How To Use “UIActionSheet” As A Pop-over View In Your IOS Apps

iOS-destructive_button

What is UIActionSheet

The action sheet in iOS contains a title and one or more buttons. Each of the buttons is associated with separate actions. It can be presented from a toolbar; tab bar, button bar item or from a view, however the title can be optional.

Why use UIActionSheet?

UIActionSheet is used in the following cases:

  • To show an option for a given task
  • To prompt the user to confirm an action
  • To get user input

Action sheet is dismissed by touching anywhere outside the pop-over.

How to use it?

  • Extend the UIActionSheetDeleagte in the .h header file of the ViewController
  • Then add a method named as”showActionSheet”

Example

[sourcecode]@interface MyViewController : UIViewController {

}

-(IBAction)showActionSheet:(id)sender;
@end[/sourcecode]

Initializing the UIActionSheet takes 5 following parameters

  •  initWithTitle
  • delegate
  • cancelButtonTitle
  • destructiveButtonTitle
  • otherButtonTitles

Add the following code in the .m file of viewcontroller.

Example

[sourcecode]-(IBAction)showActionSheet:(id)sender {
UIActionSheet *popupQuery = [[UIActionSheet alloc] initWithTitle:@"Set your title" delegate:self cancelButtonTitle:@"Cancel" destructiveButtonTitle:@"Destructive Button" otherButtonTitles:@"Rename",@"Delete", nil];

popupQuery.actionSheetStyle = UIActionSheetStyleBlackOpaque;
[popupQuery showInView:self.view];
[popupQuery release];
}[/sourcecode]

How to know which button was clicked by user?

There is a delegate method named as “actionSheet clickedButtonAtIndex” in which you can get the action.

[sourcecode]-(void)actionSheet:(UIActionSheet *)actionSheet clickedButtonAtIndex:(NSInteger)buttonIndex {

switch (buttonIndex) {
case 0:
NSLog(@”%@”,Destructive Button Clicked);
break;
case 1:
NSLog(@”%@”,Rename Button Clicked);
break;
case 2:
NSLog(@”%@”,Delete Button Clicked);
break;
case 3:
NSLog(@”%@”,Cancel Button Clicked);
break;
}
}[/sourcecode]

Conclusion:

UIActionSheet gives additional choices to the users for a particular action & gives a cleaner look to the app.

Guide To Display Images In Grid View On IPhone

In some iOS apps, displaying images in a single view would make the UI lose its uniformity. It would be difficult to manage images of different resolution and impossible to keep track of thousand of images without using Grid View in iPhone.

This is just like a “Grid View” application. Here we will explore how to display images, programmatically in “Grid view” on an iPhone.

Here We Go…

Step 1:

  • Open Xcode
  • Create a View base applicationGridview-123
  • Give the application name “ImageGrid”.

Step 2:

The directory structure is automatically created by the Xcode which also adds up essential frameworks to it. Now, explore the directory structure to check out the contents of the directory.

Step 3:

Here you need to add one ‘NSObject’ class to the project.

  • Select  project -> New File -> Cocoa Touch -> Objective-C class
  • Give the class name “Images”.

Step 4:

Then add an image to the project and give the image name “icon.png”.

Step 5:

  • Open “ImageGridViewController” file and add ‘UITableViewDelegate’ and ‘UITableViewDataSource’
  • Define ‘UITableView’ and ‘NSMutableArray’ classes as well as the buttonPressed: method
  • Import the ‘Image.h’ class and make the following changes.

[sourcecode]#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#import "Image.h"
@interface ImageGridViewController:UIViewController <UITableViewDelegate, UITableViewDataSource> {
IBOutlet UITableView *tableView;
NSMutableArray  *sections;
}
@property (nonatomic, retain) UITableView *tableView;
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSMutableArray *sections;
-(IBAction)buttonPressed:(id)sender;
@end[/sourcecode]

Step 6:

  • Double click the ‘ImageGridViewController.xib’ file and open it in the Interface Builder.
  • First drag the ‘TableView’ from the library and place it in the view window.
  • Select ‘tableview’ from the view window and bring up connection inspector and connect ‘dataSource’ to the ‘File’s Owner’ and delegate to the ‘File’s Owner’ icon.
  • Now save the .xib file and go back to Xcode.

Step 7:

In the ‘ImageGridViewController.m’ file, make the following changes:

[sourcecode]#import "ImageGridViewController.h"
#import "Item.h" @implementation ImageGridViewController
@synthesize tableView,sections;

-(void)loadView{

[super loadView];
sections = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];

for(int s=0;s<1;s++) { // 4 sections
NSMutableArray *section = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];

for(int i=0;i<12;i++) {// 12 items in each section
Image *item = [[ Image alloc] init];
item.link=@"New Screen";
item.title=[NSString stringWithFormat:@"Item %d", i];
item.image=@"icon2.png";

[section addObject:item];
}
[sections addObject:section];
}
}

– (NSInteger)numberOfSectionsInTableView:(UITableView *)tableView {
return [sections count];
}

– (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section {
return 1;
}

– (CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath*)indexPath {
NSMutableArray *sectionItems = [sections objectAtIndex:indexPath.section];
int numRows = [sectionItems count]/4;
return numRows * 80.0;
}

-(NSString *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView titleForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section {

NSString *sectionTitle = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Section  %d", section];
return sectionTitle;
}

– (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {

static    NSString *hlCellID = @"hlCellID";

UITableViewCell *hlcell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:hlCellID];
if(hlcell == nil) {
hlcell = [[[UITableViewCell alloc]
initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:hlCellID] autorelease];
hlcell.accessoryType = UITableViewCellAccessoryNone;
hlcell.selectionStyle = UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone;
}

int section = indexPath.section;
NSMutableArray *sectionItems = [sections objectAtIndex:section];

int n = [sectionItems count];
int i=0,i1=0;

while(i<n){
int yy = 4 +i1*74;
int j=0;
for(j=0; j<4;j++){

if (i>=n) break;
Image *item = [sectionItems objectAtIndex:i];
CGRect rect  = CGRectMake(18+80*j, yy, 40, 40);
UIButton *buttonImage=[[UIButton alloc] initWithFrame:rect];
[buttonImage setFrame:rect];
UIImage *buttonImageNormal=[UIImage imageNamed:item.image];
[buttonImage setBackgroundImage:buttonImageNormal forState:UIControlStateNormal];
[buttonImage setContentMode:UIViewContentModeCenter];
NSString *tagValue = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d%d", indexPath.section+1, i];
buttonImage.tag = [tagValue intValue];
//NSLog(@tag….%d", button.tag);
[buttonImage addTarget:self
action:@selector(buttonPressed:)forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
hlcell.contentView addSubview:buttonImage];
[buttonImage release];

UILabel *label = [[[UILabel alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake((80*j)-4,                 yy+44, 80, 12)] autorelease];
label.text = item.title;
label.textColor = [UIColor blackColor];
label.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
label.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;
label.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"ArialMT" size:12];
[hlcell.contentView addSubview:label];
i++;
}
i1 = i1+1;
}
return hlcell;
}
-(IBAction)buttonPressed:(id)sender {
int tagId = [sender tag];
int divNum = 0;
if(tagId<100)
divNum=10;
else
divNum=100;
int section = [sender tag]/divNum;
section -=1;// we had incremented at tag assigning time
int itemId = [sender tag]%divNum;
NSLog(@"…section = %d, item = %d", section, itemId);
NSMutableArray*sectionItems = [sections objectAtIndex:section];
Image    *item    =    [sectionItems objectAtIndex:itemId];
NSLog(@"Image selected…..%@, %@", item.title, item.link);

}

-(void)viewDidLoad{
[super viewDidLoad];
}

-(void)didReceiveMemoryWarning{
[super didReceiveMemoryWarning];
}

-(void)viewDidUnload{
// Release any retained subviews of the main view.
// e.g. self.myOutlet = nil;
}

-(void)dealloc{
[super dealloc];
}
@end[/sourcecode]

Step 8:

Open the ‘Image.h’ file and make the following changes:

[sourcecode]#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
@interface Image:NSObject{
NSString*title;
NSString*link;
NSString*image;
}
@property(nonatomic, copy)NSString*title;
@property(nonatomic, copy)NSString*link;
@property(nonatomic, copy)NSString*image;
@end[/sourcecode]

Step 9:

Make the changes in the ‘Item.m’ file:

[sourcecode]#import "Image.h"
@implementation Item
@synthesize title, link, image;
@end[/sourcecode]

Step 10:

Now save it and compile it in the Simulator.

It would be smart to use Grid View to display a number of images in a single view because it enables to manage multiple images efficiently. Users are also facilitated to keep track of their images. It becomes eye soothing and looks great on the iPhone mobile devices.

Keep visiting regularly to Andolasoft blog to know our upcoming article about the process to show your android Smartphone captured images dynamically in “Grid View” Layout.

Beginner’s Guide to Cropping Images in PHP Using ImageMagick

While using images in a web application, developers can’t always include images of a particular measurement. In such cases, resizing the images for the application would be a good option but, not efficient either. For example, resizing a long vertical image into a horizontal dimension would just squeeze the image; thereby, affecting the aesthetics of the website and also reducing the purpose of it. Hence it would be smart to implement a cropping tool like ‘ImageMagick’ in order to fit images of various dimensions into a specified size.

ImageMagick is a collection of robust and convenient tools for manipulating images. It can be used to crop images of numerous formats such as JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, PhotoCD and many more. ImageMagick facilitates creation of dynamic images that are fitting to the specific requirements of web applications.

Difference Between Cropping in GD Library and ImageMagic:

GD is the most commonly used extension for PHP. It is popular because it is easier to install and configure (`yum install php-gd` on Fedora, CentOS etc or `sudo apt-get php5-gd` on ubuntu). However, it has some limitations such as:

  • It is comparatively slower
  • It is more memory intensive
  • For certain aspects it can be more complex to use.

Below I have mentioned a sample code for image cropping using GD:

[sourcecode]<?php
function resize_my_image($file, $w, $h, $crop=FALSE) {
list($width, $height) = getimagesize($file);
$r = $width / $height;
if ($crop) {
if ($width > $height) {
$width = ceil($width-($width*($r-$w/$h)));
} else {
$height = ceil($height-($height*($r-$w/$h)));
}
$newGDwidth = $w;
$newGDheight = $h;
} else {
if ($w/$h > $r) {
$newGDwidth = $h*$r;
$newGDheight = $h;
} else {
$newGDheight = $w/$r;
$newGDwidth = $w;
}
}
$src = imagecreatefromjpeg($file);
$dst = imagecreatetruecolor($newGDwidth, $newGDheight);
imagecopyresampled($dst, $src, 0, 0, 0, 0, $newGDwidth, $newGDheight, $width, $height);

return $dst;
}

$img = resize_my_image(‘/path/to/some/image.jpg’, 150, 150);
?>[/sourcecode]

You can either output it to the browser or save it to a file using the ‘imagejpeg’ function.

Imagick:

Imagick is a less frequently used PECL extension. ImageMagick is a free tool that is used for creating and manipulating images that supports over 100 different image formats. This can be used on a command line tool for any programming language. The Imagick extension essentially provides an API for all of the functionalities available in the `convert` command line tool.

Some of its advantages are:

  • It is faster
  • It uses less memory
  • Offers more powerful functionality
  • Imagick’ is lot easier to use (once you figure out how), your code may end up smaller and cleaner.

The down side of using this extension is that the documentation is extremely limited and there are almost no examples available on the web. Installation on the other hand can be a painful task as well.

Although it should just be a matter of running the command `pecl install imagick`.

Sample code:

Cropping larger images:

Put a big picture named andolasoft_logo.jpg along side with your php page, run the test and check the directory to see andolasoft_logo_thumb.jpg.

Requirement:

imagemagick with imagick extension

[sourcecode]<?php
$obj = new imagick(‘andolasoft_logo.jpg’);
//resize the above image
$obj->thumbnailImage(160, 0);
//write the thumb
$obj->writeImage(‘andolasoft_logo_thumb.jpg’);
?>[/sourcecode]

To Crop Animated Image:

[sourcecode]<?php
$image = new imagick(“andolasoft_animated_logo.gif”);
$image = $image->coalesceImages(); // the trick! To crop animated image
foreach ($image as $frame) {
$frame->cropImage($width, $height, $x, $y);
$frame->setImagePage(0, 0, 0, 0); // Remove gif canvas
}
?>[/sourcecode]

$x → The X coordinate of the cropped region’s top left corner
$y → The Y coordinate of the cropped region’s top left corner

Implementing ‘ImageMagick’ would make the website look clean and flawless. Images on the other hand retain its look and feel, thereby making the application look professional and optimized.

Find anything amiss here, then share it with us.

How Do I Implement Localization In IOS Apps?

We know that, all the apps in the Apple App Store are English-speaking, i.e. the menu, information, settings and everything else is in English. However, the apps become almost useless for the consumers from non native English speaking countries. Hence, it becomes essential for the developers to release apps with multiple language support. This is where internationalization and localization comes in handy which facilitates the iOS application developers to support numerous native languages that greatly increase the global user experience.

What Exactly Is Internationalization And Localization?

  • Internationalization and localization means adapting the software product to different languages, regional differences and technical requirements of a targeted market.
  • Internationalization is the process of designing a software application, so that it can be adapted to various languages and regions without engineering changes.
  • Localization is the process of accommodating internationalized software product for a specific region or language by adding locale-specific components and translating text.

Here Is An Example To Help You Grasp The Concept:

Let’s say there is an iPhone/iPad application made for Brazilian client and he needs to localize that product to Portuguese language so that every users of Brazil can use it.

Each and every application must contain some hardcoded strings. We need to pull all of these hardcoded strings into a separate file so that we can localize them.

To do this, create a “.strings” file in the Xcode to contain all of the strings that your project needs. Then the hardcoded strings should be replaced with a function call to look up the appropriate string from the “.strings” file based on the current language.

For example:

To create a “.string” file, follow below mentioned steps

  • Select the Project group in Xcode, and navigate to File >>New >>New File.
  • Choose iOS >>Resource >>Strings File, and click Next, as shown in the below snapshot.
  • Name the new file Localizable.strings, and then click Save.

Note that the “Localizable.strings” is the default filename; iOS looks for when dealing with localized text. If you rename the file, you’ll need to specify the name of the .strings file every time.

The format for the strings file is:

[sourcecode]"KEY" = "CONTENT";[/sourcecode]

For our ‘Account’ text add in:

[sourcecode]"TITLE" = "Account";[/sourcecode]

Now switch to “ViewController.m”, and find the “viewDidLoad” method. Now you can set the text as below:

[sourcecode]self.titleLabel.text = @"Account";[/sourcecode]

We want it to read from our “.strings” file. For this, you need to change the current line to use a macro called “NSLocalizedString” as shown below:

[sourcecode]self.titleLabel.text = NSLocalizedString(@"TITLE", nil);[/sourcecode]

Adding A Portuguese Localization

Steps to add a Portuguese localization are as follows:

  • You need to select “Localizable.strings”, and open the Info pane.
  • You can do this by selecting the 3rd tab in the top toolbar of the View section, and selecting the 1st tab in the top section, as shown in the below screenshot.

To add support for another language execute following steps:

  • You need to simply click on the ‘+’ (Plus) in that ‘Localization’ pane on the right of the view.
  • At first it will create localization for English.
  • If the “Localizable.Strings” deselect after your click then select the “Localizable.Strings” again. After the “Localizable.Strings” selected click the ‘+’ button once again and choose ‘Portuguese(pt)’ from the dropdown.

Now, Xcode has set up some directories containing a separate version of “Localizable.strings” for each language that you selected, behind the scenes. To view this for yourself, go to your project folder in Finder and open it. There you’ll get the following:

  • ‘en.lproj’ and ‘pt.lproj’ contain language-specific versions of files.
  • ‘en’ is the localization code for English, whereas ‘pt’ is for Portuguese.

To change the text for Portuguese, select ‘Localizable.strings (Portuguese)’ and change the text as follows:

[sourcecode]"TITLE" = "Conta";
“Back” = “Voltar”;
etc.
[/sourcecode]

It’s all about how to localize a string. But you also need to localize the UI, as the text length for a button may vary in different languages.

How To Adjust UI Elements:

Let’s discuss about how to localize the button text.

  • For Portuguese let’s say the button text is ‘MODIFICAR’.
  • The problem is that you need your button border to be relatively tight around the text. This isn’t a problem for title label because there is no constraint on its width, but here you’ll need to adjust the size of the button to make it look perfect.
  • If you simply change the text in “viewDidLoad” it will look odd, as the text of that button may or may not fit into it.

So you need to add localization to your “xib” and make the button bigger in Portuguese.

  • Go to “ViewController.xib” and in the info pane on the right of the view, click the ‘+’ button to add a Localization and choose Portuguese.
  • Note you may need to scroll down in the Info pane as it has some Interface Builder content in that side.
  • Now we have copy of “ViewController.xib” in our Portuguese folder (pt.lproj).
  • Select “ViewController.xib (Portuguese)”, and edit the button text in that version to say ‘MODIFICAR’.
  • It will resize the button by default.

Once, all the set up is done perfectly, delete the application from simulator/device and select Project>>Clean to get a fresh build and install. Then build and run your app.

How To Apply Localization For Images:

If you have text in your image you need to localize it.Follow the steps mentioned below.

  • Select the .jpg file and add localization for Portuguese.
  • Check out the project folder.
  • The ‘.jpg’ image file has been added to the English folder (en.lproj) and then copied to the Portuguse folder (pt.lproj).
  • To make a different image for the Portuguese version, you need to overwrite the image in the Portuguese folder.
  • Rebuild and get the final result!

Benefits:

It is better to have localization in your iOS apps to target the global users. The app will display the contents according to the visitor’s language.

  • Same information can be shared across the world.
  • Great user experience.

4 Simple Steps To Implement “Delayed Job” In Rails

Here in this article, I going to tell you the best way to implement “delayed job” in rails

“delayed_job” is a ruby gem used to execute tasks as a background process in Rails environment, increasing page rendering speed.

Delayed::Job (or DJ) allows you to move jobs into the background for asynchronous processing.

Why you need a background process and is it really that important!

Let’s consider a scenario where a mailing application needs to send emails to a huge list of recipients. In such cases it is obvious that the processing time is too long, annoying the users.

Here are some of key points to consider:

  • Incredibly quick & easy to get rolling
  • No addition to your “stack”, runs just fine with Active Record
  • Good choice for beginners while migrating code from foreground to the background

Hence, it’s only wise to move the long running tasks as a background process by using “delayed_job” gem.

Detailed steps to integrate delayed job in a Rails application

Step# 1

  • Add gem to the Gemfile
  • “delayed_job” supports multiple back-ends for storing the job queue
  • To use “delayed_job” with Active Record, use gem ‘delayed_job_active_record’
  • To use “delayed_job” with Mongoid, use gem ‘delayed_job_mongoid’

Example

/Gemfile.rb

  • gem ‘delayed_job_active_record’, ‘4.0.3’
  • Run “bundle install” to install the “delayed_job” gem

Step# 2

  • Generate the related file for the Job run
  • Generate related files required to run the background job by running the following command
    • rails g delayed_job:active_record

It adds following files to the application

  • A Script named “delayed_job” inside “/bin” folder to run the jobs which are in queue.
  • Migration file to create a table to store the job with other information such as priority, attempts, handler, last_error, run_at, locked_at, failed_at, locked_by, queue.

Run the migration file by using the following command

  • rails db:migrate

Set the queue_adapter in config/application.rb

  • config.active_job.queue_adapter = :delayed_job

If you are using the protected_attributes gem, it must appear before delayed_job in your gemfile. If your jobs are failing with:

  • Setup Delayed::Job config in an initializer (config/initializers/delayed_job_config.rb)
    • Delayed::Worker.destroy_failed_jobs = false
    • Delayed::Worker.sleep_delay = 60
    • Delayed::Worker.max_attempts = 3
    • Delayed::Worker.max_run_time = 5.minutes
    • Delayed::Worker.read_ahead = 10
    • Delayed::Worker.default_queue_name = ‘default’
    • Delayed::Worker.delay_jobs = !Rails.env.test?
    • Delayed::Worker.raise_signal_exceptions = :term
    • Delayed::Worker.logger = Logger.new(File.join(Rails.root, ‘log’, ‘delayed_job.log’))

Step# 3

  • Replace script/delayed_job with bin/delayed_job
  • Start up the jobs process

There are two ways to do this.

  • If application is in development mode, we would use the below rake task instead.
    • rake jobs:work
  • If application is in production mode, then it is preferred to use the “delayed_job” script. This demonizes the job process and allows multiple background processes to be spawned.

To use this, pursue the following steps

  • Add gem “daemons” to your Gemfile
  • Run bundle install
  • Make sure you’ve run rails generate delayed_job
  • If you want to just run all available jobs and exit you can use rake jobs:workoff
  • Work off queues by setting the QUEUE or QUEUES environment variable.
    • QUEUE=tracking rake jobs:work
    • QUEUES=mailers,tasks rake jobs:work

Step# 4

  • Add task to run in background
  • In Controller just call .delay.method(params) on any object and it will be processed in the background.

Example:

UsersController before adding to background job

[code language=”html”]
class UsersController < ApplicationController
def send_email
User.find_each(is_subscribed: true) do |user|
NewsMailer.newsletter_mail(user).deliver
flash[:notice] = "Mail delivered"
redirect_to root_path
end
end
end
[/code]

 
UsersController after adding to background job

[code language=”html”]
class UsersController < ApplicationController
def send_email
User.find_each(is_subscribed: true) do |user|
# add .delay method to add it to background process. In case of mail sending remove the .deliver method to make it work.
NewsMailer.delay.newsletter_mail(user)
flash[:notice] = "Mail delivered"
redirect_to root_path
end
end
end
[/code]

Advantages of implementing above steps:

  • No more waiting for a response, after clicking a link to do a big stuff.
  • Just call .delay.method(params) on any object and it processes in the background.
  • Job objects are serialized to yaml and stored in the delayed_jobs table, so they can be restored by the job runner later.
  • It automatically retries on failure. If a method throws an exception it’s caught and the method reruns later. The method retries up to 25 times at increasingly longer intervals until it passes.
  • “delayed_job” gem maintains log by creating a log file “/log/delayed_job.log”

I am sure this article will give you a clear idea about the way to implement “delayed job” in rails. You can share your thoughts with comments if I have missed anything or if you want to know more.

Do you work on or use Ruby on Rails? Let’s Discuss!