Paper and Presentation

So I forgot to post both Friday and yesterday, so I'll try to make this post a little longer to help compensate. Friday I worked on my paper as well as read up on the Apple user interface guidelines. I incorporated some of that reading into my paper as well as am going to work on incorporating it into my app.

Sunday and Monday I spent a lot of time on the paper. I tried to follow the outline I made as well as fit in what I thought was the most relevant information. I showed it to Dr. Sykes when I finished and he had a few suggestions, which I took. I fixed up my paper and sent the final project to Dr. Bopp. We then met Monday evening as a class and discussed the elements of good speaking, which I found very helpful. Even though I've given several speeches and presentations before, most longer than 8 minutes, I still get nervous with every presentation I do. I do know that the nervousness does go away once I begin, I just have to begin.

Today I worked on my presentation. I think, as of this writing, everything is about nailed down. All I will do now is continue to practice, practice, practice. I really want to make sure this goes well tomorrow. I'm also interested to hear the other presentations and what everyone else did and how it went for them.

Thursday!

Today I worked with Dr. Sykes a bit more and we got the app to work on my iPhone! This is exciting because I can actually see what I've done on an actual device and not just on my simulator anymore. I spent the rest of the day working on my paper and reading through some of the documentation, especially the interface guidelines section so that I have an idea of what I need to have in my app, and I have a feel for how it needs to look. There's really not much else I can say for today. These are pretty straightforward 3 things, nothing too revolutionary. More tomorrow.

Further attempts to test on an iPhone

Today I worked with Dr. Sykes on trying to set up my iPhone so that I could test my app on it. It looked simple enough, but it turns out, it's quite a process. We went through all the steps, and it seemed that we did it all correctly, but for some reason, Xcode still won't allow me to test my app on my phone. I have an idea though that I'll try out tomorrow with Dr. Sykes.

I also spent some time working on the interface section of my paper. There's still a lot of work to be done on the paper, but I'm making progress. I should get quite a long ways on it tomorrow and see about beginning my presentation practice. I'll get some screenshots of my work and put it in the presentation.

I also looked into how to use tab bars today. I have not yet figured it out. It looks like it will take some time to sort through exactly how it works and how I can implement it into my app. Good thing I've got the internet and my programming books for that.

Further Progress and Paper

Today was a productive day. I came up with a brief outline of my paper and have begun working on it. I also continued working on my interface. I connected more more pieces to the "puzzle" and wrote some code to conserve memory. I also had a chat with Dr. Sykes about the paper, its contents, and my project in general. He gave me some more ideas of ways I can implement ideas, and we also discussed the most efficient ways to code the application. I also tried to get my project to work on an iPad so I could physically test it out, but it wouldn't work for some reason. Dr. Sykes said he'll look into seeing if he can at least get a project onto an iPhone to test. If I could see the project at work on my phone, that would be really cool. In any event, it's been a long day, and looks to be a long one again tomorrow. Time to get some sleep!

Serious progress - FINALLY!!

Today has been an all-around productive day. I discovered the error I had been making that kept me from clicking a cell to load a new view. It was really simple. I was calling the wrong method. I can't believe I spent hours trying to figure that one out. I was calling a method that fires when the user presses a button that can be coded into the cell, instead of calling the method that fires when the user presses the cell itself. It was such a small thing, but that's how programming goes. You live and learn. I can guarantee I won't be making that mistake again.

I also had a chat with Dr. Sykes about getting hooked up as a student developer for Apple so I can use real devices to test my programs on. Dr. Sykes is looking into requisitioning an iPad so I can test out my interface on it this week. We also discussed the paper and what topics I can write it on, etc. I've got an idea and I'll hit that full on tomorrow. However, I still really want to continue the interface of my app because I'm actually making progress. The more progress I make, the more I want to work on it. I'm at the point where I can create a new project and now I need to code up the class that stores the individual project information.

Time is flying, and there's so much I still want to do!

Day 12 - Cells

I've worked away the afternoon today trying to get a cell to show up on my Project view. I talked to Dr. Sykes and read the documentation until I finally discovered that there were a couple methods that I needed to implement that "magically" make the cell show up when implemented. There actually is no set "ViewCell" method from what I've come to understand, and that caused me some trouble.

Now that I have the cell, it should be an easy task to make the cell show another view once I click on it in the simulator. Wrong. I spent the rest of my time today trying to figure out how to connect it to a view. For some reason, I think my view's aren't connected to their implementation files, so I might need to recreate those and see. It's amazing how something can be so simple, yet so incredibly difficult. I'm really getting into this now though and so I might be able to find some time to hit it again over the weekend. I want to get the interface done by next week if possible.

Day 11 - Tables...not as easy as it sounds

Ok, so I've spent today trying to get my table view working with cells so that I can load a cell and use it to pull up another view. I thought this would be a pretty simple task, but it has turned out to be more difficult than I thought. I've tried many different approaches as well as read through the sections of my books that are relevant to this topic, but I cannot figure out how to make a table cell show up on the screen. I can get the table to show up and I can initialize the cell, but I can't make it viewable.

Maybe I'll have better luck tomorrow. Sometimes resting and leaving the project for awhile can be the best thing. When I continue in the morning, I might be able to solve it faster than if I continue to sit and hack away at it now.

Day 10 - Breakthrough!!!

Today I woke up determined to figure out how to use view controllers to manipulate views on a screen. Namely, I wanted to be able to start with a main view and push a button on the screen to switch to another view. I started going through my books some more, trying to understand how this could be accomplished, and I finally was successful! I not only was able to figure that out, but I think that today was the day that I have transitioned from being clueless, to actually starting to understand how to make things work in Xcode. Sometimes it just takes stepping away from a project for a few minutes, or sleeping on it, but eventually, upon return, I always seem to understand it a little better.

I also met with Dr. Sykes today and we chatted about where to go from here. I've decided to move forward with "finishing" the interface so that I have all the views that will be necessary. Once I have that, I can move into actually coding each feature into the application. First however, I will start drawing. An artist I am not, but it will be necessary to lay out how I want the interface to look before I start building it. I'll also take some time tomorrow to work with Cody on the puzzle application and see if we can make some more progress on it.

Until tomorrow!

Day 9 - Walled

Today I was walled. I spent my time reading and rereading a chapter that deals with multi-views in applications. I also did some research online to try to find out how to do it, but all to no avail. I still sit with my latest interface, but no connections. I rebuilt the interface several times over, trying different methods to see if I could get it working, but nothing worked for me. Fortunately, I'll be able to talk to Dr. Sykes about this tomorrow and hopefully get it working and be able to move on to implementing a message board or calender into the app.

Day 8 - Interfacing, finding out just how much I still don't know

Today I began working on the interface system for my application. I thought I knew how it worked, but when I tried to set up multiple views, I hit a bug and it forced me to go take a look at the documentation. Apple has extensive documentation, but I had trouble finding what was most relevant to my project as I didn't exactly know what search terms to use. Sometimes the wording seems to be a bit cryptic and I had to look through a lot of documentation to find something that was actually helpful. I also went back to my iOS programming book and discovered they have a chapter that covers multiple views. I'll be able to finish that chapter tomorrow and hopefully get a bare-bones interface system up and running.

Unfortunately, I've been summoned for jury duty, so I have to go in tomorrow to court. Hopefully that won't take long, and I'll be able to get back to the project at hand. I'm supposed to be exempt, and I sent them all the required paperwork, but they never got back to me, so I have to show up. We shall see what happens.

Day number...uh, yesterday + 1 haha (AKA Puzzle App Fun Day)

Today I worked with Xcode's interface system more, with the help of my book. I worked with buttons, switches, sliders, and how they are implemented and how they can be used to perform different tasks. I also spent the afternoon working with Cody Ches on a puzzle app idea that he had. It's a good project to start with because it's pretty straightforward (That's for you Dr. Sykes! :D). We were able to get two images to display on the screen and we could drag them around the screen with the mouse in the iPhone simulator (which means that on a real iPhone, the user could touch the picture and slide it around). I'll see about posting some pictures of the simulator with the pictures in different locations (I don't have video, maybe I'll try making one).

All in all, a productive day. I think I might be starting to understand this stuff!

Day 6 - Heavy on the research, lighter on the books

Today I started going through my new book on iOS 5 programming and learned a lot about the user interface and how to manipulate text and buttons. I'm so glad that Xcode has made the process a lot easier than it could be. It would be really time consuming if not difficult to code in every button and every text box. Xcode does the job beautifully so I can worry about other code.

I also had the idea to go ask some of my friends and professors what they would like to see in an collaboration app. I stopped and talked with Dr. Bopp first about this question as well as discussed the overall project with her. I shall continue gathering ideas from people as I see them in days to come.

I then took some time away from the books and downloaded the Xcode documentation and began my research through it to find out what features Xcode already has built in that can help me. I found out that there are frameworks built for writing in-app emails and text messages, as well as handling events. There's even a built in way to retrieve a device's location! I won't be using it, but I think it's something that would be fun to mess around with.

Tomorrow I'll be meeting with Cody to work on a small application idea he has. This will be my test to help me see what I know, and what I need more work on. Then, after some brushing up, I'll be diving into my own app.

Day 5 - Pre-made classes, yay!

Today was one of those days where you start to feel as though you aren't making any progress. It feels like there is so much to know and to learn, and so little time to learn it. I'm in a haze right now, trying to mentally organize this influx of information. Fingers crossed that I don't explode before interim ends.

My new book arrived late this afternoon so I haven't spent much time on it yet. I'll have lots of time tomorrow, so I'll really hit it hard because I'm getting anxious to get the book learning out of the way and actually being working on my application. Such tediousness...ugh. Don't get me wrong, I love learning, but sometimes so much goes in and it feels like I'm drowning.

On a more positive note, I learned about the developer tools and all the little niceties that Apple has built into Xcode for my use. The book I've been reading through showed me how to access different classes and look up the documentation to see what each different class can do. I can see lots of documentation reading in my future. I haven't looked through all the documentation and built-in classes yet, but I'm really hoping I can find classes that let me tap into the messaging system as well as calenders and email. That would really help me out in writing the application.

Hopefully I can push through my feelings of hopelessness and break through to the understanding phase of my project soon! I'm ready to understand fully how this all works and start using it for real!

Day 4 - Xcode and outdated books...setback #1

So today I finished reading about memory management. This is a very important concept, especially with mobile devices as they have less memory than desktop or laptop computers. This is a newer concept to me because I'll actually have to make sure and remember to allocate (set aside) and deallocate (give up) memory in my application.

I began to continue through the book and realized that due to a recent Xcode update (November, I believe) and with the release of iOS 5, my reading materials are somewhat out of date. This caused some frustration as it leaves me no choice but to purchase an up-to-date book on iOS 5. It will arrive tomorrow (gotta love Amazon Prime Student with $3.99 overnight shipping!). Until it arrives, I'll continue to read my current book as I will still be able to glean some useful information.

One random action for the day - I discovered that I can follow my own blog. So for grins, I am now a follower...of myself...sometimes the little things can be so entertaining, even if only for a few minutes time.

Day 3 - Xcode

Today was spent focused on learning how to use Xcode. What a process that is! I've been reading through a high-rated book on Xcode called iOS Programming, by Joe Conway and Aaron Hillegass.

I learned today that typos can sometimes be difficult to find, especially when the program runs even with the typos. I also had some trouble getting some files synced up so that one program could use another program file. I stopped by Dr. Sykes' office and looked the problem over with him. We worked through it together and now I have a better understanding of how to link files together.

I'm hoping that by the end of tomorrow or by Wednesday, I'll be able to at least begin writing some basic structure for my application. First, though, I need to get a little further through the aforementioned book in order to begin confidently working with Xcode.

Day 2 - Learning, Sketching, Meeting

Today I spent my time finishing up learning the basics of Objective-C. I feel that I have learned enough to move ahead and begin researching and preparing to begin creation of my application.

I met with Dr. Sykes today and discussed some details of the project with him. He suggested that I create a list of requirements for my project as well as begin sketching out the user interface. I began making some preliminary sketches of where the buttons will be and what options the user will have at each screen. I also began writing my list of requirements for the application. As I come up with more ideas and move forward with the application's development, the list may be revised according to what I deem to be necessary and irrelevant.

I will now begin learning how to use XCode to write applications. Cody has an idea for a basic application that I may begin to work on with him in order to help solidify the process of creating apps. I still have to talk to him about this and see what he thinks.

I think I might have a tentative name for my application. Because it is a collaboration app, I was thinking about calling it Collab. Comments and suggestions would be appreciated. I really want to come up with a cool name!

That's it for now. Enjoy the weekend everyone!

Day 1 - Learning the Language

Today begins my journey into the unknown. I shall enter the unknown and attempt to come out alive on the other side...ok, maybe not that drastic. But I started my interim project today by beginning to read through Stephen Kochan's book, Programming in Objective-C. This book will give me the basics of the Objective-C programming language. The book covers the syntax of the language as well as some more in-depth topics of which I will reveal as I, myself, discover them. I hope to finish the book up in a couple days and also go through another book that specifically covers app development in Apple's XCode. These two books will allow me to begin actually coding up my application. Of course, I will need to do some research as well to find the most efficient ways to code the application before I begin. All in good time. That's it for the evening! Bye for now!