Mar 24, 2009

(XCode) How to setup a bracket / brace macro in XCode

Before i used XCode and learned Objective-C, i never thought the bracket is a horrible symbol, there is a solution of creating text macro to insert bracket / brace:

1. Open ObjectiveC.xctxtmacro with an text editor, you can find this file with this path:
/Developer/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/PlugIns/TextMacros.xctxtmacro/Contents/Resources/ObjectiveC.xctxtmacro 

2.Add follow code in the file:
{
Identifier = objc.bracket;
BasedOn = objc;
IsMenuItem = YES;
Name = "Bracket Expression";
TextString = "[<#!expression!#>]";
CompletionPrefix = bra;
},
This scope create a text macro "bra" to insert "[<#!expression!#>]", you need to type bra in your code and presse "esc" button, there is a window shows "Bracket Expression", press enter "[<#!expression!#>]" will be inserted.

You can create a similar macro for Brace, here is an example:
{
Identifier = objc.brace;
BasedOn = objc;
IsMenuItem = YES;
Name = "Brace Expression";
TextString = "{<#!expression!#>}";
CompletionPrefix = bra;
},
Here you have a same text macro "bra" to choose bracket or brace.

Update: In the XCode 3.2 which is released for Snow Leopard, the above lines wouldn't work until add this line in each section:

OnlyAtBOL = YES;

(Android) First application released

I just released my first application on the Android Market. It is Voice Dictionary which is a very useful tool for translating words or phrases between 17 different languages (Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish etc), the Voice Dictionary also supports Text-To-Speech to give you a full experience of pronunciation.

It uses Google Translate service API and eyes-free TTS engine for Android.

Here is a web version Android Market which contains this app's information.

Mar 17, 2009

(Android) How to write your code with a good style

I saw an excellent article in Android Code Source site, it is a Code Style Guide, which is Google Android team asks their developer to respect. Writing code with a good style helps others to read your code, and developer should have a good habit of writing code too.

Code Style Guide