NSTimers usually don’t fire when the user is scrolling a table or other UIScrollView – or doing anything else that puts the run loop in event tracking mode. Â This post describes the problem and an easy solution. The problem Suppose you set up a timer in the most convenient manner, with something like this: [NSTimer […]
In this post, I’ll outline four simple rules for memory management in Objective-C. The Apple docs have already established basic guidelines for object ownership, following the fundamental idea that if you own an object, then you’re responsible for releasing it. This post goes a step further with tips for when and where ownership can be […]
Ok, I admit it – my favorite debugging tool is still NSLog (and print statements in general). Â In this post I’ll mention some useful debug logging techniques you can use with the help of preprocessor macros. Logging method calls It’s as simple as this: #define PrintName NSLog(@”%s”, __FUNCTION__) Add this macro (with a semicolon) to […]
In this post, I’ll explain how to add a border, rounded corners, and drop shadow to any UIView using some simple CALayer properties. Â I’m not a CALayer guru, but these few tricks from the layer world are particularly nice to know about. These properties are present for every UIView, since every view is actually drawn […]
UILabel is built with a handy shadow feature, but it doesn’t always look the way you might want – in this post I’ll describe the ShadowedLabel subclass which draws nicer shadows. Â (Code links below.) Default UILabel shadows This code: generates a shadow that looks like this: It’s not the end of the world, but it’s […]
In this post, I’ll present a microclass that can give you simplified popover ( UIPopoverController ) handling in many cases, including automatic rotation updates. Links to code below. What PopoverHelper does Normally, this is how you need to work with a popover: Set up the content view controller that will appear in the popover. Alloc […]