Weekly Roundup

Create a Cloud Syncing Mobile App in 3 Minutes.

Building an app that syncs its data in the cloud can be difficult. That’s where SDScaffoldSync comes into play. SDScaffoldSync creates a REST endpoint (via Heroku-Core-Data-Buildpack) and syncing code (via AFIncrementalStore) for you.

SDScaffoldSync also leverages SDScaffoldKit to give you ready-made views for your model objects. Just create your Core Data model, hand SDScaffoldKit your Entity’s name, a field to sort by, and BAM! You you have a cloud syncing app.

SDScaffoldSync is meant to save you time so you can focus on what matters, application logic. The library is still a little green behind the ears and I would love to see any issues or pull request you may have. There is a sample project and screencast if you have any question on how it all works.
Overall, this is a great way to get your project up and running then you can go from there.

Utilities for working with NSAttributedStrings, including:

• A method of creating NSAttributedString instances easily using printf-like formatting codes embedded in NSString instances. Formatting codes allow you to specify font family, font style (normal or italics), font weight (light, normal, bold, extra bold, etc), text color, and text background color.

• A simple UI label class for displaying NSAttributedStrings, with support for click-able fields within a string.

• A general purpose font manipulation library (mainly for use by the NSAttributedString formatting code)

KKProgressToolbar is an iOS drop-in class that displays a translucent UIToolbar with a progress indicator and some optional labels while work is being done in a background thread

A nutritional information view that mimics the look of a physical nutrition label. Simply initialize the control, set the nutritional data, and present. Includes a nice animation when presented and dismissed. Users can also swipe (down) to dismiss.

Open source alternative to UISwitch, customizable via UIAppearance protocol.

TableViewSearchBar is a small demo project that demonstrates the various scrolling behaviors of a UISearchBar inside a UITableView found in Apple’s own apps.

There are three different behaviors in Apple’s apps:

• Default: The search bar scrolls with the table view
• Top: The search bar scrolls with the table view but always stays at the top if you scroll the table view up
• Header: The search bar usually stays at the top of the table view but scrolls with the table view if you scroll the table view up

The last one is only used in the Contacts app and is quite interesting. Take a look at FKRHeaderSearchBarTableViewController.m in order to see how it works in detail.

Linear layout view designed to simplify relative layouts on iOS.

We’ve all been there before— the content in your app is dynamic and you need to display different sized views in neat succession. You spend the next hours pushing pixels, estimating text sizes, and tracking deltas. Lame.

Enter CSLinearLayoutView. Create your layout view, create layout items with the views you want to display, and then add the items to your layout. Much simpler.

Upload Progress View to be attached as a header of a UITableView and receive updates about the connection.

The control improves on a number of aspects of the Facebook SDK provided FBProfilePictureView. 1) Caching of the downloaded profile images, so the network does not get hit for every instance of the view. 2) Start and completion handlers to allow control of the presentation of the view (e.g. fade-in or show a UIActivityIndicatorView) 3) Be notified through the completion handler when an image download fails. 4) Control when the empty profile image is shown. 5) Work well when the view is embedded in a UITableCellView.

This is a set of classes to strip the UITableView boilerplate code from your view controllers, wire them up quickly, easily create complex, custom tableview setups with interchangeable cell and section styles/content.

UDBarTrackballItem is a button view for iOS which can position the text cursor (caret) and define the text selection of a text view in parallel to its touch drag movement. The user interaction pattern is similar to a Thinkpad TrackPoint.

The intention was to create a text navigation component for text editor apps that makes the task of frequent text positioning and selection more convenient. The default way of positioning and selection requires a touch down delay to distinguish view scrolling and editing mode as well as the magnifying glass which distract the precise positioning more that it helps. The tradeoff is a decrease in view real-estate for the input accessory view bar (which is quite common in text editors nowadays).

Check and notify user that new version is available from Local Notification.

Fully configurable iOS calendar UI component with multiple layouts and smooth animations.

Create glossy buttons without images.