Weekly Roundup: Inter-app communication tools and 18 other spectacular controls

Aaron Brethorst, December 21, 2013

Happy holidays, everyone! As 2013 draws to a close, I've been seeing the inevitable flurry of both retrospective and forward-looking posts on the Internet, and I've compiled a list of some of my recent favorites for you, which you can find in What We're Reading. I'll draw up some thoughts about 2013 and 2014 for you for next week, so stay tuned for that.

Beyond that, we have a ridiculously good batch of controls for you to peruse this week, including several controls that take advantage of new features in iOS 7 and the iPhone 5s. My favorite control of the week, though, was IntentKit, which aims to simplify and rationalize inter-app communication in a comprehensive way that I haven't seen before. It's a pity that Apple hasn't addressed this issue yet, but at least we have some reasonable solutions until they do. You really should check it out!

Best,
Aaron


What We're Reading


Control of the Week

IntentKit

IntentKit

An easier way to handle third-party URL schemes in iOS apps.

MIT licensed.

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Weekly Roundup

iOSAppTemplate

iOSAppTemplate

A functional and useful template for iOS applications.

Includes:

  • Animated side menu.
  • Todo list integrated with Parse.com.
  • Map with MapKit.
  • Embed youtube video.

CC BY 3.0 licensed.

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KPTimePicker

KPTimePicker

Simplistic and easy-to-use timerpicker to replace Apple's.

Bringing back the iPod wheel to adjust time in a more delicate manner.

This is an open-source version of the TimePicker used in Swipes iOS app.

GPL licensed.

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MHTextField

MHTextField

MHTextField is an iOS drop-in class that extends UITextField with built-In toolbar, validation and scrolling support.

MIT licensed.

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JBChartView

JBChartView

Jawbone's iOS-based charting library for both line and bar graphs.

Apache 2.0 licensed.

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EasyDefaultImages

EasyDefaultImages

A simple project to quickly generate Default launch images for your iOS applications. Super simple and easy to use.

MIT licensed.

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Glue

Glue

Glue is a binding library which helps for bi-directional binding.

MIT licensed.

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Push4Parse

Push4Parse

The iPhone application "Push4Parse", available on the App Store.

MIT licensed.

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TumblrMenu

TumblrMenu

Tumblr iOS app like menu view completely created using core animation.

MIT licensed.

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UIImageView+Gravatar

UIImageView+Gravatar

A simple and quickly put together UIImageView subclass for dealing with http://gravatar.com images.

MIT licensed.

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LIGridControl

LIGridControl

An efficient variable-sized grid of NSCells.

MIT licensed.

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iOS7 Barcode Scanner

iOS7 Barcode Scanner

Barcode scanner using the scanning capabilities introduced with iOS 7.

The project (as it currently is) goes straight into scanning mode to which it constantly looks for barcodes to be scanned. In the viewDidLoad(), it sets the property found in the .h file (allowedBarcodeTypes) to only look for those specific barcodes. This is editable and extremely useful. When an allowed barcode is found, it takes in the data, creates a Barcode object with it, and adds that object to the collection of found barcodes. An alert is then presented telling the user the kind of barcode found, number of barcodes found in the past, and giving the option to scan again or be finished.

Apache 2.0 licensed.

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SlowMotionVideoRecorder

SlowMotionVideoRecorder

120 fps SLO-MO video recorder using AVFoundation.

  • Including convenient wrapper class.
  • Available on the iPhone5s.

Example for the slow motion video: https://vimeo.com/82064431

MIT licensed.

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APAutocompleteTextField

APAutocompleteTextField

Autocomplete text field. It works like Safari (iOS) or Chrome (iOS) search / address bar

--- How to install --- Install using CocoaPods.

pod 'APAutocompleteTextField'

.

MIT licensed.

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SSUIViewMiniMe

SSUIViewMiniMe

A miniature replica of your UIView with an indicator of your location.

SSUIViewMiniMe takes your UIView and creates a small version of it with an indicator of your location on the original UIView.

  • Both of the views are responsive to touch.

  • The MiniMe UIView will draw on it self any changes made in the UIScrollView

Explanatory GIF is on GitHub.

MIT licensed.

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Freestyle

Freestyle

A toolkit for for faster native mobile development.

Pixate Freestyle is a toolkit for styling native mobile applications. It consists of a comprehensive collection of CSS classes that work with the Pixate Framework to provide an easily customized base of styles for applications. Think of it as Bootstrap for native apps. Currently, it only supports iOS 7. Android support is coming soon.

MIT licensed.

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NBNPhotoChooser

NBNPhotoChooser

A reimplementation of the Tumblr photo chooser.

MIT licensed.

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PWAlignView

PWAlignView

PWAlignView is a light-weight class to help you layout some simple views (UIView, UIImageView, UIButton, UILabel, etc), which need to to be aligned on some direction.

MIT licensed.

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MMScalableVectorView

MMScalableVectorView

Turns static PaintCode or Qwarkee code into a UIView that honors the contentMode property so it scales properly.

MIT licensed.

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