JAKERI

Gasmacken 3.0 is now available in the App Store. It took about 5 days waiting for review and about 45 minutes to be reviewed.
The major new feature is more countries available, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Finland.

• CNG stations for Sweden, Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Finland. More to come.
• Possible to dynamically add new countries
• Remember old position between restarts both in list and map
• German localization

I thought I had the final solution for custom callout bubbles in MKMapView but I was wrong. There were a couple of errors found after testing.

• If you press and hold it moves focus to the real callout bubble offset 10000px right and 10000px down
• It did not work on the iPad (iPhoneOS 3.2) and iPhoneOS 4.0
• There is a leak on the property observer

My latest solution solves the first two but not the third one. It works with iPhoneOS 3.0, 3.1, 3.2 and 4.0. I have only tested in simulator for 3.2 and 4.0.

To make it a easier to look at the code I have created my first github repository. You can alsoe download source for master (zip or tar) directly from github.

Update: I got my application, Gasmacken approved (2010-05-23) with this solution.

Once again, this post has been updated.

I was not completely satisfied with my prior solution to custom callout bubble in MKMapView due a drawback.

One drawback is that if you click an annotation in the TouchView it is not propagated down to the MKMapView which makes pinch zoom bit more tricky if you have many annotations. Someone out there might have a good solution for it?

Fortunately I figured out a new solution for the problem! A much more simple solution too.

It is a combination of the property change listener solution and moving the calloutOffset off the display.

Set the calloutOffset off the display and add an observer to the selected-property.
- (MKAnnotationView *)mapView:(MKMapView *)mapView viewForAnnotation:(id )annotation {

MKAnnotationView* annotationView = nil;

MyAnnotation *myAnnotation = (MyAnnotation*) annotation;
NSString* identifier = @"Pin";
MKPinAnnotationView* annView = (MKPinAnnotationView*)[self.mapView dequeueReusableAnnotationViewWithIdentifier:identifier];

if(nil == annView) {
annView = [[[MKPinAnnotationView alloc] initWithAnnotation:myAnnotation reuseIdentifier:identifier] autorelease];
}
//Add an observer for the selected-property on the MKAnnotationView. Delegate to self.
[annView addObserver:self
forKeyPath:@"selected"
options:NSKeyValueObservingOptionNew
context:GMAP_ANNOTATION_SELECTED];

[annView setPinColor:MKPinAnnotationColorGreen];

return annotationView;
}

Implement the observeValueForKeyPath method. It will be triggered when the property is selected or deselected.

- (void)observeValueForKeyPath:(NSString *)keyPath
ofObject:(id)object
change:(NSDictionary *)change
context:(void *)context{

NSString *action = (NSString*)context;

if([action isEqualToString:GMAP_ANNOTATION_SELECTED]){
BOOL annotationAppeared = [[change valueForKey:@"new"] boolValue];
if (annotationAppeared) {
[self showAnnotation:((MyAnnotationView*) object).annotation];
}
else {
NSLog(@"annotation deselected %@", ((MyAnnotationView*) object).annotation.title);
[self hideAnnotation];
}
}
}


Take a look at my new example (with standard MKPinAnnotationView) or with custom annotation view.

UPDATE! FOUND A NEW SOLUTION!

My latest version, 2.0 of Gasmacken contains a solution to the very annoying problem with a creating a custom callout bubble to the MKMapView in the iPhone SDK. There are no way to get a callback from the MKMapView delegate when a callout bubble is opened.

A recap of what you can do with the built in callout bubble.

• MKAnnotation contains title, subtitle and coordinate
• Title must be set in the MKAnnotation to get the callout bubble
• You can customize left or right of the callout bubble (MKAnnotationView) with a UIView but not change the callout bubble design at all

One solution (almost) might be to use a property change listener for the selected value. Unfortunately, the selected property is only changed if you have a title set in the MKAnnotation, which also brings up the built in callout bubble. This is a good solution if you e.g. want to play a sound when you open up the built in callout bubble.

My solution, inspired by drawing polylines or routes on a MKMapView, has to do with adding a subview (TouchView see code in example) on top of the MKMapView and writing invisible buttons on the annotations.


#import
#import

@class UIView;

@interface TouchView : UIView {
MKMapView *mapView;
id delegate;
SEL callAtHitTest;
SEL callAtAnnotationClick;
NSMutableArray* buttonToAnnotation;
}
@property (nonatomic, assign) MKMapView * mapView;
@property (assign) id delegate;
@property (assign) SEL callAtHitTest;
@property (assign) SEL callAtAnnotationClick;

- (void) regionChange;
@end


• Selector callAtHitTest will be called every time you click on the map except for subview buttons. This method is great to use for stop follow current location updates in your code.
• Selector callAtAnnotationClick will be called when you click your annotation. This is where you make your custom callout bubble visible.
• Method regionChange must be called every time MKMapView is changed.

In a UIView sub class

1. Create a TouchView, set delegate and the two selectors, callAtHitTest and callAtAnnotationClick.
2. Add MKMapView as a subview to your newly created touchView. Implement MKMapViewDelegate regionDidChangeAnimated. Call method regionChanged in your TouchView class.
3. Populate MKMapView with annotations.
4. Add newly created MKMapView to your TouchView.
5. Add TouchView to surrounding UIView.
6. Call method regionChange once in TouchView.

Here is the viewDidLoad method from the example code.


- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];

touchView = [[TouchView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, 460)];
touchView.delegate = self;
touchView.callAtHitTest = @selector(stopFollowLocation);
touchView.callAtAnnotationClick = @selector(annotationClicked:);
//Next we create the MKMapView object, which will be added as a subview of viewTouch
mapView = [[MKMapView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, 460)];
mapView.delegate = self;
touchView.mapView = mapView;
[touchView addSubview:mapView];

//And we display everything!
[self.view addSubview:touchView];

}

Remember to NOT set title and subtitle in your implementation of MKAnnotation. If it is set MKMapView will show the standard callout bubble if you accidentally click outside the TouchView button but inside the standard annotation in the MKMapView.

You might have to do some customization in your TouchView if you do not use the standard MKPinAnnotationView. Change CGRect coordinates for the buttons in TouchView to match your custom annotation view. Change UIButtonTypeRoundedRect to see the actual button and match it to cover your custom annotation view.

One drawback is that if you click a annotation in the TouchView it is not propagated down to the MKMapView which makes pinch zoom bit more tricky if you have many annotations. Someone out there might have a good solution for it?

That’s it. Download example for better understanding. See this post instead.

Aftonbladet skriver om Gasmacken!

My latest iPhone application Gasmacken has been approved by Apple!

Gasmacken is an application that automatically fetches an updated list of all CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) refuelling stations in Sweden and displays them on a map.

Features

• List all CNG stations in Sweden
• Show your current location
• Automatic updates of CNG stations in Sweden
• Show directions with with built in Maps application

Swedish information about Gasmacken

Gasmacken är ett program som automatiskt hämtar en uppdaterad lista över alla gasmackar i Sverige och presenterar dem på en karta.

Funktioner

• Lista med alla tankställen för fordonsgas i Sverige
• Positionering med inbyggd GPS
• Automatisk uppdatering av listan med tankställen för fordonsgas
• Vägbeskrivning med inbyggd kartapplikation

In my latest app, Gasmacken I tried to use UILocalizedIndexedCollation (from example TableViewSuite example 3) for creating a localized version of the A-Z list (A-Ö in swedish) on the right side in a table view. But to my surprise I could not get any difference in table view running in Swedish or English. The list was created in english locale. Apples example TableViewSuite uses UILocalizedIndexedCollation and does not work either.

TableViewSuite example 3 running with swedish locale, no A-Ö

I trashed the use of UILocalizedIndexedCollation and created the list manually, without localization support it only supports A-Ö sorting now. Should I classify this as a bug and report it to Apple?

This is what I wanted from UILocalizedIndexedCollation

Does it support any other locales, Japanese, German, French, Chinese etc? Not Swedish as I thought.

Excerpt from documentation of UILocalizedIndexedCollation.

The UILocalizedIndexedCollation class is a convenience for organizing, sorting, and localizing the data for a table view that has a section index. The table view’s data source then uses the collation object to provide the table view with input for section titles and section index titles.

Table views with section indexes are ideal for displaying and facilitating the access of data composed of many items organized by a sequential ordering scheme such as the alphabet. Users tap an index title to jump to the corresponding section. The initial table view of the Phone/Contacts application on the iPhone is an example. Note that the section titles can be different than the titles of the index.

Google has released Google App Engine with support for Java!

It includes a neat plugin for Eclipse also. Here is a video showing features of the Eclipse plugin.

Must test this during the Easter holiday!

Apache HTTPD 2.2 includes some interesting features for making a basic load balancer.

This configuration makes a sticky loadbalancer with 3 backend servers. It is not dependant on any specific configuration of the backend server such as JSESSIONID or PHPSESSIONID.
It will create a BALANCEID-cookie with a route to a backend server.


#You need at least these modules
#Header used for setting cookie
LoadModule headers_module ...
#Proxy
LoadModule proxy_module ...
LoadModule proxy_http_module ...
LoadModule proxy_balancer_module ...

#Do not forget ProxyPassReverse for redirects
ProxyPassReverse / http://b1.jakeri.net/
ProxyPassReverse / http://b2.jakeri.net/
ProxyPassReverse / http://b3.jakeri.net/


I believe that this configuration is somewhat better compared to this guide.

I got to fix my css for the <code></code> :-/

Had to test generate a wordle from source code. In this case HttpServletRequest.java.