Under the Bridge

Been a while since we noted anything much about URL scheme fun and games around here, ’tisn’t it? To refresh your memory, here’s a couple still worthwhile posts:

handleOpenURL.com mentions places to find databases of app’s URL schemes;

x-callback-url described an excellent initiative for standardizing those schemes.

But unfortunately, x-callback-url hasn’t been adopted all that widely so far. But with this new library you have no further excuse not to:

tapsandswipes / InterAppCommunication

x-callback-url made easy

Inter-App Communication, IAC from now on, is a framework that allows your iOS app to communicate, very easily, with other iOS apps installed in the device that supports the x-callback-url protocol. With IAC you can also add an x-callback-url API to your app in a very easy and intuitive way.

IAC currently supports the x-callback-url 1.0 DRAFT specification…

If, on the other hand, you have complicated URL schemes that you’re not interested in supporting that with, there’s another new library for you too:

joeldev / JLRoutes

JLRoutes is advanced URL parsing with a block-based callback API. It is designed to make it very easy to handle complex URL schemes in your application without having to do any URL or string parsing of any kind.

• Simple API with minimal impact to existing codebases
• Parse any number of parameters interleaved throughout the URL
• Seamlessly parses out GET URL parameters and passes them along as part of the parameters dictionary
• Route prioritization
• Scheme namespaces to easily segment routes and block handlers for multiple schemes
• Return NO from a handler block for JLRoutes to look for the next matching route
• Optional verbose logging
• Pretty-print the whole routing table
• No dependencies other than Foundation

Look like a good pair of candidates for a mashup, don’t they?

In other news, here’s a clever tip for using URL schemes to activate experimental facilities:

Letterpress 1.4 includes experimental support for Spanish. Type in “letterpress:experimental” in Safari on your device (or just tap that link) to enable the dictionary options. You can then switch the dictionary under More / Language…

We are definitely going to start exposing things like that in our apps. Debug-related functionality is a particularly fertile field; we can think of many occasions indeed when a command like “myapp:throwupdiagnostics” would have been mighty handy indeed to stick in a support reply.

And just to remind you of another clever URL scheme trick, checking to see if they’re handled is a good way of knowing if an app is installed, as demonstrated to slick effect in a Collect Them All Feature!

UPDATES:

Courtesy of @viticci, “People doing stuff with URL schemes:”

Convert Text Action

The URL Creation Workflow

iOS URL Schemes

Create A Local Evernote URL on the iPad with Pythonista

UTI definitions are another approach to the problem of data sharing: Using Custom File Types to import data into your iOS Apps

Open Source iOS Library Providing An In-App URL Router

Here’s a sweet library for getting rid of those annoyingly deeply nested block constructs:

berzniz / Sequencer

Sequencer is an iOS library for asynchronous flow control.

Sequencer turns complicated nested blocks logic into a clean, straightforward, and readable code.

Sequencer *sequencer = [[Sequencer alloc] init];
[sequencer enqueueStep:^(id result, SequencerCompletion completion) {
    NSLog(@"This is the first step");
    completion(nil);
}];
[sequencer enqueueStep:^(id result, SequencerCompletion completion) {
    NSLog(@"This is another step");
    completion(nil);
}];
[sequencer enqueueStep:^(id result, SequencerCompletion completion) {
    NSLog(@"This step is going to do some async work…");
    int64_t delayInSeconds = 2.0;
    dispatch_time_t popTime = dispatch_time(DISPATCH_TIME_NOW, delayInSeconds * NSEC_PER_SEC);
    dispatch_after(popTime, dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^(void){
        NSLog(@"finished the async work.");
        completion(nil);
    });
}];
[sequencer enqueueStep:^(id result, SequencerCompletion completion) {
    NSLog(@"This is the last step");
    completion(nil);
}];
[sequencer run];

What does the above code do?

A Sequencer was created. There is no need to retain/hold-on-to-it. Trust me.

Four steps were enqueued to the Sequencer. The third step is async, but all the rest are plain sync code.

Each step finishes by calling completion() with a result object. This result is sent to the next step (in our case the result is nil).

We run the sequencer.

Note: Break the steps by just removing the call to completion(nil). Everything will be cleaned-up auto-magically.

Simple, elegant, and functional: What more could you ask for?

h/t: ManiacDev!

So just over one year ago we took a look at developments in the cocos2d world in the previous year while gearing up to review Packt’s latest book on the subject, and why look; we’re doing the exact same thing now! This year, it’s Creating Games with cocos2d for iPhone 2:

… and in very short order we trust, we’ll have opinions for you on it!

Meanwhile, the most surprising — although in hindsight obvious — news of 2012 in cocos2d land was the announcement of the explicit refocus from iOS gaming to a cross-platform development suite:

… Our goal is to provide a complete toolchain for developing multi-platform games both for Web and Mobile, all the way from rapid prototyping to a finished high performing game. The main components of our stack are:

• A visual editor ( CocosBuilder )
• A graphics engine ( cocos2d ) [in iPhone, C++, and HTML flavours]
• A physics engine ( Chipmunk )

For the Web, we are using pure JavaScript code, while for Mobile we are using JavaScript on top of native engines for maximum performance…

Apparently 2012 was also a good year for altering common understandings of terms like “maximum”. But snarkiness aside, yes it’s pretty likely that many iOS-centric developers are willing to compromise as much as Zynga to improve cross platform development efficiency; so this is no doubt A Good Thing™ for them. Latest coordinated release as we type here was four days ago, release notes here.

On the other hand, if you understandably recoil in quivering horror at the thought of sullying your iOS-centric vision with accommodations to those other, lesser, platforms, then 2012 brought you the full blown fork “KoboldTouch”. That seems to be chugging along nicely as well so far.

Tools-wise, the landscape of essential goodies really didn’t change during the year aside from the anointing of CocosBuilder mentioned above, but keep your eye on Spriter and ArtPigEditor as possible supplements. This tools list from July looks still pretty much up to date, and of course the mothership’s Editors/Tools forum is always worth keeping an eye on. Oh, and when you get around to marketing videos, Kamcord looks pretty nifty.

On the learning resources side, the only brand new book of 2012 is the one above; but Mr. KoboldTouch brought out a third edition “Learn Cocos2D 2″, and our still #1 recommended getting started resource is The iPhone Game Kit, now updated for iOS 6 and cocos2d 2.0. ‘Course, soon as you get your feet wettish with those, you should head directly to RayWenderlich.com, who definitely wins the Internet as far as iOS tutorials go. Notable cocos2d posts/updates are

• How To Make a Tile-Based Game with Cocos2D 2.X and Part 2
• How to Make a Game Like Jetpack Joyride using LevelHelper, SpriteHelper and Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4
• How To Create A Breakout Game with Box2D and Cocos2D 2.X Tutorial and Part 2
• How To Create Cool Effects with Custom Shaders in OpenGL ES 2.0 and Cocos2D 2.X
• Oh, just check the cocos2d tagged list.
• Or even better, go dig through dozens and dozens on the tutorial list page. Bring food and water, you’ll be a while.

Other miscellaneous tidbits, tips and tricks from around the web (ok, mainly ManiacDev.com) of interest:

Example: Easily Creating Particles In Cocos2D That Can Both Fade In And Out

krzysztofzablocki / CCNode-SFGestureRecognizers – “a category designed to simplify adding UIGestureRecognizers support”

Exporting Flash Animations to Cocos2d Actions

Open Source: Library For Importing Flash Animations Into Cocos2D iOS

Tutorial: How To Easily Create A Cocos2D AI Controlled Actors With A Finite State Machine Compiler

Example Source Code: Easy Cocos2D Sprite Floodfill Class

List of Open Source Cocos2d Projects, Extensions and Code Snippets

18 Tools and Source Code Components for Cocos2D iOS Game Development

Tutorial: How To Make Jagged Drawn Lines Smooth In Cocos2D

How to Zoom In on a Cocos2D Node

Example: Open Source iOS Castle Destruction Game Using Cocos2D And Box2D

Cocos2D and Storyboards

nerdcave / PESprite – “a CCSprite extension for cocos2d that supports collision detection”

CloudBomber – Cocos2D deformable terrain example project

Pixel based destructible ground with Cocos2d

A Magnifying Glass for Cocos2D

Open Source Cocos2D Based Framework For Creating Highly Interactive iPad Books

Building a depth map for cocos2d in Photoshop

Tutorial: Build An Angry Birds Style Game Quickly W/Cocos2d, LevelHelper and SpriteHelper

sceresia / CCAutoType – “cocos2d-iPhone class to add RPG-like auto typing dialog”

Simple Fractal terrains [in] cocos2d

Tutorial: Create A Character With Ragdoll Physics Using Chipmunk And Cocos2D

Strategies for Accessing Other Cocos2D Nodes In The Scene Hierarchy

The Four Ways of Implementing a Scrolling View with Cocos2D Explained

Example: Displaying A 3D .OBJ Model In Cocos2D iPhone v2.x (W/Zooming, Rotation, And Movement)

Example: An Open Source iOS Pokemon/Pet Type Game Created Utilizing Cocos2D

UPDATES:

Open Source Pinch To Reveal Animation using Cocos2d

This is certainly conveniently timed; yesterday they decided they’d like player names to be tappable to bring up the player’s card everywhere they’re displayed in Atimi’s sports apps — and why look, today we have an example of just how to go about that!

SebastienThiebaud / STTweetLabel

A custom UILabel view controller for iOS with certain words tappable like Twitter (#Hashtag, @People and http://www.link.com/page)

h/t: iOS Dev Weekly!

Ever tried to write a UIGestureRecognizer? Kinda hard, wasn’t it? Well, check out CMUnistrokeGestureRecognizer:

How would you go about recognising a gesture like this star shape in an iOS app?

This was the problem posed to me recently while working on a project … Created by three clever chaps at the University of Washington back in 2007, the $1 Unistroke Recognizer was designed to recognise single path (unistroke) gestures, exactly what I was looking for. Not only that, but design goals for the technique make it an ideal candidate for use in mobile applications…

… CMUnistrokeGestureRecognizer is my port of the $1 Unistroke Recognizer to iOS. I’m not the first to implement this recogniser in Objective-C but none of the existing implementations met my requirements. I wanted the $1 Unistroke Recognizer to be fully contained within a UIGestureRecognizer, with as simple an API as possible.
So the CMUnistrokeGestureRecognizer implements the $1 Unistroke Recognizer as a UIGestureRecognizer. It features:

• Recognition of multiple gestures
• Standard UIGestureRecognizer callback for success
• Template paths defined by UIBezierPath objects
• Optional callbacks for tracking path drawing and recognition failure
• Configurable minimum recognition score threshold
• Option to disable rotation normalisation
• Option to enable the Protractor method for potentially faster recognition

Looks like just the thing for adding complex gesture support into your apps, doesn’t it now?

h/t: iOS Dev Weekly! (Yes, we just read the Dec. 14th issue. Getting back up to speed, slowly…)