Extending an iOS App with WatchKit

In this tutorial I will show you how to extend an existing iOS app with WatchKit using a brain training app called “Brain Enhancer”. The Watchkit version of the app will be a pared down version of the full iOS app. It will be a different experience but within the context of the iOS app to avoid a disjoined experience between the two apps. The user should understand that they are still using the same app.

The Watch App will make use of glances and notifications. Once the user opens the Watch App, they’ll be able to interact with small versions of the quizzes. Think of these as bite size quizzes. This tutorial will show how to add functionality into the Watch App that allows the user to take the short quizzes.

Continue reading %Extending an iOS App with WatchKit%

by Brett Romero via SitePoint

6 Handy, Free Icon & Favicon Editors

Earlier in the year we looked at some handy, 'pre-fab' icons that were ready to plug straight into your mockups, prototypes and projects. But, being a designer, I know what it's like – sooner or later you need to generate your own.

While it's perfectly possible to use Photoshop or any other full-blown graphics software to create/edit icons, specialized editors can be helpful when it comes to focussing on a specialized task like icon design.

There are dozens of both free and paid icon editors out there, both web-based and desktop. Some offer very limited, task-focussed functionality and are perfect for small quick fixes. Other editors with a wider set of tools and they give you the freedom to author your icons exactly as you want them.

It's also worth noting that icon editors tend to fall into two categories:

a). Editors for producing favicons, Apple Touch icons (iOS) and app icons (PNGs and ICO files)
b). Icons for use in app and website UIs.

Let's start with the web-based editors. As a general rule they don't offer as much functionality as their desktop counterparts, but execute their core task efficiently. Icons tend to be small files, so they're well-suited for manipulation within a browser.

If you are looking for more advanced features, or perhaps larger, more complex icon sets, check the desktop apps for your OS.

1. X-Icon Editor

The first free icon editor we will look at is the web-based X-Icon editor. It runs in any browser above IE9 and it allows to create favicons for branding your browser address bar.

You can create icons in 4 sizes – 16x16, 24x24, 32x32, and 64x64. The tools it offers include standard ones, such as Brush, Pencil, Eyedropper, Line, Circle, Text tool, etc.

You can start with a blank canvas or import a jpg, gif, bmp, png, or an ico file, crop it as necessary and have your fav icon created in no time at all. X-Icon Editor doesn't offer much but it's fine if you want to create a nice fav icon in seconds.

2. Free Icon Maker

Free Icon Maker is another web-based editor. It has more functionality than X-Icon Editor but still it's not Photoshop. You can use it to modify an existing icon, or start a new one from scratch.

If you want, you can use the numerous icons and presets they provide for free. You can also import from your own SVG files. When you are done, you can download the whole bundle of PNG icons to your drive.

The editor is absolutely free to use (though the Try It For Free note on the homepage made me think they have a free trial only) but for most operations – i.e. upload and download of the created icons you need to register.

3. Junior Icon Editor

In comparison to the more limited choice of web-based icon editors, there are many more desktop ones, particularly for Windows. One of the best I've found is Junior Icon Editor, previously known as Free Icon Editor. This application is not only free but available across multiple platforms, such as Windows 8, 7, Vista, XP, 2003, 2000, ME, 98, 95, NT, iOS, Linux, Android, web and others.

Junior Icon Editor might have echoes of Paint but it is created especially with icons in mind. It works with multiple icon formats, such as ICO, PNG, XPM, XBM and ICPR. You can create not only standard-size icons but you can go with any custom size you need.

The color depths of the icons are up to 32-bit True Color with 8-bit alpha channel.

The tools that come with the program are really numerous. Some of the tools you fill find are a pencil, brush, flood fill, text tool, spray can, color replacer, color selector, line tool, rectangle, curve and ellipse.

4. IcoFX Portable

IcoFX is another free icon editor you might want to consider. It has a free and a paid version.

IcoFX works with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Macintosh icons. This application has really a lot of features, such as the ability to convert Windows to Mac icons and vice versa, custom effects and filters, batch processing, icon manipulation inside exe files, etc. I am not sure all these options are available in the free version but even if some of them are not, it still offers more than most free editors. This is a mini Photoshop for icons.

Continue reading %6 Handy, Free Icon & Favicon Editors%

by Ada Ivanoff via SitePoint

Uploading Files with Paperclip

Some time ago I wrote Better File Uploads with Dragonfly and Asynchronous File Uploads in Rails, two articles that covered Dragonfly, a nice gem to handle various attachments. In this article I am going to introduce Paperclip by Thoughtbot - probably, the most popular and feature-rich solution for integrating file uploading and management into an application.

One of the great things about Paperclip is its large and active community - this gem is constantly being updated and that's really important. You don't want to use a solution that will be abandoned in a year, do you?

We are going to observe all the main features of Paperclip and create a pretty simple but useful app featuring:

• Basic file uploading
• Validations and callbacks
• Post-processing (with thumbnail generation)
• Amazon S3

Continue reading %Uploading Files with Paperclip%

by Ilya Bodrov-Krukowski via SitePoint

Easy Digital Downloads: General Settings, Part 2

Understand Overriding in Magento: Blocks

It's always an important feature for any framework to support extendability and scalability in the core itself. It's so true for Magento, which allows programmers to create custom extensions to fulfill custom requirements, thus providing extendability. On the other hand, it also allows you to override core files to alter the flow and behavior of the core features of Magento.

There are different ways in Magento which allow you to override core files. One of them is the implementation of the Event Observer Pattern. Using that method, you'll define observers in your module for the desired events, and they'll be picked up when associated events are raised in Magento. It's certainly a powerful and standard way to plug in your changes to the core modules of Magento. Having said that, there are situations in which you'll feel that it would great if you could simply replace the core file snippets with your ones. You can do this using an XML configuration file in your custom module.

Why Overriding Blocks?

In Magento, blocks are primitive building components for any layout in the front­-end. Although you can override the template file of any block using a custom theme to change the visual output, sometimes you would like to alter the logic of the core block code. In that case, overriding a core block with your custom module's block file really helps to plug in your changes easily.

In this tutorial, we'll make a custom module to understand how block overriding works in Magento. In the custom module, we'll override a product listing block displayed on the category page view. Overriding works by setting up certain XML tags as per the conventions of Magento.

I assume that you're familiar with the basic module creation process in Magento. Here's a nice article explaining the basics of custom module creation, just in case you would like to have a look at it! Let's jump straight away into the content of this tutorial!

A Glance at a Setup

We'll create a simple custom module named "Catalog", which sets up overriding of the core product listing block (app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Block/Category/View.php) in the category page view. Here's a list of the files required for the desired setup:

• app/etc/modules/Envato_All.xml: It's a file used to enable our custom module.
• app/code/local/Envato/Catalog/etc/config.xml: It's a module configuration file in which we'll set up block overriding using certain tags as per the Magento conventions.
• app/code/local/Envato/Catalog/Block/Category/View.php: It's our new block file which will replace a core block file.

Creating Files and Folders: Custom Module

First, we need to create a module enabler file. Create a file "app/etc/modules/Envato_All.xml" and paste the following contents in that file. We've used Envato as our module namespace and Catalog as our module name. It'll enable our Catalog module by default.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
  <modules>
    <Envato_Catalog>
      <active>true</active>
      <codePool>local</codePool>
    </Envato_Catalog>
  </modules>
</config>

Next, we need to create a module configuration file. Create "app/code/local/Envato/Catalog/etc/config.xml" and paste the following contents in that file.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
  <modules>
    <Envato_Catalog>
      <version>1.0</version>
    </Envato_Catalog>
  </modules>

  <global>
    <blocks>
      <catalog>
        <rewrite>
          <category_view>Envato_Catalog_Block_Category_View</category_view>
        </rewrite>
      </catalog>
    </blocks>
  </global>
</config>

In the beginning of the module, we've set up the module version number using the <version> tag. After that, the <catalog> and <rewrite> tags are used to inform the Magento overriding system that we're going to override one of the "blocks" of the "Catalog" core module.

Further, the <category_view> tag is used to define a block identity which will be overridden by the Envato_Catalog_Block_Category_View class. It's mapped to a block file "Category/View.php" under the "Block" directory of the Catalog module. The important thing to notice here is that we're following a directory structure similar to the core module. Although that's not strictly necessary, it's preferred over the different directory structure to maintain readability.

Finally, the only remaining thing is to define a block class Envato_Catalog_Block_Category_View. Let's create a block file "app/code/local/Envato/Catalog/Block/Category/View.php" and fill it up using the following contents.

<?php
/**
 * Category View block
 *
 * @category Envato
 * @package Envato_Catalog
 */
class Envato_Catalog_Block_Category_View extends Mage_Catalog_Block_Category_View
{
  public function getProductListHtml()
  {
    // Include your custom code here!
    return $this­>getChildHtml('product_list');
  }
}

We've defined the Envato_Catalog_Block_Category_View class which extends the core Mage_Catalog_Block_Category_View block class. Thus, you can override every method of the base class and create new methods if necessary.

In the above example, the getProductListHtml method is overridden so it'll be called on the category page view! You can alter the code as per your requirements.

Although it's a very basic example, it serves the purpose of overriding the core block, and you can tweak it to make things more complex and create something more useful!

Conclusion

Today, in the first article of this series, we've learned how to override the core blocks of Magento. In the next part, I'll come up with more exciting stuff! I would love to hear your comments and queries in the feed below!

by Sajal Soni via Tuts+ Code

Growth Secrets of Successful Productivity Apps

Taking notes, remembering to-dos, managing time, storing passwords, scanning documents — productivity apps play such a crucial role in our lives.

The importance of productivity apps is only going to increase going forward.

Microsoft, for example, has productivity at the core of its comeback strategy. A study by Flurry, Yahoo’s  mobile analytics and advertising company, showed that the time spent on productivity apps saw the biggest increase compared to all other app categories last year.

Source

How do productivity apps manage to engage their audience and embed themselves into the daily workflow of millions of people? I decided to seek advice from the development companies of three successful productivity apps to find out their secrets to success. Here’s what I found out.

You need a great product

It’s no secret: To be successful, a product must be well-loved by its users.  "Our users love our product and what it helps them do. That’s the best way to engage and retain them," says Alice Default, who heads marketing for Sunrise, a free calendar app.

Sunrise was acquired by Microsoft this year.

Denys Zhadanov, Director of Marketing at Readdle, a company that has eight apps in the productivity space, agrees. "Just focus on building a great product and a cool human brand around it," says Zhadanov.

Readdle’s apps have 5-6 million monthly active users. Their apps have been downloaded a whopping 33 million times.

Show users how to get the most out of your app

While having a great product goes a long way, you still have to ensure users get maximum value out of it once they start using it.

Readdle educates users by sending them email newsletters containing tips and tricks about their apps.

David Rostan is the head of organic marketing at Dashlane, a password manager and digital wallet that has over 3 million users. Rostan says they also provide product guidance through emails and notifications based on the user’s activity.

Sunrise uses in-app messages to announce new features that help their users do more with the app. The idea behind using in-app messages is to be as unintrusive as possible. It also gets the message to users at the right time and in the right context.

Customer support is essential to growth

The number of channels customers can raise complaints, ask questions and give feedback on is ever-increasing. From email to social media platforms to third-party review sites, existing and potential users have many platforms available at their disposal. These productivity apps can manage it all. It’s a key pillar to their growth.

"We respond to every support email, talk to them on social media in a very friendly way, release updates often and listen to their feedback," says Zhadanov.

And when you look at the company’s Twitter account, it’s easy to see he means it:

Customer happiness is the metric that matters

At the end of the day, when it comes to measuring the results of their efforts, customer happiness is the unanimous success metric.

"If it’s used by millions, and people love it, that’s all that matters. Running into someone who has your app in the Dock creates a great feeling," says Zhadanov.

Sunrise measures customer happiness by tracking app reviews, customer emails and tweets, and by surveying their users. This gives them a sense of how they are doing on a regular basis.

Conclusion

In summary: How did Sunrise, Readdle and Dashlane grow to millions of users?

1. Focus on creating a great app that people will love
2. Enlighten your users on how to maximize their use of your app
3. Make sure you have excellent customer support
4. Obsess about the happiness of your customers

These are principles and ideas that we can apply to help scale any type of app. And, really, any type of product or service.

Related Content

• Making Money Designing Themes: What You Should Know
• Web Designers Making Thousands of Dollars in Passive Income
• The Ingredients of a Successful Website

Sanket Nadhani is working on Upquire, a startup that helps mobile apps increase their ratings. He also heads growth at Wingify, and previously held a marketing position at FusionCharts. He’s from Delhi, India. Join him on Twitter and read more of his writings on Medium.

The post Growth Secrets of Successful Productivity Apps appeared first on Six Revisions.

by Jacob Gube via Six Revisions

The F*cking Tube Strike

Experience the recent London tube strike frustration in this One Pager capturing tweets from a very angry public. Nice touch with the middle finger pins compiling on the map to emphasis the impact.

by Rob Hope via One Page Love