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I'm working on porting an app from iOS to WinRT/8 Metro/8 Immersive/Whatever the current name is.
On iOS, we have the ability to set Application does not run in background to YES to cause the app to actually quit whenever the user leaves the app.
I would like to figure out how to replicate this behavior in WinRT.
Yes, I understand that this is abnormal behavior.
Yes, I have thought this through.
Yes, I have an extremely good reason for doing this.
I'm assuming that during the userLeavingApp event, I would just call Application.Current.Exit(), but I can't seem to find the userLeavingApp event. I thought about using OnSuspending (Handles Me.Suspending) in App.xaml.vb, but that doesn't seem to be called quickly enough for me.
Is there a .NET equivalent of viewWillDisappear or something?
Any ideas? This is an important security characteristic of my app, and I'd hate to have such difficulty in an entire platform due to such a small issue.
Thanks!
I'm not actually seeing Application.Current.Exit() working in OnSuspending; although as you mention the suspending isn't happening fast enough for you (which is by design). Throwing an exception there didn't work for me either.
There is Window.VisibilityChanged and if I issue Exit/exception there, it does shutdown the app when another app takes over. That said, VisibilityChanged will fire under other circumstances too so not sure if you could cover all the scenarios or rely on them not changing. See here for a bit more context.
To echo #Filip, whose response just popped in, it's highly unlikely you'll pass certification. An Exit() call is tantamount to an exception.
I don't think your app will pass certification if you call Application.Current.Exit(). If you are really confident this is what you want - I guess it is worth a shot to try. You could though simply unload anything that uses memory/CPU when you exit.
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I'm working on a Cocoa app targeting Leopard and above, and I'm thinking about adding a crash reporter to it (I'd like to think my app won't crash, but let's get real here). I have some mostly conceptual questions before I really get started.
1) How does this work conceptually, knowing when there's a crash and bringing up a reporter? Do I have a daemon running looking for a crash, or do I wait until my app is launched next time to report?
2) Can this be done in Cocoa? Or would I have to dip into Carbon or IOKit or somesuch?
3) Is this even a good idea? Mac OS X already has a built in crash reporter, but as a developer I don't get to see the crash logs. I don't think my app will be crashing often, frankly, but I just don't want to be naive but this sort of thing.
What are your thoughts and opinions regarding this?
I've had a lot of success with UKCrashReporter. The code is straighforward and easy to modify to match the L&F of your app.
PLCrashReporter looks interesting, though.
I'd stay away from Smart Crash Reporter just because many users (rightfully) don't appreciate your app injecting code into unexpected places and it strikes me as a fragile (perhaps dangerous to use in a released app) approach.
Others have answered the question well and pointed to some good example code.
Coding it yourself is fairly simple. The strategy generally is:
catch appropriate signals
launch a separate crash reporter app that lives inside your application's bundle
the crash reporter app then finds the latest crash log entry for your app and sends it to you via whatever method you desire (POST, email, etc)
I've also rolled my own: SFBCrashReporter
There is a small post on my blog about it.
I have seen a few apps use Smart Crash Reporter or perhaps some variant of it. When your application crashes, it will bring up the usual Apple crash dialog with an extra button which says "Send to both Apple and You"
I would shy away from Smart Crash Reporter for the single reason that it has a bad taste for a lot of users, and is a good way to get bad press for your app (deserved or not) PLCrashReporter or UKCrashReporter http://zathras.de/angelweb/sourcecode.htm they will give some ideas about what to do and how to do it in ways that don't inject into other code space.
Another option is Google's Breakpad. It has a Cocoa framework wrapper, and is compatible with Mozilla's Socorro server. It's used by Firefox, and the Cocoa framework is used in the current betas of Camino. The client-side integration is pretty easy, but I've never looked at what it takes to run an instance of the Socorro server.
I'm using ILCrashReporter and it works really nicely. The method is email based so it works well with Fogbugz.
I would prefer to create my interfaces programatically. Seems as if all the docs on Apple Developer assume you're using Interface Builder. Is it possible to create these interfaces programatically, and if so where do I start learning about how to do this
I thought the relevant document for this, if possible would be in this section: http://developer.apple.com/referencelibrary/Cocoa/idxUserExperience-date.html
I like the question, and I'd also like to know of resources for going IB-less. Usefulness (the "why") is limited only by imagination. Off the top of my head, here are some possible reasons to program UIs explicitly:
Implementing a better Interface Builder.
Programming dynamic UIs, i.e., ones whose structure is not knowable statically (at compile/xcode time).
Implementing the Cocoa back-end of a cross-platform library or language for UIs.
There is a series of blog posts on working without a nib and a recent description by Michael Mucha on cocoa-dev.
I would prefer to create my interfaces programatically.
Why? Interface Builder is easier and faster. You can't write a typo by drag and drop, and you don't get those oh-so-handy Aqua guides when you're typing rectangles by hand.
Don't fight it. Interface Builder is your friend. Let it help you.
If you insist on wasting your own time and energy by writing your UI in code:
Not document-based (generally library-based, like Mail, iTunes, iPhoto): Create a subclass of NSObject, instantiate it, and make it the application's delegate, and in the delegate's applicationDidFinishLaunching: method, create a window, populate it with views, and order it front.
Document-based (like TextEdit, Preview, QuickTime Player): In the makeWindowControllers method in your subclass of NSDocument, create your windows (and populate them with views) and create window controllers for them, making sure to send yourself addWindowController: for each window controller.
As a completely blind developer I can say that IB is not compatible with VoiceOver (the built-in screen-reader on OS X).
This means that without access to robust documentation on using Cocoa without IB I cannot develop apps for OS X / iPhone in Cocoa, which means I (ironically) cannot easily develop apps that are accessible to the blind (and all others) on OS X / iOS.
My current solution, which I would prefer not to use, is Java + SWT, of course this works for OS X, not so much for iOS.
In fact IB becomes totally unusefull when you start to write your own UI classes. Let say that you create your own button that use an skin system based on a plist. Or you create an dinamic toolbar that load and unload items based on user selection.
IB doesn't accept custom UI elements, so more complex UI can't use him. And YES you will want to do more complex things that the UIKit gives you.
Though this is quiet a bit old...
I tried many times to do everything only with programmatically. This is hard, but possible.
Update:
I posted another question for this specific issue: View-based NSOutlineView without NIB?, and now
I believe everything can be done in programmatical way, but it's incredibly hard without consulting from Apple engineers due to lack of information or examples.
Below argument might be off-topic, but I like to note why I strongly prefer programmatically way.
I also prefer programmatic way. Because
Static layout tool cannot handle anything dynamic.
Reproducing same UI state across multiple NIBs is hard. Everything is implicit or hidden. You need to visit all the panels to find parameters. This kind of job is very easy to make mistake - mistake friendly.
Managing consistent state is hard. Because reproducing same look is hard.
Automation impossible. You cannot make auto-generated input form.
Parameter indirection - such as variable element size chosen by user - is not possible.
Aiming small point is a lot harder than hitting finger sized keys at fixed location - funny that this is serious usability issue for developers!
IB sometimes screws. Which means it's compilable, and still working, but when I open the source, it looks broken and extra editing becomes impossible. (you may not experienced this yet, but if XIB file goes complex, this must happen)
It's image based serialization. The concept is good. But the problem is image-base only. IB doesn't keep the source code for clean boot by replaying the source code. Clean boot is very important to guarantee specific running state. Also, we cannot fix the bugs in source-code. Bug s just will be stacked infinitely. This is core reason why we cannot reproduce the equal(not similar looking) UI state in IB.
Of course these stuffs can be solved by post-processing NIB UI, but if we have to configure everything again, there's no reason to use IB at first.
With text code, it's easy to reproducing the same state - just copy the code. Also easy to inspecting and fixing wrong part - because we have full control. But in IB, we have no control on hard-core details.
IB can't be ultimate solution. It's like a Photoshop, but even Photoshop offers text-based scripting facility. GUI is a moving program, and not a static image or graphic. An IB approach is completely wrong even for visual editing of GUI. If you're one of the Apple folks reading this, I beg you to remove whole dependency to IB completely ASAP.
I wish to write a utility to auto-hide the menu bar, much like the dock. This would
replicate the a OS X 10.4-only application "Menufela", but for Snow Leopard.
[[NSApplication sharedApplication]
setPresentationOptions: NSApplicationPresentationAutoHideMenuBar
| NSApplicationPresentationAutoHideDock];
This code auto-hides the menu bar (and dock), but only in when the application is the frontmost window. How would I go about applying this behaviour system wide, regardless of what application is open?
The only thing I can think of is an InputManager, but I haven't written one before, thus I'm unsure if this is the correct way to go about it..
Also it seems InputManagers are limited as of Leopard/Snow Leopard - from this SO question:
it won't run them in a process owned by root or whell, nor in a process which has modified its uid. Most significantly, 10.5 won't load an Input Manager into a 64 bit process and has indicated that even 32 bit use is unsupported and will be removed in a future release.
I'm not concerned about the "will be removed in a future release" (it just has to work on Snow Leopard), and I don't think root-owned processes are an issue (all GUI applications should be running as the current), but presumably the code would have to be injected into many 64-bit applications (Finder/Safari/etc)
(I originally asked this on SuperUser, here, but as there was seemingly no existing utility to achieve this, it's more relevant to StackOverflow)
The kiosk API is probably your best bet for this, though I haven't used it in years and don't know if it's even supported anymore.
http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/technotes/tn2002/tn2062.html
I hacked together a small SIMBL plugin to hide the Menu Bar: http://github.com/Crazor/MenuBarHider
It uses the SetSystemUIMode() Carbon call, which is not limited to 32bit apps.
I haven't used it on Snow Leopard myself, but the only way of injecting systemwide that even has a chance as far as I know is mach_star, and even that will be a bit tricky. Apple isn't making this easy these days, which is why a lot of the old hacks are failing to be updated either in a timely manner or at all.
This recent Cocoa With Love article has information on how to hide the menubar:
http://cocoawithlove.com/2009/08/animating-window-to-fullscreen-on-mac.html
However, using the CarbonAPI (SetSystemUIMode()) requires the app to be 32-bit and does not work outside the scope of the application.
Edit: and reading a bit further, it seems that this API doesn't do anything that -[NSApplication setPresentationOptions] can't do.
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I know and have Xcode, but I was wondering if there were any other complete development environments that support Objective-C? I'm not looking for solutions with vim or emacs, nor editors like BBEdit that support syntax highlighting, but a full fledged IDE with:
code completion
compilation
debugging
refactoring
Extra points for being cross platform, supporting vi key bindings and supporting other languages.
Note:
I've updated and accepted my answer below as Jetbrains has released Early Access for AppCode, their new Objective-C IDE. Since this has been a fairly popular question, I thought it worthwhile to update the information.
I recently learned that Jetbrains the make of my favorite IDE (Idea) may support Objective-C (though it is unclear how much it will work for iPhone/iPad development). See the thread here for early discussion on this.
In the last year or two, they have started adding additional language support both in their flagship IDE as well as specialized IDEs (for Ruby, Python, PHP). I guess this is just another step in the process. I for one would love to have another option other than XCode and I couldn't think of one that I'd love more.
This is obviously vaporware at the moment, but I think it is something to keep an eye on.
This is now a real product, albeit still in Early Access. See here for a the blog on this new product, which will give you pointers to check out the EAP.
UPDATE: AppCode has now been released and offers a true alternative to using Xcode for Objective-C and iPhone/iPad/Mac development. It does still rely on Interface Builder for layout and wiring of GUI components and uses the iOS simulator, but all coding, including a slew of refactorings, smart templating and static analysis, is available through App Code.
Textmate is an editor like BBEdit but it has the ability to run commands such as compilation, debugging, refactoring (though it will do so via XCode). It also has code completion.
In addition, you can write your own commands for Textmate that you can then run.
I have been searching for something like this that does NOT run on mac for quite a few months now. Unfortunately I think that due to the relative obscurity of the Objective-C language that nobody has ever bothered producing such a full featured IDE for it. Until now, and we only have Xcode.
Using JBuilder I fell in love with the auto-completion and displaying the function 'hints' on the screen while I type. I am that sort of person who remembers the 'ideas' better than the actual syntax and really benefits from knowing right then and there that the code I typed was correct, not having to find out a minute later at compile time. And then to have to try and figure out if I just misspelled something, or if I truly made a conceptual error due to a misunderstanding of proper use of the language. Code completion and hints have always saved time on this for me.
I know some people may look down on this and say the feature is unnecessary if you know what you're doing, but I never claimed to be better than anyone else.
I may have to just give up and try and get OS X running on my PC. Which doesnt bother me in the least, just the rebooting to go back and forth to windows. I've tried to run it virtualized under VMWare but XCode kept crashing :( That reminds me I am going to google 'leopard vmware' and see if any progress has been made in that area.
Another problem in designing a full code-completion system with objective C is that the syntax is a little more forgiving, I dont know the exact technical term (strongly typed?) it is much harder to say exactly what sort of object belongs in a certain parameter and ANY object can be sent ANY message whether it implements that function or not. So you can spell a function name wrong, but it doesnt necessarily mean you made a syntax error... maybe you mean to call a function of that OTHER name and you just want nothing to be done if the function is not implemented by your object.
That's what I would really like to see for Objective-C, is an IDE that once it notices you are sending a message to an object, it displays a list of methods and function definitions that the object is known to accept, and walks you through filling in the parameters.
I think you would waste less time by sticking with Xcode rather than looking for another IDE if you want to develop for the Mac (or iPhone).
Apple made a lot of effort to kill any competitor in that area to make sure any developer wanting to develop for the Mac platform use Xcode and only Xcode.
It might not be the best IDE but it does work well and it is the IDE developers at Apple are using. Somehow it does its job. The frameworks and the documentation are very well integrated.
I use TextMate a lot and also SubEthaEdit but they are not full IDE as you’ve described above.
Best Regards.
Check out JetBrains' new IDE called "App Code". It's still in the Early Access Program, but even with the Early Access bugs it is hands-down better than xcode 4. I've been using it for commercial iPhone and iPad development.
http://www.jetbrains.com/objc/
I would like to second Troy's answer and note that JetBrains has AppCode in early access, so you can try it for free. It has the familiar UI of their other products, and yes, it supports vi! So far it has been very good. I have run into a few issues, and a few vi-isms that don't work quite right, but it is still better than suffering with Xcode. I do text editing with syntax completion in AppCode, but switch back to XCode to get into the GUI builder which is actually quite good in Xcode.
If you are an old vi-guy like myself, it is invaluable.
The short answer is: No. There are thousands of IDEs but Xcode is the only one which you seriously can name IDE. I suggest you have a look at the tries of GNUStep (in form of Projectcenter, Gorm) and then you can imagine the state of affairs.
I believe KDevelop is the only full IDE that supports Obj-C, but I'm not even sure how fully it supports it, having never used it myself. Worth a shot, maybe.
There are a few programmers text editors that support Objective-C, but I like Editra, mainly because I also write Python on Windows\Nix and it has great features. Editra runs well on all platforms and has a nice plug-in that supports Mercurial, GIT, and Subversion if you need them. Another nice thing, its written in Python. Editra Home
Found another, though it sounds less than ideal:
ActiveDeveloper - doesn't appear to have active support (last update was in 2006). Mac only.
KDevelop sounds like it only supports Objective-C syntax and only through its C support. I'm going to check it out anyway.
Textmate has a couple screencasts for Objective-C (here and here). It is Mac only, but otherwise looks pretty good. It is hard to tell from the screencast how strong the integrated support is as it seems to just have a lot of scripts to handle the code. Also, I can't tell if it does true code completion or just expansion for snippets.
So it doesn't look like there is anything out there that hits everything. I'll probably do most of my development on Mac, so I'm thinking I'll try out TextMate with XCode to see if it is any better than straight XCode. I'll take a quick look at KDevelop.
Thanks.