soffes / sstoolkit

A collection of well-documented iOS classes for making life easier

SSToolkit

SSToolkit was a grab bag of iOS goodies. It was a giant collection of classes that I started in 2008. This was getting out of hand. That version is completely deprecated. (Read more on that.)

Now SSToolkit is made up of several libraries you can use independently. SSToolkit is now just a header file and a podspec with dependencies for each library. I don't recommend using the SSToolkit pod.

Here’s what’s included:

• SAMAddressBar — Clone of Safari's address bar from iOS 6.
• SAMBadgeView — Simple badge view.
• SAMGradientView — Easy gradients in UIKit.
• SAMHUDView — Kinda okay HUD.
• SAMLabel — UILabel with vertical alignment and text insets.
• SAMLoadingView — Simple loading view.
• SAMCircleProgressView — Determinate, circular progress view.
• SAMRateLimit — Simple utility for only executing code every so often.
• SAMTextField — Handy UITextField additions like insetting text.
• SAMTextView — Add a placeholder to UITextView.
• SAMWebView — Push UIWebView to its limits.
• SAMCategories — A collection of useful Foundation and UIKit categories.

Several of these libraries have had big improvements since their abstraction from SSToolkit.

sstoolkit's Issues

SSSwitch clip text correctly while moving

The text in the system switch gets cut off 3 pixels from the margin instead of going to the edge.

Document new SSCollectionView additions

Lots of new things have been added to SSCollectionView that need to be documented.

SSLineView insetColor leaking

nothing more to say ;)

SSSwitch does not clip backgrounds correctly

You can see the on background behind the off background.

Document SSPickerViewController

This class needs to be documented. The demo in SSCatalog should probably be mentioned since it is highly driven by how the subclass overrides methods.

Document SSTableViewController

This class needs to be documented.

Document SSWindow.

Documentation is needed for SSWindow. An example would be nice as well since it's functionality isn't super clear.

Fix color space issue in SSGradientView

SSGradientView will not display the gradient correctly if the colors are in different colorspaces. They will need to be converted so CGGradientCreateWithColors can properly create the gradient.

SSGradientView's startColor and endColor must be in the same colorspace. The colorspace of the first color is used to draw the gradient. If you did a gradient from white to blue, it would look like a gradient from white to black because the first color, white, is in the gray color space, not the RGB color space. If you did it from blue to white, it would look like blue to black because white in the gray colorspace isn't a valid color in the RGB colorspace (because there are only 2 components in the gray colorspace and 4 in the RGB colorspace). Automatic colorspace conversions are planned for the future.

Implement item reuse in SSCollectionView

Currently items are not reused which is not great for performance.

Document various categories

These should be documented sometime. Low priority.

Document SSAddressBarTextField and improve catalog demo

This new class needs documentation. The catalog demo only works well on iPhone in portrait mode. Someone should add some auto-resizing.

Create SSOperationStack

Throughout development, there have been many times when I've needed an operation stack.

I'll use a network related example: Say you're loading data on a particular screen that takes a long and the user switches to another screen and wants to see data from that screen. It sucks to wait for the first screen to finish. I would be great if there was some way to suspend the current operation and start the new one we care about, then come back to the other one when we are finished with the more pressing matter.

Obviously, for network related tasks, this is difficult since you can't actually suspend network activity. The only solution I've thought of for that is to still use an operation queue and just make new threads. For iOS stuff, that isn't ideal since there is only one slowish core.

For other stuff that can be suspended, I think an operation stack would be pretty useful.

Support more gradients than a vertical linear gradient in SSGradientView

It would be cool to at least do a horizontal linear gradient. Eventually it would be neat to do radial and such.

dateFromISO8601String category doesn't support anything but GMT

+[NSDate dateFromISO8601String:] doesn't work with strings that include a timezone as anything other than "Z" like this one "2011-02-01T10:57:55-08:00".

If you an make the test pass with a solution in C, I will literally mail you a box of cookies! (See the "Date Stuff" section of this post if you're curious about the C requirement.)

Create SSWebViewController

Simple wrapper view controller around SSWebView to make using it easier.

Document enums in various classes

I'm not exactly sure how to do this or if Doxyclean supports it. Investigation is needed.

KVO and IB don't play nice

daikini pointed out a good issue that should be fixed:

daikini@cabe99f

Document SSIndicatorLabel

This class needs to be documented.

Some examples in SSCatalog would be nice as well.

Document SSViewController

This class needs to be documented.

A sample in SSCatalog would be nice.

Weird SSBadgeView shape when text is @"" or nil

... it looks sorta like a chilli, but it's certainly not right!

It'd be good for the Badge to simply not render if the cell.badgeView.text is nil or the empty string.

Cross fade indicator and checkmark in SSHUDView

Currently they just change the alpha value directly. It would be nice if they faded.

Check for SSLabel redrawing when properties are modified

I might need to add observers for the properties and call setNeedsDisplay. Not sure.

Create SSFullScreenImagesViewController

This will be similar to full screen mode in Photos.app. I'd love to have and option to wrap around when you get to the end.

Add textEdgeInsets to SSLabel

The has been removed since it was not actually implemented. It should be added back again and implemented.

Document various protocols

The various protocols around the framework.

SSCollectionViewDataSource must return an item or a crash will occur

Providing this:

- (SSCollectionViewItem *)collectionView:(SSCollectionView *)aCollectionView itemForIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
    return nil; 
}

Will cause a crash. There is probably a more graceful way to handle this.

Document SSDrawingUtilities

This needs to be documented.

SSHUDView behaves unexpectedly during rotation on iPad

This is due to it being a UIAlertView subclasses. It would be better to reimplement it from scratch to avoid this bug in UIAlertView.

SSCollectionView demo not working

The SSCollectionView demo is not display items for some reason.

Create SSImagesViewController

This will be like Photos.app grid of photos. Possibly implemented on SSCollectionView or UITableView.

Support devices other than iPad in SSViewController

Currently it only works with iPad and is hard coded for its resolution.

SCCollecdtionView didSelectItemAtIndex not working

I tried with iOS 4.2, and it seeems not working on the provided SSCatalog sample project. Tried placing an NSLog to the method but it was never called.

Add why you should use SSToolkit to website

It's currently not too clear why SSToolkit is awesome. That should be front and center.

Document SSModalViewController protocol

This protocol needs to be documented.

An example in SSCatalog would be nice as well.

Write tests for categories

A lot of the categories should be tested to ensure correct functionality. (I'm looking at you ISO 8601 NSDate additions.)

SSHUDView animations are upside down for some orientations

For portrait upside down and landscape right (I think, maybe it's left) the HUD comes in from the top and goes out to the top instead of the bottom like the other orientations. Kind of annoying to fix. Not hard, just annoying.

Anyone want to be awesome and fix it? :)

Cache section data internally in SSCollectionView

Lots of excess calls to the delegate are made to calculate the number of items per row. This should be cached since it's used all over the place internally.

Add NSString category for base64DecodedString

There is already a base64EncodedString category. For completeness, there should be a decode method as well.

Document SSBadgeTableViewCell

This class needs to be documented.

Create SSBadgeTableViewCell

Add table view cell with round rectangle cells that indicate values to the user.

Create SSWebBrowserViewController

View for simple in app browsing. Design considerations need to be made for various styles.

I'd love to make one similar to Twitter for iPhone that is quite simple and only toolbar based.

I'd also love to make one that is full featured with an address bar, etc.

Add more shadow control to SSLoadingView

It would be nice to have the option to change the shadow offset.

Make SSLineView more flexible

Currently it only draws the line 1 point high. It would be great if it auto-sized and and options for the inset direction.

Add the ability to animate the progress in SSPieProgressView

It would be cool if setting this had the option to animate the change.

Document SSBadgeView

This class needs to be documented.

Add Xcode 4 instruction

I need to update the readme with instructions on how to install SSToolkit in Xcode 4 since a lot has changed.

Switching orientations in SSRatingPickerViewController is buggy

The text view doesn't resize correctly.

Improve selecting SSCollectionViewItems

The animation and deselecting isn't implemented.

"Property 'text' not found on object of type 'SSBadgeView *'"

This one's a little weird... after:

    SSBadgeTableViewCell *cell = (SSBadgeTableViewCell *)[tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier: tableCellId];
    if( nil ==  cell )
        cell = [[[SSBadgeTableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle: UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier: tableCellId] autorelease];

    cell.badgeView.text = @"0";

... I get the LLVM/clang error message:

    Property 'text' not found on object of type 'SSBadgeView *'

... although GCC 4.2 produces a similar error.

However, Xcode is happy to auto-complete the final line above, and the following does work:

    [cell.badgeView setText: @"0"];

... any thoughts?

Update:

Ah - it's because both "SSBadgeTableViewCell.h" and "SSBadgeView.h" have to be included. Is there not any way to ensure that only the first of these suffices?

SSHUDView doesn't work correctly in 4.2

It looks like Apple changed the implementation of UIAlertView and now it doesn't hide blue background.

Another sign that I need to reimplement it and not use UIAlertView hackery.