Brian Coleman

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Video: Introduction

Swift is a new programming language for iOS and OS X apps that builds on the best of C and Objective-C, without the constraints of C compatibility. Swift adopts safe programming patterns and adds modern features to make programming easier, more flexible, and more fun. Swift’s clean slate, backed by the mature and much-loved Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks, is an opportunity to reimagine how software development works.

This video was developed by Skip Wilson. You can follow him on Twitter (@SkipAllMighty).

July 4, 2014 Videosswift, tutorial, video

Introducing Cheapo Casino

Over the past three years I have been working on a casino game called “Cheapo Casino”. It was inspired by the 1997 movie Vegas Vacation. Half way through the movie when Clark is trying to win back the money he lost, Eddie recommends a cheap casino off of the strip (Watch the Video on YouTube). It had games like Pick a Number, Spin The Wheel and War. I made a game that has many of the usual casino games but also threw in some “cheap” games for fun!

I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to finish it since I really wanted to include 13 different games. Looking back at that decision now I should have probably only focused on a couple games and release updates with new ones. In addition I was working alone, concept, design and development. I got overwhelmed many times so I would put the project on hold and worked on another app (Connect Poker) to get that gratification of releasing a new app to the store. That happened about eight more times! (Check out my apps) Finally I dedicated myself to completing Cheapo Casino. I spent 2 hours a night and took a couple vacations days to finish it. I am very happy to introduce you all to Cheapo Casino!


Get Cheapo Casino
Cheapo Casino gives you the chance to WIN BIG in classic casino games like Slots, Blackjack, Video Poker, and Keno! Have even more fun with simple games of chance including Pick a Number, Rock Paper Scissors, Guess Which Hand, Three Card Monte plus many more!

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GAMES INCLUDED:
• Pick a Number
• Guess Which Hand
• Flip a Coin
• Rock, Paper, Scissors
• Three Card Monte
• Spin The Wheel
• Horse Racing
• Slot Machine
• Video Poker
• Casino War
• Keno
• Scratch Tickets
• BlackJack

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Find out more at http://www.cheapocasino.com

Twitter: @cheapocasino

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CheapoCasino


Get Cheapo Casino

June 24, 2014 About Me, My Appsapps, games

Say Hello to Swift

Swift Playground

One of the biggest announcements coming out of WWDC this year is the creation of a completely new programming language called Swift – the newest programming language used to build apps. Today, most all Apple software is built with Objective-C. Originally designed in the 1980s and soon adopted by Next Computer–the Steve Jobs-led company whose technologies eventually morphed into the modern Mac and the iPhone–the language has ridden these devices to enormous popularity.Apple is wasting no time getting developers educated on the new tools available to them by making The Swift Programming Language guide book immediately available on iTunes. Apple’s new guide offers 500 pages of info on Swift, providing readers with a tour of the new language, along with a detailed guide that dives into each new language feature.

It should feel familiar to those who are already used to Objective-C, Apple says, and is meant to “unify the procedural and object-oriented portions of the language.” It does diverge from Objective-C in more than just the syntax, though; it also features variable types like tuples and optional types. It also includes operators that aren’t found in Objective-C, which allow you to perform remainder operations on floating-point numbers, for example.

Here are some of the highlights of the language according to Apple:

  • Closures (similar to blocks in C and Objective-C) unified with function pointers
  • Tuples and multiple return values
  • Generics
  • Fast and concise iteration over a range or collection
  • Structs that support methods, extensions, protocols.
  • Functional programming patterns, e.g.: map and filter

Objective-C was always a hard language to pick up for new developers. We’ll have to see if Swift makes getting started with app development on Apple’s platforms easier, but from a first look at the documentation, it definitely feels more accessible than Objective-C.

Interactive Playground

On top of this, Apple has added the “interactive playground”, a way of viewing the results of a piece of code as you type it. It reminds me of the Javascript language, trying to make it a more visual endeavor. It’s absolutely amazing. This is the wild card. Depending how well it works, the playground could push mainstream programming in a new direction, providing a more intuitive means of building code. This isn’t necessarily an Apple invention, but it is something that has been bubbling up over the last few years.

But if you put the playground to one side, Swift isn’t really that different from many other languages. It’s mainly a way of bringing Apple’s platform up to par with languages like Ruby and Python–all without sacrificing the speed of Objective-C.

Get Started

Ready to begin? Start with downloading the new XCode 6 Beta from the Apple Developer Portal. Next start reading The Swift Tour and for the best experience open the Guided Tour right in playground, which allows you to edit the code listings and see the results immediately.

June 4, 2014 News, Swiftbook, ios8, swift, tutorial

iOS7, We’ve Got A Problem

Today is the day, iOS7 launches to all iPhones & iPads. What does that mean to us developers? A lot of work, that’s what. Unlike other transitions iOS5 -> iOS6, all previous apps “just worked” but this version is the biggest change since iOS 3.0. Approximately about 90% of apps tested are having trouble running on iOS7, these issues range from the apps crashing on launch to labels mis-aligned to the status bar at the top messing up views.

Let’s take a look at the most common issue developers are having, the status bar.

Status Bar Appears Over My View

You can achieve this by implementing new property called edgesForExtendedLayout in iOS7 SDK. Please add the following code to achieve this,

if ([self respondsToSelector:@selector(edgesForExtendedLayout)])
self.edgesForExtendedLayout = UIRectEdgeNone;

You need to add the above in your -(void)viewDidLoad method.

iOS 7 brings several changes to how you lay out and customize the appearance of your UI. The changes in view-controller layout, tint color, and font affect all the UIKit objects in your app. In addition, enhancements to gesture recognizer APIs give you finer grained control over gesture interactions.

Using View Controllers

In iOS 7, view controllers use full-screen layout. At the same time, iOS 7 gives you more granular control over the way a view controller lays out its views. In particular, the concept of full-screen layout has been refined to let a view controller specify the layout of each edge of its view.

The wantsFullScreenLayout view controller property is deprecated in iOS 7. If you currently specify wantsFullScreenLayout = NO, the view controller may display its content at an unexpected screen location when it runs in iOS 7.

To adjust how a view controller lays out its views, UIViewController provides the following properties:

edgesForExtendedLayout

The edgesForExtendedLayout property uses the UIRectEdge type, which specifies each of a rectangle’s four edges, in addition to specifying none and all. Use edgesForExtendedLayout to specify which edges of a view should be extended, regardless of bar translucency. By default, the value of this property is UIRectEdgeAll.

extendedLayoutIncludesOpaqueBars

If your design uses opaque bars, refine edgesForExtendedLayout by also setting the extendedLayoutIncludesOpaqueBars property to NO. (The default value of extendedLayoutIncludesOpaqueBars is NO.)

automaticallyAdjustsScrollViewInsets

If you don’t want a scroll view’s content insets to be automatically adjusted, set automaticallyAdjustsScrollViewInsets to NO. (The default value of automaticallyAdjustsScrollViewInsets is YES.)

topLayoutGuide, bottomLayoutGuide

The topLayoutGuide and bottomLayoutGuide properties indicate the location of the top or bottom bar edges in a view controller’s view. If bars should overlap the top or bottom of a view, you can use Interface Builder to position the view relative to the bar by creating constraints to the bottom of topLayoutGuide or to the top of bottomLayoutGuide. (If no bars should overlap the view, the bottom of topLayoutGuide is the same as the top of the view and the top of bottomLayoutGuide is the same as the bottom of the view.) Both properties are lazily created when requested.

September 18, 2013 Tutorialsios7, objective-c, tutorial

Course: iOS Mobile Application Development

Starting September 18, 2013 I’ll be teaching an Introduction to iOS Development course at the University of Toronto Continuing Studies. Since there are no books yet about iOS 7, I’ll be covering iOS6 and then dedicate the last class to “What’s New in iOS7”. The topics include: Introduction to the IDE, Implementing Views and Controllers, Tab Bars and Pickers, Table Views and Navigation Controllers, Developing for the iPad, Application Settings and Data Persistence.

Taking this course also gets you one step closer to a certificate in Mobile Business Technologies & Applications. See more information below.



University of Toronto
School of Continuing Studies



Work Towards a Certificate in Mobile Business Technologies & Applications
Fall 2013


The adoption of innovative mobile technologies and applications plays a crucial role in an organization’s business strategy, delivering significant added value. Mobile technologies keep customers connected, allowing enterprises to keep attuned to their customer needs.

The Certificate in Mobile Business Technologies will help you apply your programming skills to mobile development, create effective web interfaces for mobile users, create app interfaces using web technologies and many more skills necessary to work in mobile technology.

Classes start in September. Sign up now!

Choose your next course below:

• Foundations of Mobile Business Technologies, starts September 24, online.
• iOS Mobile Application Development, starts September 18, in class.
• Mobile Applications for Android Devices, starts September 17, in class.



   

Register Now!

For more information and a full listing of our Mobile Business Technologies courses
click here.


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5-week Leadership Essentials courses will help you gain a professional edge, fast!
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University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies
September 13, 2013 About Me
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ABOUT
Brian is a Lead iOS/tvOS Developer from Toronto with over 18 years of multifaceted experience including development, design, business analysis and project management.

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