Doing a little iOS work - Xcode is as bad as I remember

Our iOS programmer left. We have a new one starting next month. During the change over time I am doing some updates to the iOS code. Luckily before he left I got a pretty good overview of the current code so I am not running blind.

The fun is always Xcode. Never have liked that IDE much but it has been a few years since I did iOS work so I figured it has had time to improve. While Swift may have improved the areas I use daily to code have not. Git support is still barebones so I had to use SourceTree. SourceTree is nice and all but I shouldn't have to leave the IDE to interact with source control. I almost never touch SourceTree when doing work in Android Studio. I can easily create branches, merge things, remove branches, check history etc. right in the tool I am already using. I guess Apple really does not care about improving this area because as far as I can tell zero changes here.

Next up is searching. Yes Xcode gives you a number of ways to do it but it changes the mode a lot. If I look up usage of an enum, method or variable then the next time I search it is in that mode. I search for text a lot. Paying attention to the mode it is in because I right clicked on something in code but not on the search panel is frustrating.

Archiving stinks. Who thought this was a good word for building for release? Archive to me means put something out to pasture, you are done with it, store it way as it is old. But here is means build the latest for the store or TestFlight. I battled provisions / certificates / other crap for 45 minutes to get things out on TestFlight. Then I build the IAP for a user and that took a long time. I just started the export and let it run but dang was it slow.

There is also the wonderful fun of Interface Builder. So many tabs to get to settings. I will fully admit I like editing XML manually on Android. See all settings in one place, easy search and replaces as needed, easy to see cut and paste issues that I need to set up as styles. So much clicking in IB and you have to click on little [edit] links instead of on text. Might be powerful but it gets in your way when it comes to speed. Android gives me a choice, use visual editor if I want, manual if I don't. Yes IB generates XML but would you really manually edit what it creates? Last time I did a lot of iOS coding I skipped IB and did it all in code. Worked great for me as I am used to visualizing my layouts into manual XML creation. I used Masonry at the time so it was AutoLayout. Now that I use constraint layout on Android they are even closer.

Was able to pull off the critical changes need for next weeks release. I have never programmed in Swift but it is similar enough to Kotlin, which I have used for past 18 months, it was not too hard. Reactive Swift too boot but again the Kotlin syntax leads you that direction as well.

I came super close to downloading AppCode to use as a 30 day trial to get me over this hump until next dev appears. I may still do that if I have to spend much more time in the code. I have used AppCode at previous positions. Since it basically is same IDE as Android Studio I can hum right along using it and it works great with Git. Maybe I should just have work pony up for it anyway as I end up in the iOS code from time to time as it is. All my other Android tools are free so this can't be asking too much right?

Back to mobile dev

While my stint doing AngularJS work was interesting I am back into full time mobile work. Man I missed it and I am happy to be back into it.

Of course you are always surprised about how much you forget when you spend time away from something. I get to do both iOS and Android again. I started on the Android side first as I have always been more comfortable in Java than Objective C. I have the main login, logout and initial REST calls working under Android. Today I was working from home on the MacBook so I started to tackle the iOS side of things.

First I wanted to make sure I did autolayout from the start. Apple is pushing it and there are signs that Apple will release a different sized phone and maybe side by side program running on iPads. This means your code should be able to run as resolution independent as possible. Something you do almost by default on Android.

Autolayout is a bit weird but I got the login screen to work without any code for both portrait and landscape in the iPad storyboard. I started experimenting with AppCode 3.0 but ran into issues just getting my images into the xcassets area so I switched back to Xcode for this round of fun. I will switch back to AppCode once the UI is in place and I am doing gut level coding.

I had to create the various icons and launch screen images. I had large sized assets so I used Seashore for simple scaling. It annoys me that Mac OS does not bring an app to the front when you hover over it like Windows does. I wanted to DnD the images from Finder to Xcode. Luckily I am running a dual screen setup so I just moved Finder to the other screen and did it that way.

I copied over some other code and utility files I use and got the basics of the login screen in place. Now I get to decide which JSON library to use. I might just go with NSJSONSerialization this round. I have used YAJL in the past but I did that because I needed to stream things as the data was too big to hold in memory multiple times. Right now I do have that issue. I did not need to stream on the Android side, I am using GSON over there. I do like GSON parsing right into my natural object format where NSJSONSerialization just does a generic dictionary. Makes method name traversal impossible. The objects are rather deep for the JSON I am getting back so I need to find a decent way to get to the info I need. All the REST calls are done via C# and IIS so none of it is really optimized for Java or Objective C consumption but it is JSON which I find easier to deal with than XML.

I will need to all pull to refresh and navigation menu support too. Guess I need to get my head back into Objective C and review the list of CocoaPods I used in the past.

Since all the news about Swift as been in the news as of late I have started to sniff around. To me it looks like a nice step in new direction. I like they syntax having never been a big fan of [ ] []]]]]] [[[][][]]] all over in Objective C. Swift looks JavaScript like. Don't think I care for the .. vs. ... for the loop construct where on does inclusive start / end index and the other does start / end - 1. I would rather have a more distinct syntax between the two.

Sadly I don't have current access to Xcode 6 so I am not playing with that. From what I have read neither Swift nor Xcode 6 is ready for primetime meaning it is best for me to concentrate on the old Objective C via Xcode 5 and AppCode for now. Documentation is also sparse. I hope they hammer out the issues quickly as I would like to move away from Objective C sooner than later.

I have picked up a lot of info on the Android side again too. I have done JSON work there before but again I forgot a bunch of it having not messed with it in nearly a year. Good thing Google works most days. 

Let's have some IDE fun

During any given day I might be in 6 different IDEs. Eclipse, IntelliJ, Android Studio, Xcode, AppCode, and Aptana. Generally I have an instance of Sublime text editor running too. I use them for the following things:

Eclipse - Java server side work (our REST services)

IntelliJ - Java one off utility work

Android Studio - Java Android mobile development

Xcode and AppCode - Objective C iOS mobile development (some Mac work too)

Aptana - JavaScript with AngularJS, bootstrap and other libs

Sublime - taking notes, small file edits including .gitignore and other system type files

At times it can drive you crazy. I use a Mac at work due to my iOS needs and depending on the IDE I might use CMD+S to save or Ctrl+S. Since I have a PC background and I switch to Ctrl+S at home in any IDE I am in when there. I screw up the keystrokes at times but generally have a feel for which IDE I am in at any given moment.

Eclipse is the old standby I have use for years. There are a ton of plugins for it to do nearly anything but you can't always get them to work as expected or even together. We just switched from SVN to GIT at work. Probably need to throw out the SVN plugins as I will not be using them and no real need for them to load up each time. Also the menu system gets a bit cluttered. Heck it might be a good time to start with a fresh Eclipse install as I also have the Android plug-ins running and I have switched to Android Studio for that work. Code completion works ok but is not spectacular. Refactoring works and has not crashed on me. The editor is fast and has a ton of features.

IntelliJ has a great Dracula dark theme built right in. I run a dark theme in Eclipse too but it does not theme everything perfectly. I handle one off programming in IntelliJ. Testing code bits, working on small stand alone utilities. I could do some of that in Eclipse too but I tend to have the server stuff open there and switching workspaces in Eclipse is slow as it is a full reload of the IDE. I could use workspaces in Eclipse and I do at times but our server stuff is rather large so I prefer to leave it sit by itself.

Android Studio is an IDE I like a lot as it is IntelliJ based. There have been some growing pains with the constant updating to the newest version of gradle but in general the IDE is superior to Eclipse. It has better code completion, a better preview window for your XML based layouts, shows the colors and icons in the gutter, makes it easier to convert string into the string table, shows the replacement string in code instead of the string ID and a bunch of other smaller bits of "thanks for doing that" areas. I would say that Eclipse is faster at building and getting the code on a device but I am willing to forgo that speed for all the other features Android Studio offers. It works well with Genymotion, the device emulator I use.

Xcode is my least favorite IDE of the bunch. I have to use it for iOS development but it is behind the times in areas like refactoring and its code completion tends to not be as helpful as other IDEs. Sure, you get a full list of what is possible but it does not move the most commonly used ones to the top of the list. It also crashes on me more than any of the other IDEs especially when it comes to refactoring. I have had it crash when refactoring a variable that only appears twice in a 20 line method. It makes you scared to use it. It was also terrible when it comes to using SVN. GIT is much better. I wish it would offer to automatically include needed H files instead of my manually moving to the top of the file to type them in.

AppCode is also from IntelliJ. I use it when I am doing heavy Objective C coding when I already have the UI in place. So far its refactoring has worked every time crash free. It has more intelligent code suggestions, if you add a reference to an object it will prompt to add the proper H file, it handles CocoaPods nicely. There are so so many areas where it is coder friendly. Sadly it does not have an Interface Builder replacement so you end up back over in Xcode to handle those chores. They sync together without a hitch and both use the same project files making moving between them relatively painless.

Aptana has some nice code completion aspects for CSS and HTML along with a solid JSHint tie in. Since our server build does not allow JSHint errors to pass it makes it so much easier to catch them before you push to master. It is Eclipse based but focused on JavaScript which means I could end up cluttering it with plugins but so far I have kept it down to the minimum I need for JS programming. I have used this IDE flavor for the least amount of time of those listed but with my heavier involvement in JavaScript I have been very happy with it.

Sublime is my go to editor. I leave multiple tabs open with "To Do" lists for each of the projects I have going at any time. This allows me to type in quick notes so I don't forget something because people tend to drift in and out of my office with suggestions the mobile app, to share some tidbit of useful information about the server, a GIT command or something else helpful. I have a file for general work info, one for Android and one for iOS info open all the time and then I open and close other files as needed. The color coding support in Sublime for a multitude of file formats is awesome. I also use it to pretty print XML and JSON when I copy / paste server responses out of the Chrome web tools window. 

It can fry your mind to shift in and out of so many programming languages and IDEs in any given day. Of course I try to keep it to a minimum but that is not always in my control. My preference would be to stick in the world of mobile doing Android and iOS development. Right now that is on hold so I am helping out on the JavaScript team. Lots of time on Stack Overflow and doing web searches as my brain does not have a solid cache of JavaScript programming idioms and patterns. Looks like Aptana it is for the next few months.

Mobile app usage and development - do you just have to magically know what to do?

The more mobile development I do the more I am finding you are just expected to know things magically. There are very few help screens, tips of the day or on screen tutorials. There are so many potential gestures in any app that you need to magically discover. What can we do to make this situation better?

A lot of apps allow swipes to perform an action. Swipe left to call, swipe right to text. Long presses may do something or bring up a menu. Some actions are instant and others prompt you but you are never really sure what will happen. Delete should prompt. Add a new item most likely does not need to unless it will cost money i.e. send a message or use your data plan or will take a long time to perform.

Some will answer the mobile device is so small and we all want to save on code size and people never use help or only use it once so skip it. The original apps were very small and had few features so that worked. News apps have a ton of features. We basically have computers in our pockets and we do a lot of work on them.

Do we need a standard "Cool Features" button showing quick help? Maybe it should show a standardized overlay on the screen to explain the swipes and long presses so people can get more out of our apps.

The other side of this is developer tools. They have a boat load of features too and a lot of their power is there but hidden from the coder. I know Xcode drives me crazy with its lack of right mouse button menus. I expect to be able to perform most actions a context sensitive menu. In general the menus are very terse. Want to add a view controller to a story board? Right click on the story board and you get zooming only options. You have to know to drag a view controller for the Utilities panel. But first the Utilities panel has to be visible. That is the only way to perform this operation. That is not friendly.

Speaking of the Utilities panel it has 6 tabs on it and I seem never to go to the correct one to do what I need. Do do nearly anything you shift between 2 or 3 of the tabs. Somehow I would like the most common settings on a single tab that I could define.

Right click on a segue control and you get zoom options but nothing associated to the segue. Click on the Scene Name in the left hand panel and nothing at all happens. I excepted the editor to scroll to that Scene. You have to click on a view of the scene for that to happen. Oh and it changes your zoom factor when you do that. Just scroll there! If I was zoomed out I want to stay zoomed out!

Is the layout of your windows wrong? Can you right click on something and fix it? No, you have to go to View -> Assistant Editor and pick the layout you want. I did not even know the window I was looking at was called Assistant Editor as nothing on screen indicates that. You can mouse hover over the toolbar button to find that out. Those same buttons are inconsistent. The first three toggle between modes of a view and only one can be pressed at any time. The next three toggle the visibility of views and any or none of them can be pressed but the two sets visually they look identical.

Highlight a word in the editor and hit Cmd+F most editors will automatically put the highlighted word in the search box but not Xcode. I get to copy / paste it up there. Heck I can highlight a word in Eclipse and just hit Ctrl+K to find the next occurrence skipping the Find prompt altogether.

Add files to a project and guess what? They are not flagged as needed to be added to version control. Why? Right click on them to add them and that menu is not there. I have to fire up SourceTree to add them to GIT for this to work. Xcode version control integration is crappy at best.

Xcode 4.5 iOS 6 iPhone 5 simulator issues

Last night before I left I begin the Xcode 4.5 official release download. This morning it was ready to roll and then it needed to update a few other areas of Xcode but it was up and running pretty quickly. I then went about the work of having my app make use of the full height of the iPhone 5 screen.

Xcode asked if I wanted to add the Default-568h@2x.png which I allowed it to do. I knew that was one of the requirements so I was very happy it created the all black image for me. Our launch time is super fast so I don't need a real launch image.

Next I knew the rotation messages needed a massage. I add the following lines to all the ViewControllers allowing all orientations to work.

// OS 6 rotate message
- (BOOL)shouldAutorotate {
    return YES;
}

// OS 6 rotate message response
- (NSUInteger)supportedInterfaceOrientations {
    return UIInterfaceOrientationMaskAll;
}

I left the original orientation code in place for non-iOS 6 devices. 

Time to tweak the rootViewController

    // Changed for iOS 6
    self.window.rootViewController = self.navigationController;
//  [window addSubview:navigationController.view];


I had to switch to libxml2.2.dylib for libxlm.2.2.7.3.dylib for my frameworks. Not sure why the newer Xcode has what appears to be an older version of this lib but everything appears to work using it.

I download older simulators (4.3 and 5.1) so I can test as many as possible without swapping devices.

Adjusting the home screen paint for extra size by checking for iPhone 5 resolution and putting our logo below the grid of buttons on the portrait version makes that look nice. Putting extra space between each icon on landscape mode to space them evenly across the screen gives that area the proper look.

All the other screens filled the new height and went smoothly and things look great except for one big issue I have not yet been able to resolve. The back button in the navigation bar does not work in the simulator. Well it does work for everything but an iPhone (Retina 4-inch). I can choose iOS 4.3, 5.1 or 6.0 and any device - iPhone, iPhone (Retina 3.5-inch),  iPad, iPad (Retina) - and everything about my program works just fine. Once I set the hardware to be iPhone (Retina 4-inch) then the buttons will not work. Nothing happens when I click on them, no errors, no highlighting, no action at all.

Seems to me I am not having an iOS 6.0 issue but a simulator issue. Until I get my hands on some real hardware I am not sure what to do. I can install iOS 6.0 on my iPad 2 or my third gen iTouch but that does not tell me if things have gone haywire on a real iPhone 5.

The other area of fun is two of my hardware testing devices are no longer supported by Xcode 4.5. I can't use the second generation iTouch or the iPhone 3G. They are both stuck at iOS 4.2.1. We checked our logs and it appears we still have a user with that flavor of iOS. If I update the software I would set 4.3 as the minimum. Users would either stick with the version they have, upgrade their iOS if possible or buy new hardware. Apple is sort of forcing things along in this area. Even the original iPad has hit the end of its upgrade cycle.

At this point I get to keep digging to find out why the simulator is not letting me press the back button or the menu button I have at the other end of the navigation area on the 4" iPhone. Pretty obvious that I will not even think of releasing a new cut of the program until this is resolved. Sure, the simulator can be hosed as long as the code runs on a real device I will be fine. I really am hoping it is a code tweak to make it work across the board. Right now 4" iPhone information is pretty sparse.

** UPDATE ** Not fixed but I did try rotating the screen in the simulator. The buttons started to work. Then I rotated again and they stopped, then again and the back button would work but not the menu button. At times all buttons will work then will stop working. Rotation may or may not allow them to work again. I really does appear the simulator has an issue in this area.

** FIXED ** I had to open my MainWindow.XIB file, select the Window object and ticked "Full Screen at Launch". Now everything appears to be working on all simulator devices. I need to beat on the application for a bit more but now I at least feel safe checking in the code changes I have made. Hope this knowledge can help out someone else.

Sharing a keyboard and Mouse between a Mac and PC

My main development box is a beefy dual screen PC. I do a lot of Mac work too. I test all our WebStart Java based code on the Mac to make sure controls are sized correctly, accelerator keys work as intended etc. That is all done with IntelliJ. I also write all the mobile code for iOS devices via Xcode and Android devices via Eclipse meaning I switch around a lot.

I tried VNC for a few days but ran into too many short comings. I have the Mac hooked up to my second LCD and switching video inputs is easy enough but hauling over the mouse and keyboard was annoying.

Yesterday over lunch I picked up a KVM at Microcenter. Box listed it at $29.99 but it rang up at $12.99 at the register. This is the TrendNet 2-port KVM Switch Kit TK-207K. Simple piece of hardware about the size of a deck of cards, just a little thicker and wider. I plugged in my USB generic mouse and MS Natural Keyboard 4000 to the device and plugged in the included outbound VGA (not using) / USB cables to the PC and the Mac. There is a 1 and 2 button on top of the box you press to toggle between machines. If I am on the PC I can hit Scroll Lock twice to go to the Mac but it does not appear to work from Mac back to PC, instead it dims the screen. Press the button is no big deal.

Both machines seem to be happy doing the switch. I can now run everything off the one mouse and keyboard which is making life much simpler. The other big advantage - the MacBook Pro only has two USB ports. I had the mouse in one and the keyboard in the other. I only need one for the KVM switch. This allows me to plug in a USB key, the iPad or whatever without pulling the keyboard.

Here are the minor issues:

1) On the Mac the main screen in the laptop screen. Everything wants to start on that screen even if a program is on the second screen it wants to show pop-ups / associated windows on the primary screen.

2) Just put Lion on the Mac so I could upgrade to latest Xcode. By default Lion does scrolling opposite of what Snow Leopard did. This makes it act like a iOS device which is fine when using touch pad but annoying when using mouse especially when you switch between it and Windows during the day. I turned off that setting.

3) Can't double scroll lock to switch back to PC side.

4) Wish I could run both my external LCD screens of the Mac even if it meant shutting down the laptop display. If that worked I could switch to just using the Mac for email, IM, IntelliJ for Java, Eclipse for Android and Xcode for iOS. The laptop display is OK but not positioned on my desk in a good spot right now. Once you get used to two 24" displays you don't want to go back to a 15" display.

Switched text editors


I had been using PSPad on the PC for the longest time. I then switched to NotePad++ and then after reading a number of glowing reviews of Sublime Text 2 I switched to that. Seems to work out nicely on both the PC and Mac. I had been struggling to find a good text editor on the Mac and was using JEdit. Using the same editor on both machines is very handy.

I tend to leave a text editor open on my machine at all times with multiple tabs going. Right now I have 5 tabs running - Work info, Android Notes, Charge Capture Mobile, Front Office, Tablet Calendar - one for each project I am in the middle of working on. During the day if someone stops by with a suggestion I type it right into the appropriate file. Maybe I come up with some wild idea - type it in. It is my way of keeping massive to do list, future notes, things to investigate and random thoughts all where I can find them easily.

The Mac will take over my Tablet Calendar notes as that is where I will be doing that work for the time being until I start the Android conversion. I also end up opening source code from other projects to steal code snippets so having a bonus text editor open is very handy. Its other big job is grep. Any text editor must have "find in files" to be useful to me.

Today's Apple Fun!

I need to test a new app on the iPad. iPad is 5.1x but I was on Snow Leopard and using Xcode 4.2. Can't run the iOS 5.1x SDK on this platform. I got Lion ready to go finally. Had to buy a new larger USB key so I picked up a $9 16GB at Microcenter over lunch.

Run disk tools to create Lion installer on USB key

Lion install went smoothly.

Run Xcode, tells me it is too old. Drag it to trash and it crashes.

Install updates to Lion amounting to 1.84g of download and install.

Still wants to install iTunes update but it fails on two attempts - give up on that.

Try to install free application from App Store - Xcode for Lion.

Wants credit card information, nope, not on a shared work laptop.

Look on web and find you can set up your account under iCloud without credit card info.

Attempt to do that but it wants to verify email first.

Don't appear to be getting email to confirm.

Finally realize it came to my personal account, I have gone round and round with Apple over this and they can't fix it - I log in with my work email but can't associate my work email account to the Apple account.

Confirm iCloud email via link click and login on my PC to Apple website

Ask iCloud to try again but it fails.

Close iCloud.

Open iCloud

iCloud is now happy so I click into manage account and it has a NONE option for credit card.

Update and save info.

Get multiple Apple emails to my personal email about the updates.

Open App Store.

Click on Free on Xcode in search results

Click on Install

Nothing happens

Click on Xcode to move from search results to full screen Xcode information

Click on Install

States Installing... but no status visible

Click on Purchases so I can monitor 1.53 download

Get another email from Apple saying I am downloading stuff and if I did not do that I should change my password. 

Ignore the email.

Run Xcode
Asks to uninstall old Xcode (guess the crash really did fail even though Xcode did not appear any longer in Applications)
Install old Xcode
Xcode runs some extra updates
Xcode up and running and I am able to run the App on my test iPad.
App runs great, scrolls around at full speed.

Try a couple of times to update iTunes and it continues to fail
Search on Google and it is suggested I download the DMG directly from Apple iTunes site
Download 170 meg of iTunes fun
Start installer - asks to close Xcode
Close Xcode - run installer
Installs just fine this time
Run Update checker - no updates found

System is now up to date, well as up to date as it can be with Mountain Lion ready in a few hours, Xcode runs and I can go back to app development. It was a bit of a winding road to get it all to happen though. Felt like way too many hoops to jump through to install the few things I needed to keep working.

UPDATE
Java is not installed by default with Lion. I am now downloading and installing Java so I can use AppCode and IntelliJ to do development. The keystrokes in Xcode are driving me nuts so I am going to switch to AppCode to see how that goes.

iOS developer woes

I am working on a new iPad program. It will allow an anesthesiologist at a facility to shift around the appointments of the providers in his group. Scheduled surgeries run late and there are a variety of other reasons to shift things about.

I got back into the CGContext side of programming under iOS and have the time margin, row headers and basic grid painting up and running. I wanted to see how this looked on the physical device before I got much farther along. Not allowed.

My iPad has been updated to iOS 5.1x. I am targeting iOS 5.0x but since the iPad has received the OTA updates it is past that. You are not allowed to get the iOS 5.1x SDK without Xcode 4.3.x and you are not allowed to get Xcode 4.3.x without Lion.

A couple of things stink here. Before Apple moved Xcode to the App Store you could download the DMG file and extract the iOS 5.1.x SDK files and use them with Xcode 4.2.x. That is no longer the case. In fact it appears you need to uninstall Xcode 4.2 before you install 4.3 as the new install directory is App Store based and not developer based like it was before.

Reviews of Xcode 4.3 are not glowing. Appears to be more crash happy than 4.2. Xcode has always been a flaky IDE but it is the only one in town. Yes you can use AppCode from IntelliJ but you still need Xcode installed for debugging and Interface Builder.

We need to upgrade to Lion but that is silly to do when Mountain Lion is due out in a week for $20. That means I need to wait but there will probably be an onslaught of others upgrading at the same time and it will not be a small download. Servers will be hit hard and heavy.

Xcode is a massive download at 1.43g but am I allowed to get that now? No, the App Store will not allow me to download that since I don't have Lion. I will have to fully upgrade before I can start the next monster download. This is going to take multiple days with me leaving the laptop on overnight for downloads. I can't queue things up either.

I think this will be my order of execution:
Uninstall Xcode 4.2
Upgrade to Mountain Lion
Install Xcode 4.3 from App Store
Hope all my projects still work, Mountain Lion is stable and Xcode is not super crash happy.

I could downgrade my iPad to iOS 5.0 to do my testing. That would work as a temp solution but it is not my iPad, it is used by QA and Technical Writing. Since the update is OTA and it will ask about it there is a very strong chance it will be updated again once it is off my desk for a few minutes.

I just hope nothing goes wrong during all these changes. I was using VNC on my PC to do Mac programming. It is my understanding that VNC is rather broken under Lion and I have not heard that they addressed that under Mountain Lion. My whole development environment is being turned upside down.

Using TightVNC for Mac development

My main PC machine is a nice dual screen setup with a fast process and lots of memory. All of my email and IM processing happens on that machine. When I use the MacBook Pro for iOS development I run into multiple issues:

1) Screen is smaller (nice screen but smaller)
2) MacBook Pro keyboard is missing keys I use a lot for programming such as Home / End
3) Company Global Policy times out / locks my PC after 5 minutes
4) With PC locked out I have a blank screen and don't see incoming instant messages and emails

I enabled screen sharing and set up a password for it on the Mac. I then fired up TightVNC on the PC and connected to the Mac. I now get to use my PC keyboard and mouse and have Xcode up in a window on my PC. The PC has a large screen at 24" vs. 15" and more pixels thus I can run the Mac OS in a window and not lose any of my PC context.

So far TightVNC has disconnected a couple of times but a simple click on the taskbar icon brings it right back up. The Mac seems to be happy about the whole thing. I am not seeing any issues with typing, mouse or screen lag. iPad emulator appears to work fine too. On occasion it can be a bit tough to get the Mac taskbar to appear. Since the Mac is sitting on the desk right next to me I can quick swivel my chair and pull it up there. Probably just need to find the sweet spot to let the mouse hover.

At times I think about getting a used Mac Mini to continue iOS development at home. I have not wanted to do that as I thought I would need to set up KVM switch. Did not want to buy a Mac laptop due to cost but the Mini is pretty cheap and setting it up to do VNC is simple. I would have no need for the KVM which can get pricey if you want digital monitor connections. What's a little network bandwidth between friends?

** UPDATE **

I think I am giving up on using VNC with the Mac. TightVNC was crashing a bit too often. I set up UltraVNC and I was able to get the keyboard confused too many times. UltraVNC did not crash but you can't properly use the Windows key with it either. It is just getting to be a bit too much of a headache which means my dreams of a Mac Mini sans KVM are going out the window too.

Big Xcode frustrations

My developer provisioning profile expired. After pressing [Update] twice Xcode asked if I wanted to send a message to my account manager (my boss) to renew it. I agreed to that. He got an email and renewed it. I hit [Refresh] and got the new one and tried to build. Failure again. A closer look showed a new error message telling me there are multiple provisioning certificates.

I delete one but no help so I open up Keychain Access and delete the expired on that has the exact same name as the good one. Why does the system not prompt you to save or replace or just do it automatically for you? What good is an expired certificate? It is no good at all and just another annoyance getting in my way of getting real work done.

This allows me to build for a provisioned device or the simulator but I can no longer build a release version. What the hell is going on now? I can see the release / distribution profile in the Developer Profile table in the Xcode Organizer but that table is read only. I search the web trying to find the correct wording and finally figure out you have to drag the .mobileprovision file to Xcode. You can't drag the .cer file, it has to be the .mobileprovision file. I find that on my HD and drag it to Xcode which now allows me to build release.

We need to provision another device to do some testing as I am having crashing issues on older iPhones. Everything works find on newer iPhones, both iTouches I have and the iPad. No fragmentation here. I send the device ID to my boss and he adds it to our developer profile. I press [Refresh] and the new device appears but the release profile disappears and another expired profile I deleted reappears. Screw all of that. This process is a totally screwed up mess.

I drag the distribution profile back into Xcode and delete the expired one again and all is good or so I think. I plug in the new provisioned iPhone and press (>) to run the new build of the app on it. No go but why? First off the console log window disappears again from the debug window. I click the layout button to have that appear again and it is full of UUID mismatch warnings. I copy one of those to the clipboard and it turns out the is a common problem where you have to delete the files in /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/DeviceSupport/ for the device version you have then restart Xcode, reattach the device and let it resync itself before you try to run it again. After all of that I get the program installed and the console window disappears again but we can start testing. So far my fixes appear to be working. I then install on one of the iTouch test devices and have to let it resync too before I can install the app update.

Pretty much I wasted a good part of the day on really stupid crap on my Mac. I also know that anytime I update my provisioning profiles I am hosed and have to delete one and redrag in the correct one. Thanks Xcode for being such a pain in the ass constantly. This is not a friendly IDE, this is not a nice way to treat developers, this is a massive waste of time just to get a freaking build ready. These are not uncommon issues. I found a lot of folks on the web having the same issues. I have not run into this craptastic fun on the Android side of things using Eclipse. I don't have to sign anything to install on any device. I don't have to provision anything. The one signature I use for a release is good for 30 years. I am not constantly hassled to be doing something I should be able to legally do. I don't have developer and distribution certificates expire at different times. I don't have and IDE that gives less than helpful error messages that I must search the web to have any hope of decoding.

Some of this might not happen if I was the Apple account owner and the sole developer. That part of the equation has been a huge headache repeatedly with Apple. I finally have to give up using my work email account and use my personal email account with Apple as they could not get their own system straightened out. It gets to the point you hate to try and build the app on the Mac. I just don't trust it do it correctly ever.

Xcode is still crappy

I keep crashing Xcode. I have an M file open and intellisense pops up. I do the three finger swipe to switch to the H file and it crashes. I lose the work since my last save. This happens at least once a week. So stop doing that the Doctor says. I switch between my PC using Eclipse and Xcode on the MacBook Pro multiple times per day.

I don't remember crashing Eclipse in a long time. I just use the IDE and it works. Then I get on the Mac to convert over some Android code I just wrote and I forget it crashes and boom I crash it yet again. Would be nice for Apple to fix this one but I have doubts it will happen as Xcode does not get updated very often. Sure they tie in a new iOS release but the IDE itself does not change much.

Just rebooted the Mac after an update install and crash, did not notice update was ready until Xcode died. Time to go back over and see how much of my work it lost this time.

Android / iOS sync continues

I sure thought I would be done with the next version of our application by this time but we came up with a number of new features to add before it leaves the Beta stage. I have been adding support for favorites so the Dr. can toggle which CPT / ASA / Diagnosis and other fields quickly just using the ones they use the most.

One of the benefits of dual development is it forces you to look at problems from different angles. I had the favorites all set up on the Android side of things and the Beta clients for those devices have been using it and it appears liking it. What I did on the Android does not fit naturally on the iPhone as far as UI goes.

First off I had to take some time to write a new menu system for iOS to emulate the one I am using for Android. After getting past the initial scare of creating a full blown custom menu under iOS it went rather smoothly. My draft version proved I could do a menu that pops up over another view - including tables - but the graphics design did not pan out well on an iPhone, it looked fine on the iPad. I took a step back and redesigned the menu GUI so it worked great on both device form factors in both orientations. This is a universal binary so the same code is running on both devices.

Many tweaks later I have the menu system running in a lot of places in the UI. Without that I was not going to be able to pull of the favorites as designed. Here is where I ran into the next issue. I was using my menu in two ways on the Android to do favorites, one menu to select a mode and one menu to select which items to be in the favorites list. This would not play well under iOS. I also had allow the user to control the font size under iOS and its current UI left something to be desired. After taking a step back, many head scratches and many pen scratches on paper I came up with a new single menu system that is much cleaner and easier for the user to grasp and solved the font sizing issue too. I just finished phase one of my implementation on iOS and am pretty happy with it. Now I have to convert those ideas back over to the Android which technically should not be difficult but will be time consuming as I have to touch a lot of code.

Because I needed to make something work on the iPhone my Android users will have a better experience. This has happened in both directions as there are areas I wrote on the iPhone first and during my Android conversion I discovered better ways to accomplish the same thing. Some of it comes from just wanting to get something running but when you have to write the code a second time you think it through again and make it better. That has happened over and over during this process. I have deleted, modified and bug fixed a lot of code as I go back and forth between the two platforms. At times it feels like you are just spinning your wheels and will never get it all done. Heck it is not all done but I am in the home stretch.

I often wonder what it would be like if there was another developer working on iOS. Would we be able to come up with ideas together that work well on both devices? If you don't code on both do you have blinders on for the one you don't code under? Is it better for one developer to hash out an idea and get a working prototype and then show it to the other so they can shoot holes in it and make it better? You could have each developer tackle a non-overlapping area then swap ideas. Working on the same area at the same time, unless you are following a foregone UI pattern, seems a waste of effort.

There are a lot of "Oh man, I have to write this AGAIN!" moments when you are the sole mobile developer. At times you dread writing a tough hunk of code in another language using another IDE. Not sure if I am sold on the universal binary idea for iOS. Sure it beats a 2x version of your iPhone app on the iPad but Xcode / Interface Builder don't make is very easy to have NIB files per platform. It is easy to do on Android, just use same named XML files in different directories and everything is handled for you. I have a lot of IF checks for the iPad in the code already and am not looking forward to more of them. We might be getting close to the point of doing dual development there which would make my work load even more insane.