salt the water to taste.

Put in as much cider vinegar as you need into the water. I prefer a pretty sour broth so I end up using a lot. This dish requires a distinct acid component and bite… so be brave.

Turn the water down to low and spoon a little of the broth into the eggs – tbsp at a time. You put the broth into the egg mixture so the eggs don’t cook. If you were to pour the eggs into the broth straight away, you’d end up with a curdled mess. Once you’ve added enough broth so that it’s about 1/2 broth and 1/2 egg mixture you can then pour back into the broth.

You’ll need cubed ham, sliced kielbasa, hard boiled and cut up eggs, some ripped up pieces of authentic rye bread if you can manage it, and some volcanic horseradish. Put those into each serving bowl & pour the broth atop the whole thing.

Easter tradition in my family.

Here is an alternate recipe that I’ve yet to try that doesn’t involve vinegar.

FF2K1 video (over 2 hours). It’s tiny in dimensions though :/

Today I submitted a new application to the App Store – it’s a replacement for the free app called Analog that I released a million years ago.

It’s still simple – even more so, but the engine has been improved and the UI is better. If you’re interested, check out the page in my apps-devoted site (which needs flushed out).

I suppose that to anyone using the app(s) they would have no idea what’s involved under the hood and could care less. But for something that on the surface appears so easy, it’s really not. I’m at a turning point with some of the development – taking it into different directions, so the next few weeks should prove to be even more fun.