Week 5 (Mar 14 - Mar 18)

Hello blog viewers,

I have just completed the fifth week of my SRP, last week being my spring break. This week, I spent a lot of time on the core data for the app (where all the user’s answers will be stored into the app) and started learning (raywenderlich.com has been a great help again) and working on coding some core graphics. Core graphics are displayed in a UIView. They can be coded to display a visual image, hence the “view” in UIView. For example, I can code a circle image with the line of code:

override func drawRect(rect: CGRect) {  var path = UIBezierPath(ovalInRect: rect)  UIColor.greenColor().setFill()  path.fill() }

Although this code does say “oval”, if I set the view’s width and height equal to each other, then the “oval” will look like a circle. This code also shows how to set a basic color for the circle. Custom colors can coded using UIColor(red: x, green: y, blue: z, alpha: w). I use this website: http://uicolor.xyz/#/hex-to-ui in order to pick a color and get values for x, y, z, and w. An example of this is equalling UIColor(red:0.12, green:0.83, blue:0.88, alpha:1.0). With this simple line of code and a website, I have access to any color I want.

Although coding core graphics is an optional part of this app, I think that it will produce a more dynamic user experience since users will be able to visualize questions and their answers more. For example, I have started working on a moving image that will better visualize when a slider is used.

When the user slides (the slider) left to right, the yellow bar in the UIView (with the 3/4ths circle) will move left to right to show an increase in the stress value along with the number in the center showing the exact value. So far, I have only coded the UIView, but have not been able to make the yellow bar coordinate with the slider proportionally. Coding the core graphics of the UIView required some math in order to code part of the circle and not the whole circle.

I had to code for the “stroke” to have a starting angle of 3π/4 and ending angle of π/4. This results in a 270º angle circle. After that, I coded for the outline (the yellow part) of the 270º circle.

These next few weeks both are exciting and stressful since many colleges are releasing their regular decision admissions. While stressing over college decisions, I will continue to work on core data of the app and working on adding core graphics to more parts of the app, including the main “stressed?” button. I hope to see you all in my next blog post!