GeekyGoodness

Caffeinated Beta – Most recent download post

Curtis Hard — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 09:50:34 +0000

Caffeinated is now out of beta and will soon be available on the Mac App Store!

This means there are no more beta’s, if you application has expired ( which it should have ) then please be patient whilst it goes through the Mac App Store approval process.

Thank you.

Pixel Perfection – is it worth going the extra step?

Curtis Hard — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:47:43 +0000

Hey,

I thought id write a quick post about…well, the things you may not notice, some of you may, some might not, I’m talking about “the little things” which make an application’s UI that extra bit more awesome over competition.

Caffeinated took on the 3 column design along time ago, since then, magically after I released few early screens, we have seen more applications / developers have adopted this. Im pretty sure I wasn’t the first, but I think a trend got set, so it was for the best. But lets look at the smaller things which I spend many hours trying to make :

First up, split views…

I hate dealing with split views, they give you this horrible line which doesn’t really go with anything with your application. Sure you can change the colour and its width, but for me, that wasn’t enough, behold this small thing that I’m sure not many people would even notice…until I take it away…

Looks pretty normal…but you will actually notice, the top 40px of the split views vertical line is actually a different colour then the rest, this is so it works well next the the filter bar. who knew!

Another thing that really gets on my nerves are having the table view grid lines for a selected item always in view. Correct me if I’m wrong, but if you select an item, surely its grid lines should not be in view?

Its ever so small, but its also the same with if a table cell is selected / in-between two “group items” then I remove the grid lines around it and if its selected, remove the appropriate selected lines depending on its surroundings.

Like-wise same principle with sticky row headers – I’m not sure how Apple have done this 10.7 but its rarely straight forward……until you add in transparency, transparency caused me grief, I think it looks cool but its adding the extra bit of complexity into the overall question “how do I get this to work?”

The way the group cells work within Caffeinated is by grabbing the prepared cell, and drawing it over the top of the content within the tableviews drawing methods, this is fine, but it also means that the cell thats sticky is still inside the table and would be visible under the transparent group cell which is the exact clone of it.

Compare the two :

The top one has its non sticky version of the cell directly behind it, as you notice, you have to make it non transparent for this to actually look good…or it looks confusing! The bottom one is fine as the cell thats within the scrolling table is off the top of the view which means we can make this transparent.

There are a bunch of little things here and there which I have spent a lot of time finessing. Some I’m sure you would never ever notice were there. Im hoping my concentration to detail and pixel perfection will make Caffeinated a great user friends application for you wonderful people to use!

Feel free to post comments :).

Who exactly is this “GeekyGoodness”?

Curtis Hard — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 16:53:11 +0000

Good question…who actually runs this?

Well…, hello, I’m Curtis and thats me below.

Theres only one of me, no group, just the one. Im 21, 22 in August and reside which tends to be rainy Portsmouth UK.

During the day I work for MindWorks – as a web developer, when it hits home time I tend to either play games or just write code.

Ive been writing Object-C for about three and a half years now – thus Caffeinated was born.

As you can tell from the picture, I like music, to the point of playing an instrument! I have been playing guitar for about 8 years now and have 9 of them! Love to shred and play heavy s**t!.

I absolutely cain games…, xbox / ps3 / maybe pc. If your on xbox, add me “NBK THE1″, if your thinking ah ok, so you don’t get out much well…I do… as the next picture is also me ( second from left )

I play for Southern Pirates Tournament paintball team – who knew!

Techy gear wise, I have a Macbook Air ( Jan 2011 model ) running REDACTED, as-well as a Mac Pro 8-core ( 2009 model ) running both Snow Leopard and REDACTED, also have a 360, PS3, WII, Zepelin Air, 3DS…list goes on.

I love Apple products, I also have a lust for extremely sexy UI, I’m not a designer myself but Caffeinated was all designed by me, Im ok with interfaces, but not full blown websites so to speak.

So thats a-bit about who I am, just incase anyone was curious ;).

UIImage From URL – Simplified

Curtis Hard — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 15:00:02 +0000

Heres a simplified version of the very old post I wrote long long time ago, this method uses blocks so will run on iOS4 onwards :

void UIImageFromURL( NSURL * URL, void (^imageBlock)(UIImage * image), void (^errorBlock)(void) )
{
    dispatch_async( dispatch_get_global_queue( DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_DEFAULT, 0 ), ^(void)
    {
        NSData * data = [[[NSData alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:URL] autorelease];
        UIImage * image = [[[UIImage alloc] initWithData:data] autorelease];
        dispatch_async( dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^(void){
            if( image != nil )
            {
                imageBlock( image );
            } else {
                errorBlock();
            }
        });
    });
}
 
// usage
 
UIImageFromURL( [NSURL URLWithString:@"image url here"], ^( UIImage * image )
{
    NSLog(@"%@",image);
}, ^(void){
    NSLog(@"%@",@"error!");
});

Caffeinated Beta Update – Very Sparkly…

Curtis Hard — Mon, 09 May 2011 21:40:52 +0000

Hey guys/girls,

Its that time again for another build!, since last time the following has happened :

Fixed space bar bug with not scrolling down the article before going onto next item
Fixed issues with favicons not showing up.
Increased storing speed of items in CoreData
Read It Later plugin has been added! – Theres a rate limit on my API key, so if it starts to error, its because you all need to get out more ;)
Loads of plugin API changes, can do all sorts, request headers, responses, talk to different parts of the app…yay! – Maybe I need to get out more? :D

Oh and theres one more thing…

Caffeinated will now use Sparkle to update it’s betas!, yes I put it into this version and did all the server stuff so you lovely people dont have to visit cloudapp or my site again :).

Be sure to follow updates on Twitter : @caffeinatedapp

and here is the download link :

Download Caffeinated Beta

Caffeinated Beta Update

Curtis Hard — Sat, 07 May 2011 20:38:55 +0000

Hey guys,

Ive been working really hard over the past few days to crease out as many bugs submitted as possible – if yours has not been fixed yet, sorry!

Also added a fair amount into Caffeinated aswell, such as :

Starred items now have a little ribbon with a start on them – don’t ask me how I overlay, was an absolute headache!
Plugins ( only one so far is Instapaper ) can now call the “cuter” less intrusive API’s to display messages ( the little status that comes down from above the table view )
When refreshing, if any items where marked as read from an external reader such as the GR site whilst Caffeinated was running, it will now apply the updates locally to!
Also when refreshing subscriptions now also get synced.
Subscription management, although you still cant add a subscription, you should be able to click and drag them around into folders and out now – I hope!
Got rid of the default menu within the WebView – any links that you right click on you can now open in your default browser.
Any links you click on from inside the webpage within Caffeinated will now open in your default browser.

Also alot of changed within code that arnt worth mentioning but you will notice speed increases.

Again, any bug reports please send to :

bugs@caffeinated.com

and to download, use the link below :

Click to download.

Caffeinated Beta Update

Curtis Hard — Thu, 05 May 2011 21:10:21 +0000

Hey guys/girls

Since launching the beta a few days ago, I have had a great response from you, 99% positive feedback and great bug reporting.

I try to reply to as many emails as I can, so sorry if I have not replied to you yet!

Caffeinated took a bigger leap tonight, with many bugs hopefully fixed and gains the first “Social Plugin” – Instapaper!

Caffeinated unlike most readers out there has its own plugin API, which…you can use! ( If you know Objective-C ), although in early stages, I hope this just gives a general direction that yes I have not left out social networking and posting of links to places :).

Currently only way to post an item to somewhere is to right click on the table cell and choose, other menu’s / shortcuts will be added in later versions. But right now I would love all the Instapaper users out there to see how robust it is and to find bugs!.

Bugs I believe I have fixed – correct me if im wrong :

Outline view – open folders not drawing background properly
Unread count not syncing properly
Foreign characters in fonts – can someone check please?
Starred items being deleted
Unread items being deleted
Refreshing – syncing from wake up / loss of net connection – ( have not fully tested this one )

and many more smaller issues.

I still have many bugs people have sent in that I have yet to fix, but it all takes time.

Find the link to the new beta below :

Click to download

Also be sure to follow @caffeinatedapp on Twitter for regular updates.

Thanks

Curtis

Caffeinated First Beta

Curtis Hard — Mon, 02 May 2011 17:44:06 +0000

UPDATE: For the latest beta, please check here

Hello!, its been a while since I have posted about Caffeinated, but you should be happy to know the first beta is available…today!

Caffeinated is no way near finished, from when I started last year, the version that most of you saw on Macstories has been completely rewritten from scratch. The whole idea was having a beautiful UI for such a simple task of reading your items from Google Reader. Caffeinated will not be a “how many functions can you stick into an application” app, its sole purpose is to be fast and efficient at pulling and reading your items from Google Reader.

Caffeinated for all you geeky people runs on a custom syncing framework and uses CoreData + GCD alot!

Heres a few things that you are probably going to look for but wont find because they have yet to come!

Subscription Management – its part build already…, its buggy…
Search – yet to figure out best way of doing it…
Social Networking – yes it will be coming, the framework is already in place – this includes things like post to Instapaper, Facebook and so on…
Icons – they will change, have to put up with the same RSS icon for the time being down the left.

There are a few known bugs in this release, but it should be perfectly fine to use and shouldnt crash – I hope! Few issues such as :

WebView title drawing under the close button
Outlineview sometimes decides it doesnt want to draw the expanded folder inset colours and lines
The iOS style scrollbars sometimes flicker
Flash causes the UI to hang momentarily – FU Flash FU
WebKit sometimes wont display the red badge until its redrawn – beats me why…

List goes on…,

Caffeinated was built for speed and customisability. The app is theme-able, the API exists but I have yet to write documentation or build in appropriate preferences, if you are interested in themeing with this beta, just give me a shout and I can walk you through it – its really not that difficult :).

This is mainly a usable taster of what is to come…so be patient ( I know you have already! ) but it will be worth the wait in the end.

Click to download

Any bugs found please email to :

bugs@caffeinatedapp.com

Please do not email feature requests, only bugs – main ones i’m looking for are with syncing issues, if any.

Dont hurt me :D

Thanks

Curtis

Wheres Caffeinated?

Curtis Hard — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 22:49:21 +0000

Hello,

This is just a quick post about Caffeinated. Some of you may have been following @caffeinatedapp for a long time now, since is started off and are curious to why its taking so long to get something into your hands. Firstly, some of you regard to “us” as “team”, when in-fact there is only one of me :D. Due to being a Web Developer as a job, I only get my evenings / weekends to actually develop the app, this can prove difficult at times due to staring at a screen all day then coming home and the last thing I want to do is continue staring at another screen. Im also a hardcore gamer, so it works around me caining games aswell.

Caffeinated is coming along at a steady pace, I will not rush it to get it into your hands faster, I just want it to be the most beautiful RSS reader there is with a community behind it with plugins and themes, but as you know it takes time. Bare with me guys / girls, im sure it will be worth the wait ;)

Curtis

The Overlaying NSOutlineView

Curtis Hard — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 23:28:01 +0000

Hello Folks!

I thought I would do a quick post on how I achieved the “overlaying” NSOutlineView effect within Caffeinated.

Im not going to provide source, meerly the thought process behind it. So here it goes.

Its made up of 2 NSOutlineViews, one embedded within the others NSScrollView. The main NSOutlineView has a custom cell at the top of it which is the same height as the overlaying NSOutlineView. Due to the fact the overlaying NSOutlineView is wrapped within a NSScrollView, you must subclass its scrollview to forward the scrolling events on to its superview – superview, so 2 levels up the display list. Another problem will occur when the main NSScrollView redisplays the main NSOutlineView, this will cause the cells within the main NSOutlineView to draw over the top of the overlaying NSOutlineView. To get around this problem we observe the main NSScrollView for its scrolling notification and redraw the overlaying NSOutlineView when it has been posted.

Another thing you will notice is the shadow and the indent lines. This is meerly produced by subclassing the NSOutlineView class and overriding its drawRect methods and drawing the indent lines. How the shadow works is just by drawing an image below the overlaying NSOutlineView, with custom methods in the delegate, you can easily turn the shadow on and off.

Next part is overriding the keyboard events within the NSOutlineView, so that both of the views act as one when reaching the first and last item within them and selecting the appropriate view. Its actually pretty simple once you get your head around the concept. It does require you to type a fair bit of code, but its worth it ;)

Hope this helps anyone.