The Shape of Everything http://shapeof.com/ 2012-02-04T10:51:59-08:00 Gus Mueller Subtle UI Texture in Acorn urn:uuid:3906ac59-7855-47cd-839c-a60c807c329f 2012-02-03T15:19:26-08:00 2012-02-04T10:51:55-08:00 Subtle UI texture in Photoshop, and I thought it would be worth showing how to do the same thing in Acorn.

First, I'm going refer you to the Making a Custom Web Button tutorial we put up a while ago. You can skip the step about making the text, and you'll end up with an image that looks like this:

Da Button

If you're lazy and don't want to go through the steps, you can download that file here: ButtonWithoutTexture.acorn. The button shape is made out of vectors which is nice and handy if you want to resize it for later on.

If you zoom in on the button, you'll notice that there's we've got no texture on the button:

No Texture

So your goal is to add texture to this button, but without impacting the border or highlight shapes.

1) Select the middle shape that you are going to add texture to (using the move tool) and choose the "Layer ▸ New Layer with Selection" menu item. This will make a copy of that single shape, but on a new layer. Make sure your new layer is selected, and then choose the "Layer ▸ Add Layer Mask" menu item. The layers will now look something like this:

Layers

2) With your new shape layer selected, choose the "Select ▸ Make Selection from Layer" menu item, then the "Select ▸ Inverse" menu item. Then click on our layer mask icon in the layers list, and press the delete button. Your layers list should look like this now:

Masks!

Go ahead and clear the selection by pressing Command-D. Now you're going to add some texture.

4) Choose the "Filter ▸ Generator ▸ Random Generator" menu item. You'll be asked if you want to rasterize the layer or not. Yes, you want to rasterize it. Next you'll see a preview of the filter in the canvas, and since you have added a layer mask that's a basic outline of your button, you'll only see those areas filled in with the noise generator. Click the Apply button.

Now you have a button that looks like this:

That's not what we want.

Believe it or not, you are actually pretty close to being done.

5) Click the little fx button on the layer palette to bring up the Layer Styles window. Choose the Color Monochrome style pick a color that's close to the blue you have been using in the button:

Undestructive.

Click OK. And then adjust the layer opacity the the layers list to taste. Here it is at about 15%:

Undestructive.

And you are done!

This same technique is pretty useful for other parts like backgrounds.

]]> Recursive Blocks urn:uuid:90b27cad-d356-4286-88bc-5b1092e78566 2012-02-03T13:13:24-08:00 2012-02-03T13:17:16-08:00 
__block void (^rBlock)(int i) = ^(int i) {
    
    if (i > 10) {
        return;
    }
    
    printf("%d\n", i);
    
    rBlock(i+1);
};

rBlock(0);

]]> Buzz Andersen: A Plea for Better iOS Text Facilities urn:uuid:d54cce7c-416f-40b4-bd09-e12b8a7e8f79 2012-02-01T14:59:50-08:00 2012-02-01T15:05:49-08:00 A Plea for Better iOS Text Facilities:

"Now this may sound like a surprisingly mundane request considering the number of whiz bang things people are expecting from Apple in 2012, but if you’ve ever tried to develop a native iOS applications that present textual content downloaded from the Internet, you probably share my frustration"

I used to think that rich text editing of some sort on iOS was just around the corner. I've even had folks at Apple tell me "just wait", as if it was almost here. That was years ago. At this point, I almost think it's on purpose that we don't have any sort of rich text editing. I just can't figure out why. ]]> Seattle Times: Drunken sailor opens wrong door urn:uuid:47848f99-d183-47fa-9072-a0927fdecccb 2012-01-31T21:56:07-08:00 2012-01-31T21:58:06-08:00 Drunken sailor opens wrong door:

"A drunken sailor who walked into the wrong apartment in Bremerton, urinated on the floor and then climbed into bed with an 80-year-old woman was 'totally humiliated' by his actions but is unlikely to face criminal charges."

I think this is my favorite bit at the end:

"Whitney, meanwhile, said she was very impressed because Pierson's supervising officer 'made him sit down and listen while I scolded him,' she said. 'After that, I felt much better.'"
]]> Hibari and JSTalk urn:uuid:1cbb3bc3-161a-4cfa-97ef-6969cdb873a7 2012-01-27T09:50:24-08:00 2012-01-27T09:54:02-08:00 Hibari is a Twitter client by Victoria Wang, and it supports my favorite scripting language, JSTalk:

[[JSTalk application:'Hibari'] tweet:'Hello World!'];
There are more examples in its advanced section of the user guide. ]]> What Shipping Software and Newborns Have in Common urn:uuid:142c6493-3fb6-4e06-b059-9b9fd4332960 2012-01-23T12:26:05-08:00 2012-01-23T12:34:02-08:00
But the most familiar feeling that I'm getting between the two experiences is this: each day is a step forward, and in the end work and patience is going to win the day. ]]> A Couple of Random Unrelated Thoughts on iBooks Author urn:uuid:4569bcf6-f55e-49d5-8f36-f10eb97b95bf 2012-01-19T14:08:29-08:00 2012-01-19T14:33:51-08:00 iBooks Author. It does exactly what its title suggests, and that is to help you put together books for the iOS iBooks app. It's neat and it's free! And in a way, it feels like Keynote and Pages just had a kid.

A lot of people (including myself) were hoping Apple would come out with an ePub authoring tool today. The hope was there would finally be a usable tool for authoring and generating ePub files. Those ePub files could be uploaded to Apple's iBook Store, Amazon Kindle, or even your own store for sale. Or even make them downloadable off your website for free. Read them on your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, etc.


Random Thought #1:
I guess when I see it laid out like that, it's obvious why iBooks Author has the restrictions it does. Why make a tool which could then be used to make great products to be used on competitor's platforms?


Random Thought #2:
Apple releasing iBooks Author makes it easier for indie devs to jump into the arena now. Apple has shown us what their vision is, and if you don't like it- tough. You can use another app.

And that means indie devs can now make that app without being worried that Apple will pull the rug out from under them. (And believe me- the indie guys who would like to do this frequently worry about such things).


Random Thought #3:
It's not scriptable in any meaningful way. If you want to drive it with AppleScript to make your iBook, you're out of luck.


Bonus Crazy Thought:
I really hope Xcode doesn't ship with the same restrictions some day. "Binaries created through Xcode can only be sold through the App Store, and you can't charge more than $15.99".

I don't see it happening, but at the same time such a move wouldn't surprise me. They wrote Xcode after all, it's free, and Apple can do what it wants with it. Go somewhere else if you don't agree. ]]> Running a website with VoodooPad Pro urn:uuid:2465e51a-6986-4785-9e3d-304ed2f5f188 2012-01-04T13:27:15-08:00 2012-01-04T13:35:24-08:00 Running a website with VoodooPad Pro.

"VoodooPad is a powerful note-collecting, wikifying, productivity machine. With the right scripts, you can make just about anything happen, at least within the realm of text, images and web pages. VoodooPad has a built in web server, and can export your notebook as a full website, with links intact. I like the web export the best, because it gives me a crazy amount of control over the output. To that end, I built a website using nothing but VoodooPad, hopped up on some custom scripts."

Brett shows how to combine Python (for multi markdown support), VP's Event Scripts (to make a site map), a custom web export template, and post processing scripts to create the exact website he wants. ]]> State of the Meat 2011 Edition urn:uuid:14efc601-824e-495e-aa5a-dd07f86ceb84 2011-12-30T10:31:53-08:00 2011-12-30T15:36:54-08:00
Acorn
First up of course is the release of our updated image editor, Acorn 3. The attention Acorn 3 got was unprecedented for Flying Meat. Never before has our web server been so challenged to keep up with requests until that moment. It was extremely gratifying to see so many people start using Acorn so seriously, and ditching their current image editing software for it.

Layer styles, multi-stop gradients, quickmask, instant alpha, much improved PSD support (which I wrote myself from the ground up), and more. And things just kept on getting better. Acorn is up to version 3.2 now with big speed improvements when working with 15MP+ images, bezier curve improvements, color profile support, native 10.7 goodies like auto-save, versions, and full screen support.

And of course, more updates and improvements will be coming. I absolutely love working on Acorn; there are just so many different aspects to it that it never gets boring to work on.


VoodooPad
Work on VoodooPad 5 has been going on for quite some time now, though it is taking a lot longer to finish up than I had hoped. I sure it'll be worth it in the end. Without going into too much detail, I'm going to talk about one of my favorite big new features:

I killed WebDAV syncing in VoodooPad 5, and replaced it with nothing and it is awesome now.

Ok, that's a bit dramatic. I did replace the sync code with something else but first let me explain quickly why WebDAV syncing is gone in VP5. Apple is killing/killed MobileMe, and with it they killed the WebDAV server which VoodooPad syncing was designed to work with. That's why I've ripped out the WebDAV code.

I should have seen this coming. Honestly, it's not like I didn't know that iTools wait I mean .Mac oops no I meant MobileMe wait it's called iCloud now wouldn't be long for this world. I've come to the conclusion that relying on Apple for any sort of syncing solution or general hosting of your data is probably a bad idea. I really hope I'm wrong, but at least this explains one of the reasons I didn't rush out and add support for iCloud right away in VoodooPad. I want iCloud to succeed. I just don't want to devote a bunch of time building on a syncing solution that's going to be gone shortly.

VoodooPad was born January 16th, 2003. That means that it'll be 9 years old in a few weeks. There are still people out there happily using version 2.0 which came out in 2004. So that means I'm going to need a syncing solution that will be around for at least 5 years. Who can do that? What's the solution?

Well, the solution I've come up with is to ignore syncing and instead redesign VoodooPad's document file format so that it can survive a 3rd party syncing app changing things behind it's back when VoodooPad is running. And I'm so much happier for it now, and I think my customers will be too.

Do you want to put your document in a Dropbox folder and have it sync to multiple computers at the same time, without having to remember to close it? Oh, and have a page automatically update in front of your eyes as it's edited on another machine? Sure, why not? What about if you put it in a source control repository which is shared among multiple people? Can it handle that now? Yes! And VP5 can even tell you which machine a page was last updated on, and by whom.

It's pretty rad. I think stepping back and looking at the syncing problem a different way has been really good for VoodooPad 5. And of course these changes aren't limited to a specific syncing solution. If you want to use your own home-grown app, it'll probably work with VoodooPad 5. All it needs to do is look at a tree of files and make sure the most recently edited one is pushed out to the other machines. This obviously meshes with some of the things that iCloud does as well, but that code hasn't been written yet so I can't make promises at this time.

Kirstin (my wife) and I have been writing the documentation for VP5 in VoodooPad itself. Which used to be a bit of a challenge before these syncing / file format changes. Now we just put a VP document inside a shared Dropbox folder, and edit away. It's a special kind of magic, and I think it'll really open up VoodooPad to a bunch of new users.



FlySketch

FlySketch gets an honorable mention, if only because of a very heated discussion with an App Store representative when I was trying to push an update out.

There's not much to FlySketch. It does what it does and it does it pretty well. I'm happy it still makes a tiny bit of money, but I think the market for this type of utility is dwindling in the face of free alternatives.


JSTalk

On its website I describe JSTalk as "a scripting language for Mac OS X built on top of JavaScript, with a bridge to Apple's Cocoa libraries. You can use it to communicate with other applications just like AppleScript does". And it still does that, but where I've really found it useful this past year is in driving automated testing and building prototypes.

I was a guest lecturer this past summer at UW's iOS and Mac App Dev class, where I talked about automated testing and how I use JSTalk. At some point the instructor, Chris Parrish, mentioned that JSTalk was my "secret sauce". At the time I thought it was kind of funny, but the more I think about it the more I think he might be right. It's amazing how reliant I've become on a tool that I made for a completely different reason than I ended up using it for.

I also like to describe JSTalk as a research project of mine. Developing it has been a great way to explore the Objective-C runtime, and how the stack works (JSTalk uses libffi for parts of the bridge). I've also had a separate branch for a while now where I've been slowly rewriting the bridge that it uses. If I ever get serious about it and finish it, I think I might release it under a different name; something like "CocoaScript" since that makes more sense.


Mac App Store

I love the App Store both as a customer and for Flying Meat's bottom line. I worry about the future though, specifically with sandboxing and upgrades.

I really wish Apple had required sandboxing for applications on day 1 of the App Store. As it is now, I can see that a bunch of applications are never going to be able to be updated or if they are, some of their functionality will have to be stripped out. Acorn isn't affected very much by sandboxing, but VoodooPad certainly is. We'll just have to wait and see what Apple can do to help us out.

My other worry is on paid upgrades, or the lack of having them in the App Store. There seems to be an implicit assumption that by purchasing something in the App Store, all upgrades will be free in the future. But in the long term this isn't a sustainable way to run a business, or at least the type of business that I want Flying Meat to be. I want to write deep, usable applications that have a shelf life of more than a few months. It can take years for an update to come out (hello VoodooPad 5!) and while the warm fuzzy feeling when folks love your application more is great, it doesn't really feel the same as being able to make a living off your work.

Historically for Flying Meat (and most indie Mac companies) the majority of revenue comes in through upgrades and new releases. The App Store doesn't provide this path, so you have to publish a brand new app to have people pay for your work. Recently Adobe took this route with the Elements 8 to 9 upgrade and as far as I can tell, people didn't freak out too much. Time will tell what the best solution is, but for now I just have to remember to stay flexible on this front.


Madeline Kay

On December 9th at 9:41 am, the entire staff of Flying Meat (aka, Kirstin and I) were proud to become parents of the world's newest Mueller. Or as I tweeted a little while later, mueller++. (And I believe this makes Flying Meat an official "Mom and Pop Shop" now).

Being a parent is an interesting and awesome experience so far. The last three weeks seems like one very long night, full of energy and excitement and sleep deprivation.

She's a great kid, and I explain to her patiently about what copy on write is all about, the benefits of a compiled vs. interpreted vs. dynamic language, and I read her a little bit of Advanced Mac OS X Programming every day, but honestly I think she doesn't quite understand pointers yet. Which is fine, because she's too young to get a worker's permit anyway. ]]> Gitbox is 1 year old urn:uuid:810ef3ba-8b64-4e5c-96b9-4e499ce1f8a5 2011-12-14T12:52:50-08:00 2011-12-14T12:56:00-08:00 Gitbox is 1 year old.

"I was amazed that something I designed, wrote, productized and marketed was actually appreciated by consumers. I even appreciate that keygens were released within a week after each new version release."

I've tried a handful of Git clients, and Gitbox is my favorite. And it's currently on sale for a quarter of the usual price. You'd be crazy not to at least try the demo. ]]> New App from Rogue Amoeba - Piezo urn:uuid:7b84c3a1-ad10-424f-8f82-eb545febac77 2011-12-07T13:51:03-08:00 2011-12-07T13:55:37-08:00 Rogue Amoeba have a new app out called Piezo:

"Using Piezo, you can record from almost any app on your Mac. Whether it’s web streams in Safari or music from services like Spotify and Rdio, you can record it with Piezo. Just select the desired source and press record to capture its audio."

You can read more about Piezo on their blog as well. Piezo looks awesome, and it's even in the App Store! ]]> In Defense of the Stylus urn:uuid:91e1ee51-0a57-42c7-8d59-d49487e2829d 2011-11-30T14:11:18-08:00 2011-11-30T14:12:55-08:00 In Defense of the Stylus.

"With a stylus you can make quick and precise movements of a number of sizes. Ever wonder why nobody writes longhand with their finger? By amplifying small but precise movements that can be done rapidly, handwriting was made possible in the first place, as well as things like detailed drawings and paintings. Even if you’re drawing in the dirt, you do it with a stick."
]]>