A Simple About Box

Hi fellas. I've been wanting to write 2nd tutorial for sometime, but really is pushing my own schedule to submit my 3rd app. Anyways, those who stopped by, do notice that this is a tutorial blog for Noobies. Like me. If you are looking for advanced stuffs, I'm not there yet. Perhaps sometime in the future, xcodeadvanced.blogspot.com would be born. =p

Anyways, getting back to main subject: Today's tutorial is to create a simple About Box that displays your information - such as website URL, version of the app, your name, and a logo of your company. Below is how it will look like:

Before I go on with this tutorial, I do realize that some dev likes to use a full page of UIView to display as About Box and put all fancy backgrounds etc. For me, I don't like to waste resources so much in stuffs that are not benefiting the users. So I make full use of the UIAlertView class.

Lets start:

First, I create a new project -> A Single-View Template. (I love Single View!) In this project, I gave it a name of ImageInAlert.proj.

Next, we declare an IBAction method/function in the ImageInAlertViewController.h (header file).

 -(IBAction)showAboutBox;

We do not need to know who is calling the method, so the (id)sender extension parameter is omitted. Once this is done, SAVE IT, and then open the ImageInAlertViewController.xib. Put a UIButton on it. Put a title on the UIButton, mine says "About".

Now, select the UIButton and go to Connections window and select the second tab (with a picture of an arrow pointing to the right on it) Under "Events" section, connect the "Touch Up Inside" to the File's Owner icon in the Main xib window. You need to move around your View if you can't see the Main xib window.

You should see a list pop up, select showAboutBox. And now the button is connected to our method/function. SAVE THE XIB FILE.

*Make it a habit to save every now and then.. because if you don't save, what you have typed in or changed, will not be updated in XCode, therefore can't be detected in IB, and vice versa.*

Now go back to the Main file: ImageInAlertViewController.m. Type the following code:

 -(IBAction)showAboutBox {

// Part 1

 UIAlertView *alert = [[UIAlertView alloc]

       initWithTitle:@"AlertView Tutorial"

       message:@"\n"

       @"\n"

       @"\n" // Part 2

       @"\n"

       @"\n"

       @"Created by: \n"

       @"Emir F Samsuddin \n"

       @"http://xcodenoobie.blogspot.com"

       delegate:nil

       cancelButtonTitle:@"Ok" // Part 3

       otherButtonTitles:nil];

// Part 4

 UIImageView *iemirlogo = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"MainIcon.png"]];

 iemirlogo.contentMode = UIViewContentModeScaleToFill; // Part 5

 iemirlogo.frame = CGRectMake(90, 40, 100, 120); // Part 6

 [alert addSubview:iemirlogo]; // Part 7

 [iemirlogo release]; // Part 8

 

[alert show]; // Part 9

[alert release];   // Part 10

 

}

Ok, Im going to explain part by part: Refer to the above label while reading below:

Part 1: Declare a name for the UIAlertView object that we are going to create. I give it a name of alert.

Part 2: All the /n are so that it skip a line. Its like pressing the Enter/Return button on your Mac. I do this so that I can have a space to put my image there later on.

Part 3: Cancelbuttontitle is the title for the cancel button (ie the button that when user pressed, will dismiss the about box)

Part 4: Here is the fancy part (well for a noobie anyways), we create an imageview object, and directly load an image from project resources into it. "MainIcon.png" is already been dragged into the Resources folder. This is the image that I will make appear at the alert view.

Part 5: Set the image property so that the image is scaled following the size of the UIImageView frame. The property name is contentMode and the value is UIViewContentModeScaleToFill

Part 6: Define the size and location of the image in the form of CGRectMake(x,y,width,height). x and y is the location of the image, measuring from the top left hand corner of the image. width and height, er.. are the Width and Height of the image frame. Try experimenting with these values to get what you finally want.

Part 7: Finally, we add the image to the AlertView. addSubview is a useful method to add anything to anything.

Part 8: We have added the image to the AlertView, so we clear/release the image from memory.

Part 9: Show the alert box. (ie, make it pop out)

Part 10: We have shown the alert to the main view, so we clear/release the alert from memory.

Creating Flashing Custom Button

If you used UIButton before, you will know that there are 2 iPhone built-in info buttons, which functions to go to Settings view of an app. They are those circular button with an "i" at the center of it.

If you tap on it, it will flash and the effect is pretty nice.

Now, I wanted to use this button for my app because of its flashing effect, but not for the settings purpose. So I decided to make my own flashing button. (Do note that if you use the built in info button for other purposes, your app MAY BE REJECTED, because it is not what Apple intended them to be).

Anyway, back to the main subject: Creating a flashing button. 

1. First you need to create your own button image. I used the GIMP program which ran off X11 terminal in my Mac. I love GIMP. Because its function is a lot similar like Paint Shop Pro/ PhotoShop program in my Windows box. All the tools are so familiar.

2. Once you created the button image, save it as PNG and set the background of that image as transparent - you need to know your graphics program to do this.

3. Next, create another image that resembles a white flash (or whatever color u wish). You can use the radial gradient tool to accomplish this. Make sure the background of the image is transparent too.

4. Once you have both image ready, then you can load it up in the "Resources" of your XCode project. (Just drag and drop under the Resources folder in the XCode).

5. Next, declare the white flash image in header file, this case, its the FlashingButtonViewController.h.

 
IBOutlet UIImageView *flashimage;

and also the related declaration as @property.

6. Go to FlashingButtonViewController.m main file, and add to synthesize:

 
@synthesize flashimage;

7. After that, declare the function that is going to be called when user tap the button. So we declare in FlashingButtonViewController.h:-

 
-(IBAction)custombtnclicked:(id)sender;

8. Then return back to Main file and write the function for custombtnclicked:-

 
-(IBAction)custombtnclicked:(id)sender {

[self flashit:flashimage];

}

[self flashit:flashimage]; is just a way to call another function from this function. I do it this way so that, if you have many other buttons you want to behave this way, then you don't need to rewrite a long function. So the function to flash the flashimage is:

 

-(void)flashit:(id)sender {
UIImageView *img = (UIImageView*)sender;
img.alpha = 0.8;
[UIImageView beginAnimations: @"FadeOut" context: nil];
[UIImageView setAnimationDelegate: self];
[UIImageView setAnimationDuration: 0.5];
[UIImageView setAnimationCurve: UIViewAnimationCurveEaseInOut];
img.alpha = img.alpha - 0.8;
[UIImageView commitAnimations];
}

What this function does is: declare the "sender" parameter as an imageview. Then set its alpha to 0.8 (1 is fully opaque, and 0 is invisible). Then we start to create animation of UIImageView.

We set the duration to 0.5seconds for the whole of animation of flashing. And the type is Curve Ease In and Out.This means the animation will start slowly, then fast, then back to slow before stopping.

Next, we tell XCode what to do with the image. This just return back the alpha channel back to 0 (invisible).

Basically, when user taps the button, we set the flashimage to fully opaque, then animate the fading out of the flashimage for 0.5seconds. Finally we tell XCode to execute the animation by calling commitAnimations. XCode will do the rest.

9. Now that you have all the codes ready, its left only to open up FlashingButtonViewController.xib in Interface Builder and place the buttons in and images in. But remember to place the flash image BEHIND the button, so that user can touch the button. You can use the Layout menu of XCode and selecting "Send to Back" function to send the flashimage to the back of the button. Finally, set the alpha of the UIImageView to 0, so that it is invisible.

10. Once all user interface items are created, it is time to link them to XCode variable declaration. Connect the "Touch Up Inside" of the UIButton to the function called customButtonclicked: and set the Outlet of the flash image to "flashimage".

11. Save all files and everything. Then it should be able to run and when you click the button in the simulator, it will flash and fade away.

Thats all.