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 anticipated.
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 combine this code with Friday’s rounded rect clipping code to generate a rough draft of our shiny buttons. Let’s get started.
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 might also be useful for some simple homemade buttons.
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 it can be a bit of a nuisance for the developer.
In particular, the iPhone’s built-in apps (e.g. Clock, Contacts) have some very nice, glossy, colored buttons that any developer would want to emulate. Unfortunately, there is no built-in API that allows a developer to conjure up similar buttons; you have to roll your own. To address this problem I’m going to spend the next several days walking through the process of creating the shiniest, happiest buttons imaginable. I hope you find it helpful.
Today’s installment of Book Club looks at Chapter 5 of “Men Against Fire” (MAF), which introduces the metric at the heart of Marshall’s argument: the eponymous ratio of fire, or the fraction of men engaged in combat who fire their weapons at the enemy. Marshall reports that this ratio was astonishingly low in the WWII engagements he investigated, never surpassing 25%. He begins to draw certain conclusions from this, and I think it has interesting implications for other areas of human endeavor.
While reading through a 1938 copy of Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, I came across this paragraph:
Shortly after the close of the war, I learned an invaluable lesson one night in London. I was manager at the time for Sir Ross Smith. During the war, Sir Ross had been the Australian ace out in Palestine; and, shortly after peace was declared, he astonished the world by flying halfway around it in thirty days. No such feat had ever been attempted before. …
Garbo is an iconic name, of course, but one can lose sight of what a good actress, and compelling screen presence, she really was. If you haven’t seen any of her movies, I’d encourage you to buy/rent/add to your queue one or more of the following:
The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians.
I just noticed that each of the movies I listed is named after the character Garbo plays. I guess that’s the sort of thing that means you’re a star.
One of the side-effects of BBQing some meat is a great deal of strongly aromatic smoke. If you’re manning (or just near) the grill, this tends to soak into you; as a result, you trail a cloud of BBQ scent for the rest of the day.
I suppose you can divide the world into those who consider this a problem, and those who consider it a bonus.
