I’m switching my Source Control Management  software to git. Performance has been great, I’m learning to branch and merge with wild abandon and philosophically it’s right on (what with the distributed model and all).

Creating a new remote repository on my private server was *almost* too easy. The one snafu was getting sshd to include the git binary path for non-interactive login. To save me the trouble of having to look this up again later, add a .bashrc file to your user dir:

export PATH=/usr/local/git/bin:$PATH

Other steps, again for reference.

• Download the git installer
• Create a new bare repo on the remote machine:

mkdir -p /path/to/remote/repo.git
cd /path/to/remote/repo.git
git --bare init
exit

• Add the remote repository to the local machine:

git remote add origin ssh://server/path/to/remote/repo.git
git push origin master

• Done!

(Unless, of course you get the following message try the .bashrc workaround above)

bash: git-receive-pack: command not found

There was a recent comment about saving / restoring application state when using openFrameworks for iPhone which got me to thinking about how to do it. Apple’s frameworks provide a fairly thorough way to save state to the disk and restore later. There seem to be three primary ways to do this: simple plist files (usually encoded in binary on the iPhone), archived data (they like to refer to this as freeze-dried object graphs) and core data.

I believe that archiving objects require methods inherited from NSObject, which we don’t have in openFrameworks’ ofSimpleApp. Core Data seems like overkill, so I looked into using plist files.

There are likely better ways to do this, but this ad-hoc solution works wonderfully for a small app I’m working on, and only requires a bit of Objective-C code that could likely be moved up into a nice wrapper class. However, since the question was asked I’d just like to get it out there before working on a more elegant approach. Read the rest of this entry »

i recently switched to Coda for web development. now, i don’t do much web dev any longer…mostly for myself (as evidenced my this latest overhaul of robertcarlsen.net – which amounts to theme hacking, really). i never had a problem with tabbing through several programs to get the job done, but i like Panic’s style.

the interface is clean and with keyboard shortcuts for each of the view modes. i do so wish for more info in the files panel….i’m used to comparing modification times and the sync features of full-fledged FTP clients.

anyway, it’s good software – and i’ve come to really appreciate good software lately after writing a lot of bad software myself.

i’ve updated the site’s design and will be migrating it to a new server over the next couple of days. in the meantime, please forgive any oddities (but feel free to let me know about them – i’m currently dealing with the code examples formatting right now).

also, all the old permalinks are dead and i need to fix that.

Had a really nice time tonight at the oF knitting circle held at Parsons in NYC. Saw several really inspiring projects and spoke to several people about using openFrameworks for iPhone development and showed the current version of the particle game using ofxiPhoneAlertView.

Quite a few folks mentioned that they have become interested in openFrameworks after hearing about it’s use for creating iPhone applications. While not every app is suitable, I saw a few really nice examples. My only regret is not getting the name of the fellow who was working with creating a sound wrapper.

The wiki page for the knitting circle is at the openFrameworks wiki.

Here is a (really) basic wrapper for the UIAlertView in openFrameworks of iPhone. Not all of the necessary delegate methods have been implemented yet, but this is enough for me to get the proof of concept rolling in an app I’m building.

Feel free to let me know how I can do things better, or just tinker with the code directly at github: ofxiPhoneWrappers

Here are the notes on using the class: Read the rest of this entry »

BarCampNYC4 was hosted by ITP on May 30-31st. It was a great event – I’d highly recommend going to another one.

I did a presentation titled “Using openFrameworks for iPhone App Development” which I think went well, although it was quite dense. Can’t be helped, I suppose. The walk-through of getting set up with openFrameworks has been previously posted, and is also available on ITPedia. Below is an embedded video of the presentation thanks to Mark B… and New Work City. Read the rest of this entry »

[Also available at ITPedia. Watch video of the BarCampNYC4 presentation.]

This is an overview of getting set up using openFrameworks for iPhone development.

What is openFrameworks?

openFrameworks is a “a C++ library for creative coding”. It shares a similar philosophy with Processing (as a library for Java). The intended audience “are folks using computers for creative, artistic expression, and who would like low level access to the data inside of media in order manipulate, analyze or explore.”

There are good resources for reading more about it below, under the Resources heading. This article assumes basic knowledge of programming and of the Xcode development environment. You can simply follow along and launch the demo app, but you should really read the resources to understand the structure of a typical openFrameworks-based application.

Why?

iPhone native application development is typically done in Objective-C. Not pressing the merits and detractions of Obj-C, but it’s *another* language to learn. If you have code / experience working in C++ then you can use oF to migrate those programs to the iPhone somewhat painlessly. Arguably easier to begin working with – espeically if you’re coming from experience with Processing.

Why not?

However, if you already develop in Objective-C, then maybe you don’t need to use oF. OpenFrameworks is not as well documented as Objective-C (even though Apple’s docs are as dense as the proverbial stereo instructions joke). Certain applications are not as suitable (lots of hierarchal views) It’s very easy to overwhelm the iPhone if porting desktop oF code over.

Ultimately, however, this eliminates 90% of Obj-C. Still need to use Obj-C (or Obj-C++) to use iPhone interface widgets. Don’t worry about it right now. Read the rest of this entry »

In preparation for several iPhone application development gigs which have lined up for the summer I’m getting back into my previous projects. Specifically, I’m going to get Follower and Pinwheel ready for release and am looking to push them out to the AppStore in the next month or so.

Also, as an exercise to get working with a web API I’m building an iPhone native client for SHIFD, called Slide. Right now it’s overly simplistic, but I much prefer the native app to the mobile web app. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it as a learning project or also invest the time and resources to make it another released application.

All this is in service to building out cloudreader.me, the online version of the CloudReader generative text animation project. I’d like to make that something available sometime.

On a much needed vacation following the ITP Spring Show. Just back from a week in Philadelphia catching up with beloved places and friends. Looking forward to a few more days of relaxing in NYC before getting back to work.