In compiling the Feathers Visage target in Xcode 3.2.4 with the iOS 4.1 SDK, I got the following compiler error on my Prefix.pch file:

CGPDFContext.h:60:23: error: expected function body after function declarator

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If you're using [UIImage imageNamed:@"name_of_image"] (without the file name extension) to load in an image from your app's bundle, it will fail in iOS versions earlier than 4.0. To support 3.x, include the file name extension in your calls. So, to be safe, do: [UIImage imageNamed:@"name_of_image.ext"].

If you want to transition between two views, here's a neat trick: take a screenshot of the screen you're transitioning from and do the transition between that bitmap and a bitmap representation of the screen you're transitioning to. That way, instead of animating between two possibly complex views with lots of subviews, etc., you are simply animating between two bitmaps. This, of course, will be far less of a strain on the CPU and thus perform better. This little nugget isn't just for iPhone development either. I first started using it back in the day while making Flash apps.

Taking screenshots programmatically

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I am going to be teaching my 3-Day Introduction to iOS Development workshop, October 27-29, 2010 October 20-22, 2010, at our beautiful Lighthouse Arts venue in central Brighton (UK).

This intensive course will give you a solid foundation in developing with the iOS SDK (for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch), Xcode (both 3 & and the upcoming 4), and Objective-C. To see a more detailed outline of the course and get all the juicy details, please see the course's web-site.

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I've been so busy in the past month, doing my courses in Ghent and Brighton and the opening keynotes for Frontend2010 and Over The Air in Oslo and London that I completely missed the email a few weeks ago from .net magazine informing me that Feathers has been nominated for Mobile App of the Year at the .net awards.

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