Thanks to the awesome creative talent at Appency, here’s a promo video for Custom Hangman, my first iPhone app project:

And here’s the press release on prmac.com.

Our hangman app graphics contained a gray stick figure, in a pink dress and a straw hat to make the image more fun, silly, and comical rather than serious. With every missed letter, the stick figure became more silly.  However, several people reported being offended at the depiction of a black man (half said man, half said woman) being hung in our graphics.  And after a careful second look, with the complaints in mind, I could understand the complaints.  So we modified the images to remove any hint of darkness in the stick man being hung.  Here’s the final picture now, when you lose a game:

What do you think?

We’re just waiting on Apple to approve the update.

The iPhone SDK makes it easy to add a bright blue button on the navigation bar.  It is the color that means press this when you’re done doing what you’re doing. However, if you want to add a button with the same meaning somewhere else, its a lot of work.  There is a blue button that all the demos and beginning developer books use that is provided in the sample apps, but its the wrong color of blue.  So, here’s the right color.  First, normal:

Then, pressed:

Then, here is the code to make the images stretchable and set your button images to them.  Put this in viewDidLoad method:

UIImage *buttonImageNormal = [UIImage imageNamed:@"action-normal.png"];
UIImage *stretchableButtonImageNormal = [buttonImageNormal stretchableImageWithLeftCapWidth:12 topCapHeight:0];
[playButton setBackgroundImage:stretchableButtonImageNormal forState:UIControlStateNormal];

UIImage *buttonImagePressed = [UIImage imageNamed:@"action-pressed.png"];
UIImage *stretchableButtonImagePressed = [buttonImagePressed stretchableImageWithLeftCapWidth:12 topCapHeight:0];
[playButton setBackgroundImage:stretchableButtonImagePressed forState:UIControlStateHighlighted];

Here’s what it looks like when you’re done.  Notice how it matches the standard switch control pretty well:

Feel free to download and use these images and code.  Hope it helps.

If you’ve got 99 cents  and an iPhone or iPod Touch you can now purchase Custom Hangman, the best game of Hangman on the app store, in my arrogant and biased opinion.  But seriously, if other versions of this game were boring (including the pencil and paper version) it was because you didn’t play with the words that interest you. When you play with the right word list, it is addictive.  For example, if you’re into Celebrities, we have People Magazine’s top 100 celebs for you to play with.

And if we don’t have the list that lights your fire, you can make your own… and share it with your friends or followers.  That’s what we mean by “Custom.” You make it your own.

You can find it in iTunes by searching for “Custom Hangman.”  Or just click this link:

itms://itunes.apple.com/us/app/custom-hangman/id348695976?mt=8

Enjoy.

]]> http://rogercollins.com/2010/01/custom-hangman-available-on-app-store/feed/ 0 http://rogercollins.com/2010/01/iphone-app-approved/ http://rogercollins.com/2010/01/iphone-app-approved/#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 04:44:07 +0000 Roger Collins http://rogercollins.com/?p=118

Apple just approved our iPhone app.  I’ll post more about it very soon.

If you want to use your iPhone or iPod Touch to run an app that is not bought thru the App Store, you’ll need to give the developer the Device ID of your device so  he or she can add it to the Ad Hoc build.  Only device IDs that have been registered with Apple (we’re limited to 100 total) can run such apps. Here’s how to obtain your device ID in case I or another iPhone developer request it.

1. Open iTunes with your device connected with the USB cable.

2. Click on your device in the navigation tree on the left side.

3. You should see information about your device including its serial number in the center of the window on the right. Click on that serial number (even though it doesn’t look like it would do anything). It should change to your Device ID.

4. Click Edit -> Copy from the main menu at the top (or press ^C on Windows or press Command-C on Mac) and you will have copied the device ID.

5. Now you can open your email client, compose an email to your developer, and click Edit -> Paste (or press ^V on Windows or press Command-V on Mac) to paste your device ID into the body of the email.

If you’re interesting in testing new iPhone apps, contact me.  You get cool new apps before everyone else, and for free.