iTunes / About This Mac Storage Capacity Bars - objective-c

I'm trying to find out if it's possible to recreate the capacity bars in Lion, like so...
http://thenextweb.com/files/2011/07/about-this-mac-storage.png
I've seen third party apps (such as Windows Phone 7 Connector) using an identical control. Is there an official way to do this?

It's a custom view. So the only "official" way to do it is to subclass NSView and go crazy in drawRect:.
You might as well start with the official documentation on the subject.
After that, there are numerous tutorials and such on the web. This one isn't half bad.

Related

Design app that supports both iOS8 and iOS7

Suppose I want to design a master detail application, Xcode6 master-detail project template for universal app includes UISplitViewController and splitViewController is new in iOS8. I want to support app for iOS7 also.
In general
What is the best way to design an universal app using Xcode6
storyboard that support both iOS8 and iOS7 ?
Is it better to use separate story board for different OS version ?
What are the best practices we should follow to make app compatible with both OS?
The 'best way' to create such an app will likely depend on what exactly your app needs to be able to do. Some ways will be better than others depending on any special behavior needed.
But it is definitely possible to use a single Universal storyboard in Xcode 6 that uses Size Classes and still target iOS 7, both iPhone and iPad, using UISplitViewController. I have successfully done just that. It did take a lot of work to ensure it worked properly and looked consistent on iOS 7 and 8. You have to be a little careful when it comes to performing the various new adaptive segues, as that is a huge difference between iOS 7 and 8. For example, detecting when you have a popover is going to require some work for the two different OSes, handling unwind segues will require some special handling, etc. It will require a lot of testing. Dedicate time to testing the iPhone 6 Plus - in landscape it will show both the master and detail on screen, but you can have control over that.
After going through that experience, I would much rather implement a single storyboard as opposed to two storyboards, one for each OS, and definitely stay away from creating a storyboard for each OS and then one for each device type.
You'll want to read up on the SDK Compatibility Guide to learn how to detect API availability. If you implement an API that doesn't exist on iOS 7 the app will crash, so you need to only run that code if that function exists for the OS the app is running on. For example, you may want to utilize the new UIBlurEffect API, but that doesn't exist on iOS 7. Gain an understanding of what deprecation means, and knowing what has changed in iOS 8 will greatly help. For example, the rotation APIs are deprecated in favor of Size Class trait collections, but those aren't available on iOS 7 so you'll need to continue to use the deprecated rotation API.
Also check out some WWDC videos from this year. They have a couple videos that discuss the new adaptive segues and Universal storyboards. Note that these storyboards ARE backwards compatible with iOS 7, but there are some size classes that aren't made available on iOS 7. See this question and the answer I provided for more information. WWDC videos from previous years also discuss how one can support multiple OSes, progressive enhancement, etc.
And of course when you have questions/problems Stack Overflow is a great resource. A lot of the questions I've posted in the past few months are related to this topic exactly, how to modify UISplitViewController behavior, obtain support for both OSes, using a single storyboard and the new adaptive segues, etc. You may wish to read through those to get an idea of what you can expect to run into when developing an app in the same fashion.

Kinect Hand Gestures

I have been working with Kinect gestures for a while now and so far the tools that are available to create gestures are only limited to track entire body movements for instance swiping your arm to left and right. The JOINT TYPES available in the original Kinect SDK involves elbows, wrists, hands, shoulders etc but doesn’t include minor details like index finger, thumb, and middle finger. I am mentioning al this because I am trying to create gestures involving only hand movements (like victory sign, thumb up/down). Can anyone guide me though this? Is there a blog or website where codes for hand movements are written?
I have been developing application with Kinect one year ago, and then it was very hard or nearly impossible to do that. Now Google shows me projects like this, be sure to check it out. If you generally want to focus on hands gestures, I really advise you to use LEAP Motion
My friends at SigmaRD have developed something called the SigmaNIL Framework. You can get it from the OpenNI website.
It offers "HandSegmentation", "HandSkeleton", "HandShape" and "HandGesture" modules which may cover your needs.
Also check out the rest of the OpenNI Middleware and Libraries that you can download from their website. Some of them also work with the Microsoft SDK.

Creating a simple, single-view Quartz app

I'm an Objective-C newbie. Most of my experience is in Java. Also, I've never really used Xcode before and so I'm pretty new at that as well.
I'm trying to create a simple, single-view Quartz OS X app (not iOS) to display agent-modeling simulations. The graphics are pretty simple; just colored squares and grids. I have been looking at Quartz tutorials and I can see how I could accomplish this (as far as drawing things are concerned). What I can't find is an example that tells me how to tie it all together. What do I put in AppDelegate? Do I need a WindowController? How do I link that up with AppDelegate? I got as far as creating a Quartz Composer View in Interface Builder for my app, but I have no idea where to go from there.
As I mentioned before, I've looked for numerous tutorials but there is nothing that I can find that gives me information as far as linking everything together.
You should visit this web page before you do anything else. It will show you how a Cocoa application is structured and where the appropriate entry points are to place your code.
While the entire article merits reading, visit the section "Entry and Exit Points," which best addresses your particular questions.

iOS 4 Document-Based Applications

I need to create an application capable to modify and manage files on IOS.
With IOS 5 is "easy" to create a Document-Based Application, but I need to support IOS 4 too.
Anyone knows if there is a way to create a Document-Based Applications in IOS 4?
Thanks in advance.
Short answer is no as UIDocument and UIManagedDocument only arrived with iOS 5
Long answer is yes. There are hundreds of document based apps for iOS. e.g Brushes, Sketchbook Pro which are all document based apps. My own app is document based, its not that hard to do.
What UIDocument/UIManagedDocument provides is a canned API for making a generic document. Feed it a URL and it does (most of) the rest of the housekeeping.
If you wish to do an iOS4 based app then stuff you will need to pay attention to is.
UIApplicationWillTerminateNotification/UIApplicationDidEnterBackgroundNotification
Opening a new document.
Saving a document.
Shutting a document.
Autosave (maybe)
Core Data stack , if you're using Core Data
www.raywenderlich.com has some great tutorials. Maybe even iOS4 based ones still.
IMO - Don't bother with iOS4 support. Like above post states 85% use iOS5 and anyone still on iOS4 probably isn't in your target market. Especially as this is (I assume) a new app and iOS6 will be around by the time you go to market.
Just going to ask, do you really need to support iOS 4?
The adoption of iOS is over 85% of devices.
Whats the basis for the need to continue iOS 4 support?

Augmented reality in mono touch

I'm developing a typical "Windows GUI" based app for iPhone using MONO technologies. I need to add a little AR based functionality to it. It is just about opening up the camera, and showing information to the user regarding nearby businesses.
How can I do this using mono?
Of course it is possible. I have created a project and works very nice. It is quite complicated and I would need three pages to explain it and, the time to do it which I do not have.
In general, you need to look into:
CLLocationManager for location and
compass.
MapKit, if you want to provide
reverse geocoding information.
Implement an overlay view over the
UIImagePickerController which will
act as your canvas.
And of course, drawing.
I hope these guidelines will get you started.