Category Archives: iPhone

When using hierarchical table views (e.g. with a Navigation Controller) to enter or edit information, the proper sequence of UI events can be surprisingly subtle. Consider what happens when you edit a phone number in the Contacts app: You click … Continue reading →

Yesterday, I made reference to the contentVerticalAlignment property of UIControls. Upon further examination, it may not be such a good idea to use this property, for a somewhat surprising reason. If you look carefully at the screenshot to the left … Continue reading →

Editorial Note: I’d been planning to write about glossy button backgrounds today, but I appear to be buttoned out. I’ll pick the topic up again by Friday, but, for now, something lighter. And shorter. Let’s say you want to adjust … Continue reading →

The gloss gradient code we saw on Tuesday has got a lot of fairly arbitrary math in it – including both constants and functions – that “tunes” the final appearance of the gradient. Today I want to walk through some … Continue reading →

Editorial Note: I was planning to discuss the gloss gradient code in detail today, with an eye to showing how some of its more arbitrary elements could be adjusted to alter the appearance of the gradients that it produces. Unfortunately, … Continue reading →

Today, we package the gloss gradient and rounded rect code we developed on Monday and Friday into a UIButton category, and take a quick look at adding labels to these buttons; the latter discussion is much simpler than I had … Continue reading →

Today, we’ll actually get around to the business of drawing some shiny pictures. We’ll be using Matt Gallagher’s gloss gradients code as a base, with some minor adjustments to allow for porting to the iPhone, and for personal taste. We’ll … Continue reading →

As promised, here are some test cases that exercise the rounded rect code presented yesterday. (If you want to study the results, click on the image to the left for a full-size screenshot.) Although only intended for testing, this code … Continue reading →

Today, we’ll see how to use Quartz 2D to generate rounded rectangles, either as outlines, or as clipped regions. We’ll begin with some background on Quartz technicalities, and then see some simple path generation code.

One of the most striking elements of “modern” user interfaces is that half the buttons are so shiny that it’s a wonder magpies don’t break into your house and make off with your PC. This is all very pretty, but … Continue reading →