Siri can't make decisions for you.  But ChooseBot can!

Sometimes it can be useful to have a simple text console on-screen within your iOS app to output status info and other messages that can help analyze a running app.

Hence the creation of textViewLog:() function.

Simply add the following UItextView control setup.

@property (nonatomic, strong) IBOutlet UITextView *textConsole;
@synthesize textConsole;

Insert a UItextView control within your View and connect its outlet to our property.




Finally drop in the code below.

// - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
// It's almost like NSLog, but directed to a UITextView control.
//
// usage example:  [self textViewLog:@"%@", myVar];
//
- (void)textViewLog:(NSString *)firstArg, ...
{
    va_list args;

    va_start(args, firstArg);

    NSString *log_msg = [[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:firstArg arguments:args];

    self.textConsole.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@%@\n", self.textConsole.text, log_msg];

    // Support auto-scroll.
    NSRange range = NSMakeRange(self.textConsole.text.length - 1, 1);
    [self.textConsole scrollRangeToVisible:range];

}


And voila!  You have yourself a quick and simple on-screen logging console.



You can download the above sample project too.

Thanks goes to Fredrik Olsson's article and the helpful commenters that shared their own tweaks to this quick and simple solution.

Simply select the app 'Target' and add the following text to a 'Run Script' within your 'Build Phases' tab.

# Auto Increment Version Script
buildNumber=$(/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print CFBundleVersion" "${PROJECT_DIR}/${INFOPLIST_FILE}")
buildNumber=$(($buildNumber + 1))
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :CFBundleVersion $buildNumber" "${PROJECT_DIR}/${INFOPLIST_FILE}"





After which, whenever you perform a Build operation, the "Build" number will automatically be incremented.





Optionally, if you have multiple 'Targets' and want to keep their 'Build' numbers in-sync, you can simply just modify the script to update both .plist files during a Build operation.

# Auto Increment Version Script
buildNumber=$(/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print CFBundleVersion" "${PROJECT_DIR}/${INFOPLIST_FILE}")
buildNumber=$(($buildNumber + 1))
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :CFBundleVersion $buildNumber" "${PROJECT_DIR}/ChooseBot/ChooseBot-Info.plist"
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :CFBundleVersion $buildNumber" "${PROJECT_DIR}/ChooseBot/ChooseBotLite-Info.plist"

Make sure you then add 'Run Script' within both of your Target 'Build Phases' tab.


Whether you choose to display this 'Build' number in your app is up to you, but it helps track the app a little better.

“ The customer is always right “

Well, .. no, not really.

While developers do need to fully understand the customer’s expectation, the customer's don’t always realize the “right” way to execute it.  That’s the developer’s domain in designing the app properly.

Developing custom software for clients is much more than just writing code.

It requires a level of ownership and responsibility to execute a polished product with an accurate UX experience that doesn’t resemble a VB app from 1997.

Just because the client wants a text field in the middle of the screen, doesn’t mean it belongs there.

Developers who care about such design details usually cost a little more, but the work done is then also of a higher caliber.  Because human-to-human-to-machine translation is not trivial and requires patience.

And in the end, it’s more than just custom software.  It’s a relationship.

... and the first customer is you.


Because if you can't sell the idea to yourself, how will you ever be able to sell it to someone else.

May prosperity and good luck smile upon you all.


Now get back to work!  ;)

Extending the iPhone into real world applications has been a growing trend, and now with the advent of appcessories, concepts like heart rate monitoring and other environmental/urban sensing can gain popularity to grow a more sentient city through new intelligent sensors that connect to your iPhone.

It’s like gaining a sixth sense, and possibly beyond.

I needed to be able to switch between two Wi-Fi connections in OS X during development of a certain project and it quickly became disruptive to my workflow to always reach for the mouse and use the menu bar.









So I made the following alias commands for use within Terminal on the command line interface.

alias adhoc='networksetup -setairportnetwork en1 <adhoc SSID>'
alias wifi='networksetup -setairportnetwork en1 <my wifi SSID> <WPA2 password>'

Hope this helps others, as it greatly improved my own efficiency.

XCode 4 is great.  But it has some annoyances.  One of which is inserting whitespaces in your code as if they were breadcrumbs to mark your path in case you get lost.

Thanks to Brian Cardarella for originally working this out, I simply modified his script to handle *.h and *.m files.

Simply create your own shell script  (e.g. stripWhitespace.sh) and insert the following contents:

#!/bin/sh

find . -name "*.[hm]" -type f -print0 | xargs -0 sed -i '' "s/[[:space:]]*$//"


Lastly set a 'Behavior' in XCode to run the script with a shortcut.



Voila!

It will clear all of the whitespace within your entire projects directory for all files ending in *.h and *.m .

Enjoy!

In my youthful years of programming computers I threw caution to the wind and jumped straight into code.  For all the talk about specs., documenting, and mockups, my mind raced far too quickly to be slowed down by UI design and other considerations.

Now over a decade later, with my brain a little wiser, and albeit a little slower, I realize the truth that although code is no doubt important, design trumps all.

This isn’t news.  But a refreshed realization, especially with the passing of Steve Jobs, who above all else, cherished and expressed the importance of good design.

Thank you Steve, for making us care about design again.