Category Archives: Mobile App Development

Don’t Let Small Things Stop You From Making Progress.

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This one is coming from my own recent experience. I am working on a remake of one of my popular apps – Time Clock Helper. I have some of the basic parts working, but I wanted to add the ability to add multiple punches. The original app could only use four punches at a time with an option to turn off either pair of them. There were some issues with SwiftUI and deleting the punches, but I managed to come up with a work around for that.

The problem that slowed me down over the last few days – to the point that I didn’t really want to look at it until I had an answer was how to handle deleting punches. I originally allowed them to delete any punches they wanted, but that caused some minor issues with my work around for SwiftUI. So, to avoid that issue, I made the first and last punch permanent. That worked well and the user could add and remove punches at will.

The only problem is that it didn’t fully make sense. Why were the punches you added always in the middle and not simply at the end? I struggled with this idea. I liked that idea that the initial punch in, and the final punch out would always be kept in place. But, would that make sense to someone other than myself? I wasn’t so sure about that.

But, today I decided to just leave that problem alone for now and move onto other parts of the app. As I was plugging away, it suddenly became obvious. It was so obvious that I am cringing as I write this – get rid of “Add Punch” and change it to “Add Break.” Boom. Problem solved. A few seconds of coding later I fixed an issue that had been bothering me for days.

If I had simply been able to ignore the small issue and move on a few days ago, I probably would have found the solution days ago and not wasted so much time. Oddly, I thought of this topic earlier today when I didn’t yet have a solution. I was simply going to write about how I ignored the small problems and was able to make progress on my program in spite of the issue. But, I guess I proved my own point in a better way that I would have expected.

You Don’t Have To Do It Yourself – A Great Art Resource For Games.

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Often, a developer comes up with an idea for a game, but lacks the art resources. Oddly, not everyone is an artist. But, that doesn’t have to stop you. For this post, I’ll show one resource that I found useful in my own apps.

The site is: Kenney.nl.

Just a few examples of the art available on the Kenney website.

There are also some sound effects and musical cues available on the page. Many of the assets are available for free, but there are several packs of assets that can be purchased for a relatively small fee. If you are have ideas for a project, but you are struggling to create the art for it, this is a good place to start. The art isn’t always perfect, but it is a good start and if your idea is solid then the art will work well enough to get your project out the door. I also know of some people that use the art to prototype their games so they can get things working while someone is creating the art they plan to use.

The best part about these assets – the license doesn’t require a charge or even credit for any usage – even commercial. For a small indie developer that alone makes it worth looking at.

Between Dates – Another App Spotlight.

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Since it’s the end of the month is a time that people tend to focus on dates, I thought I’d spotlight another app of mine: Between Dates.

Between Dates was written at a time that I was regularly calculating dates and the number of days between various dates on the calendar. The app has gained several features over the years, but it still retains its original functions in a way that doesn’t force the user to search through menus or screens.

The main part of the app is on the top. You set two dates using the picker wheel on the bottom and the app will calculate the number of days, weeks, months and years between those two dates. It will also tell you if the selected day is one of the holidays that are preprogrammed into the app and the day of the week that is represented.

The other handy features are the ability to add or subtract days from the selected date or two set both dates to the same date. These features were part of the original app and made my life a lot easier. At some point I needed to know how many days were between the dates and then I needed to add that many dates to the end date to figure out the next time I had to do a task. Using these buttons, you would set the date and copy it to both dates and then add the number of days you needed. That will give you your final date. You can easily continue to do this. It saved me a ton of time trying to count days on a calendar, or attempt to do the math manually.

There weren’t too many apps did what this had done at the time, and as far as I can tell there still aren’t many with all of the features this app contains. It is an app that I am proud of. It has a clean look, easy to use features and none of them get in the way of what the user is trying to do.

It also lets you save the dates you selected so you can recall them later. I used this occasionally to remember birthdays, or to calculate what anniversary it might be that year. You can easily find out how long you were working at a certain job, or working on a project. You can also calculate when you need to pick up medicine, custody agreements, or even just figure out what day of the week something happened.

There is something for everyone in the app.