Use image and css to define section style

Sometimes I need to use a simple section with numbers instead of a title of some text. I found a section style very interesting from a blog. Based on html inspection, I create css codes for this type of numeric section. I use this style in this blog.

Here are what I did.

01

First, I use an image as background, a horizontal radiation or shadow line, named as css class numericSection

02

Then, I use css to draw two circles: one outer circle with light gray colour and one inner circle with grey colour, and the text colour in inner circle is white.

This the outer circle, named as css class numericSectionOuterCicle:

The inner circle, named as css class numericSectionInnerCircle, is smaller than the outer circle above:

and two are combined together:

T

03

My numeric section is a combination of above image and css classes.

1. /* Numeric Section Style */
2. div .numericSection {
3.  margin: 1.5em auto;
4.  padding-top: 0.5em;
5.  padding-bottom: 0.5em;
6.  white-space: normal;
7.  border: none;
8.  text-align: center;
9.  width: 100%;
10.  background-image: url(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/.../section.png);
11.  background-size: 100%;
12.  background-position: 50% 50%;
13.  background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;
14. }
16. div .numericSectionOuterCicle {
17.  width: 60px;
18.  min-height: 60px;
19.  border-radius: 50%;
20.  background: lightgray;
21.  display: inline-block;
22. }
24. div .numericSectionInnerCicle {
25.  width: 50px;
26.  min-height: 50px;
27.  margin: 5px auto;
28.  background-color: gray;
29.  color: white;
30.  font-size: 150%;
31.  line-height: 50px;
32.  border-radius: 50%;
33. }

The above css styles are added to my blogger html template. Here is an example of html for numeric section 01:

1. <div class="numericSection">
2.  <div class="numericSectionOuterCicle">
3.  <div class="numericSectionInnerCircle">
4. 01
5.  </div>
6.  </div>
7. </div>

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Swift: Closure

The concept of closure in Swift is similar to lambdas in .Net C# or blocks in C and Objective-C, but it is more powerful in Swift.

A closure in Swift can capture constants and variables in its context or its outer function. Closure provides a way to plug in dynamic codes. In advanced level, a closure can be used as a type passing to a function's parameter or return result.

Depending on how the closure is used in parameters, the closure can be escaped or none-escaped. This is an advanced feature. My understand of escaped closure is the one kept somewhere for later call, while none-escaped closure will be called in function.

In the following example, I modified codes in Mac Developer Library to explore the advanced feature. It was hard to comprehensive at first. However, I figured out how it works with some modifications.

It is amazed to see that closure, as in function parameters, can be either used and through away, or stored for later use. In most cases of completion handler, closure is called at later completion time. The following simple example explains how it works.

1. /* The closure in parameter will be called in func
2. the closure will be through away, not stored for later use */
3. func someFunctionWithNoescapeClosure(@noescape closure: () -> Void) {
4.    print("closure as @noescape parameter called and not saved")
5.    closure()
6. }
8. // array to store closures
9. var completionHandlers: [() -> Void] = []
10. /* The closure in parameter will NOt be called in func
11. instead, stored into array for later call.
12. */
13. func someFunctionWithEscapingClosure(closure: () -> Void) {
14.    print ("add closure to complitionHandlers array")
15.    completionHandlers.append(closure)
16. }
18. // Example class with property x modified by closure
19. // referenced by above funcs
20. class SomeClass {
21.    var x = 10
22.    func doSomething() {
23.        someFunctionWithEscapingClosure {
24.            let value = 100
25.            print("set instance.x to \(value)")
26.            self.x = value }
27.        someFunctionWithNoescapeClosure {
28.            let value = 200
29.            print("set instance's x to \(value)")
30.            x = value }
31.    }
32. }
34. let instance = SomeClass()
35. print("instance of SoSomething created, and method doSomething() called")
36. instance.doSomething()
37. print("instance.x: \(instance.x)")
39. print("Call complitionHandler's first. Escaped closure being involked")
40. completionHandlers.first?()
41. print("instance.x: \(instance.x)")

Note
The func at line 3 has a closure as none-escaped parameter, and the closure is called at line 5, not kept. While the func at line 9 has a closure as escaped closure, appended to outer array at line 15.

As a result, after an instance of SomeClass is created at line 34, and its method of doSomething() is called, the instance property value x is set 200 by func call of someFunctionWithNoescapeSclosure at line 27.

The instance's property x is set to 100 as the result of calling global array's first item, which triggers escaped closure called.

And the result is as follows:

instance of SoSomething created, and method doSomething() called
add closure to complitionHandlers array
closure as @noescape parameter called and not saved
set instance's x to 200
instance.x: 200
Call complitionHandler's first. Escaped closure being involked
set instance.x to 100
instance.x: 100

References

• Mac Developer Library: Swift Programming Language 2.1

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Enhanced Syntax Highlighting by HTML

I have been using coloured syntax for codes in my blog for long time. The basic technique is to use VIM's syntax template and TOhtml command. In this way, I can easily get html format for my codes.

The only thing that has been puzzled me is to add line numbers. In VIM is very easy to add line numbers. The view is good. By adding line number, I could explain codes in my blog by line. However, it is a messy if you want to make a copy of my codes in my blog. I would like to have line numbers in my colourful code syntax, but not be copied if selected.

While I was reading Swift Programming Language by Mac Developer Library. I found that code examples there do have the feature I want. By further exploring, I found html ol tag being used. That's the solution for my long time puzzle!

Setup Line Numbers for Codes

Here are steps to get colourful codes in html by VIM:

1. :set nonumber # to disable line number
2. :set syntax=swift # change syntax template to swift
3. :let use_html_css=1 # to use css in html, instead of style attribute
4. :TOhtml # to convert text to html
5. remove html tags not needed
6. :%s:^:<li>:g # add </li> tag to the beginning of each line
7. :%s:$:</li>:g # append </li> to the end of each line
8. :%s:\s\@<=\s:\&nbsp;:g # replace continuous spaces, not the first one, by html special code for space.

The html codes generated by above steps are li tags, which can be added to the body of ol tag.

Note
The reason I use css class is that blogger provider allows me to add customized css. If you don't have access to css, then you should use embedded style for syntax colouring.

An example is as follows:





The html codes could be further enhanced, for example, moving ordered line number left out of code box. For the time being, I think it is good enough.

Add Note Section

This is a related topic: adding a note section for code explanation. I like the way in Mac Developer Library to add a note section in simple and clear format. I added this feature to my blog as well.

What I did is to add the following css classes to my html template in blogger:

1. /* div box with class note for note section */
2. div .note {
3.  border-left: 5px solid rgba(233, 233, 233, 1);
4.  background-color: rgba(249, 249, 249, 1);
5.  margin: 40px auto 35px;
6.  padding: 15px 15px 7px;
7.  width: 85%
8. }
10. div .noteTitle {
11.  color: rgba(128, 128, 128, 1);
12.  # font-size: 9px;
13.  letter-spacing: 2px;
14.  margin-bottom: 8px;
15.  text-transform: uppercase
16. }

Here is example of above note section in html:

<div class="note">
<span class="noteTitle">Note</span><br />
The reason I use css class is that blogger provider allows me to add customized css. If you don't have access to css, then you should use embedded style for syntax colouring.
</div>

References

• Apple Developer Library: Swift Programming Language 2.1

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Swift: board game

I found a very interesting board game in Apple's Mac Developer Library. It is a simple playground of codes. Based on those codes, I added random dice function to make the game more fun.

The updated codes work very well in Xcode playground, however, the same one does not work in IBM Swift Sandbox. The random function arc4random_uniform is not supported there. Soon I found another Swift on-line complier so that I can share my codes with people who do not have Xcode nor Mac.



Here are the rules of the game:

1. Start from square 1
2. Get dice number: 1-6
3. Move to next square based on dice number, for example, 3, moving 3 steps forward.
4. Move to the end of ladder if ladder, up to 11 on square 3, or
5. slip down to snake's tail if snake there，for example slip to 8 on square 19
6. Stay if steps are more than 25.
7. Game over when moving to exactly square 25.

Here are my codes modified from Mac Developer Library example:

1. // function to get dice value
2. func dice(diceValue : Int) -> Int {
3.    var value = diceValue
4.    if value >= 7 {
5.        // generate random number
6.        drand48()
7.        value = Int(arc4random_uniform(6) + 1)
8.    } else {
9.        // increment number in sequence till 7
10.        ++value
11.        value = value == 7 ? 1 : value
12.    }
13.    return value
14. }
16. let finalSquare = 25
17. // Initialize array with 0s
18. var board = [Int](count: finalSquare + 1, repeatedValue: 0)
19. // Set jump and slip values for laders and snakes
20. board[03] = +08; board[06] = +11; board[09] = +09; board[10] = +02
21. board[14] = -10; board[19] = -11; board[22] = -02; board[24] = -08
22. var square = 0
23. var diceRoll = 0 // 0..6 for increment sequnce or > 6 for random number
24. var step = 0
25. print("你好，我是「茶樹油客」改寫的程序，讓我來玩遊戲吧！")
26. gameLoop: while square != finalSquare {
27.    step++
28.    //diceRoll = dice(7) // random number
29.    diceRoll = dice(diceRoll) // sequence 1-6 number
30.    print("第\(step)步: 骰子: \(diceRoll), ", terminator: "")
31.    switch square + diceRoll {
32.    case finalSquare:
33.        // diceRoll will move us to the final square, so the game is over
34.        print("走到 \(finalSquare). \n祝賀，遊戲完成了!")
35.        break gameLoop
36.    case let newSquare where newSquare > finalSquare:
37.        // diceRoll will move us beyond the final square, so roll again
38.        print("太大, 不走")
39.        continue gameLoop
40.    default:
41.        // this is a valid move, so find out its effect
42.        square += diceRoll
43.        square += board[square]
44.        print("走到 \(square)")
45.    }
46. }

 The result is as follows:


你好，我是「茶樹油客」改寫的程序，讓我來玩遊戲吧！
第1步: 骰子: 1, 走到 1
第2步: 骰子: 2, 走到 11
第3步: 骰子: 3, 走到 4
第4步: 骰子: 4, 走到 8
第5步: 骰子: 5, 走到 13
第6步: 骰子: 6, 走到 8
第7步: 骰子: 1, 走到 18
第8步: 骰子: 2, 走到 20
第9步: 骰子: 3, 走到 23
第10步: 骰子: 4, 太大, 不走
第11步: 骰子: 5, 太大, 不走
第12步: 骰子: 6, 太大, 不走
第13步: 骰子: 1, 走到 16
第14步: 骰子: 2, 走到 18
第15步: 骰子: 3, 走到 21
第16步: 骰子: 4, 走到 25.
祝賀，遊戲完成了!

The original codes for the game are near the end in the section of Control Flow.

References

• Swift on-line compiler: My board game code
• Apple Developer Library: Swift Programming Language 2.1

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Swift: extension and closure

TutorialPoint web site provides great information about Swift basic and syntax in a serials of sections or courses. While I was reading its content, I also tried to explore codes there with modifications.

Extension and closure or block are very powerful in Swift, but they are hard to understand at the beginning. Although the description in this web tutorial explains well with simple codes, I would like to extend codes with various ways to understand those concepts in Swift.

Following is an example of codes for Int type extension with closure:




Here are my codes based on above example:

extension  Int {
    var increment: Int {return self + 2}
    func repeatBy(n : Int, message: (i: Int, v: Int) ->()) {
        for a in 0..<self {
            let r = a + n
            message(i: a, v:r)
        }
    }
}

let increment = 12.increment
print("12.increment: \(increment)")
increment.repeatBy(5) { (i, v) -> () in
    print("\(i+1) Message: \(v)")
}

The method increment is a very simple one, and I changed increment by 2.

The closure in the method of repeatBy is extended to a method with 2 parameters, and the second parameter is a closure taking two parameters. Within the closure, the first parameter, an external variable (1st parameter) and a local variable are used to call message(...) block.

The exercise codes afterwards uses print() to display a customized string with those two parameters. The result is as follows:


12.increment: 14
1 Message: 5
2 Message: 6
3 Message: 7
4 Message: 8
5 Message: 9
6 Message: 10
7 Message: 11
8 Message: 12
9 Message: 13
10 Message: 14
11 Message: 15
12 Message: 16
13 Message: 17
14 Message: 18

References

• TutorialPoint web for IT Professionals: Learn Swift - Extensions
• Apple Developer Library: Swift Programming Language 2.1

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Play Swift on IBM Swift Sandbox

Recently I read a news about IBM creating a website for swift: IBM Swift Sandbox. That's very interesting. I went to the site and played for a while. This is a good site for beginners to write some experiment codes in web browser.

There are some examples as initials. I picked up tree.swift to put my hands on writing and playing swift codes.

The output of this example shows notes added to a tree. I wanted to extend this class so that I can print out notes in the tree.

To do that, I added a var root as property value, and a func to print tree notes. Here are my updated codes:

Here is a command to set up swift syntax in VIM

 1 
 2 /* Generic sorted tree implementation. Shows generic
 3    classes and recursive functions in Swift.
 4 */
 5 
 6 class TreeNode<T: Comparable> {
 7 
 8     var val: T?
 9     var left: TreeNode?
10     var right: TreeNode?
11     var root : Bool = true
12 
13     func printMe() {
14         if (self.root) {
15             print("  root:\(self.val!)")
16         }
17 
18         if let leftVal = self.left {
19             print("  \(leftVal.val!)<-\(self.val!)")
20             leftVal.root = false
21             leftVal.printMe()
22         }
23         if let rightVal = self.right {
24             print("  \(self.val!)->\(rightVal.val!)")
25             rightVal.root = false;
26             rightVal.printMe()
27         }
28     }
29     //add item based on its value
30     func addNode(val: T) {
31 
32         if (self.val == nil) {
33             self.val = val
34             print("Added Head")
35             return
36         }
37 
38         if (val < self.val) {
39 
40             if let left = self.left {
41               left.addNode(val)
42             } else {
43                 let newLeft = TreeNode()
44                 newLeft.val = val
45                 self.left = newLeft
46                 print("Added Left")
47             }
48         }
49 
50         if (val > self.val) {
51 
52             if let right = self.right {
53                 right.addNode(val)
54             } else {
55                 let newRight = TreeNode()
56                 newRight.val = val
57                 self.right = newRight
58                 print("Added Right")
59             }
60         }
61 
62     }
63 }
64 
65 let numbers: Array<Int> = [8, 3, 5, 2, 7, 9, 13, 16, 10, 22]
66 var root = TreeNode<Int>()
67 
68 for n in numbers {
69     print(n)
70     root.addNode(n)
71 }
72 
73 print("\nTree Notes")
74 root.root = true
75 root.printMe()
76 

Here s the result after click on Run button:

Exercises

The above codes can be extended with following 4 exercises:

1. Add an enumeration type with three enumerators: "Added Head", "Added Left" and "Added Right".
2. Add above enum to TreeNote class member as an note's added type, or addType.
3. Update addNode(T) func with a return type of TreeNode, that is, the returning the added node.
4. Add a member to TreeNode: var parent: TreeNode. Update addNode() func to set this member value.

References

• IBM Swift Sandbox

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Back to MacVim

It has been quite a while not using VIM in my Mac. During this break, I updated my Mac OS and accounts. One thing I lost is my VIM files such as configuration and syntax settings. All those files are located in ~/ and ~/vim folders. The OS update or new account setup I did missed files in those locations.

I had to restore those settings as much as I can. I will log all I did to restore MacVIM and settings in this blog.

MacVIM Installation

MacVIM in OS 10.11.1 EI Capitan was not working. I had to reinstall it. The version I reinstalled is MacVIM 7.4 from MacUpdate website.

Since the package is not from App Store, I had to set up my System Preference security to anywhere for applications. Just to remember to set this security back to more secured one after first time running MacVIM.

Configuration

All the configuration for VIM are at HOME directory.

Fortunately I have a backup of my VIM configuration for Windows, _vimrc, on my cloud drive. I restored the file mac file to

~/.vimrc

I lost all my previous syntax configuration files. This time I am going to use VIM for swift codes. I got swift syntax file and put it at:

~/.vim/syntax/swift.vim

Here is a command to set up swift syntax in VIM

:set syntax=swift

References

• MacUpdate: MacVIM download
• Swift Syntax at github: swift.vim 

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Learn Newest iOS and OS from WWDC 2015

WWDC 2015 had been hold at Los Angeles, from Jun 08 to 12. I was on vacation hin China during the time.  I started to watch videos when I got the news. This is the great opportunity to get in-depth information about Apple's iOS and OS updates.

I remember that I watched the videos from iTunes University in the past. Since last year, all WWDC videos are available from Web. That is, you can watch videos from web browsers. This year, Apple keeps the same way to provide videos. I like this very much. The following are snapshots of all the videos:










My first impression of WWDC 2015 is that Apple is more open than before. In the past, only keynotes are displayed with audio talk. This time, all the presenters are also visible as they were on stage.

This year I have more time available to watch videos since no more contact work for the time being. I had to watch them during my lunch and evening times after work. I list all the videos I watched in the following table.

My Learning Progress

The first part are Featured Videos on Apple's web site. I watched them first. All those are also listed in the following sections.

No.

Videos

Sections

1

Platforms State of the Union

Featured

2

Introducing WatchKit for watchOS 2

^

3

What's New in Swift

^

4

What's New in Xcode

^

5

Designing for Apple Watch

^

6

Introducing Search APIs

^

7

Designing for Future Hardware

^

8

Optimizing Your App for Multitasking on iPad in iOS 9

^

9

Think Audacious

^

10

Introducing the New System Fonts

^

11

Designing for Future Hardware

^

12

What's New in Managing Apple Devices

^

1-1

Adopting New Trackpad Features

App Frameworks

2-2

Advanced NSOperations

^

3-3

Advanced Touch Input on iOS

^

4-4

App Extension Best Practices

^

5-5

Apple Watch Accessibility

^

6-6

Best Practices for Progress Reporting

^

7-7

Building Apps with ResearchKit

^

8-8

Building Document Based Apps

^

9-9

Cocoa Touch Best Practices

^

10-10

Creating Complications with ClockKit

^

11-11

Getting Started with Multitasking on iPad in iOS 9

^

12-12

Improving the Full Screen Window Experience

^

13-13

Introducing On Demand Resources

^

14-14

Introducing Safari View Controller

^

15-15

Introducing the Contacts Framework for iOS and OS X

^

16-16

Layout and Animation Techniques for WatchKit

^

17-17

Multitasking Essentials for Media-Based Apps on iPad in iOS 9

^

18-18

Mysteries of Auto Layout, Part 1

^

19-19

Mysteries of Auto Layout, Part 2

^

20-20

New UIKit Support for International User Interfaces

^

21-21

Optimizing Your App for Multitasking on iPad in iOS 9

^

22-22

Performance on iOS and watchOS

^

23-23

Seamless Linking to Your App

^

24-24

WatchKit In-Depth, Part 1

^

25-25

WatchKit In-Depth, Part 2

^

26-26

WatchKit Tips and Tricks

^

27-27

What's New in Cocoa

^

28-28

What's New in Core Data

^

29-29

What's New in HealthKit

^

30-30

What's New in HomeKit

^

31-31

What's New in Internationalization

^

32-32

What's New in MapKit

^

33-33

What's New in NSCollectionView

^

34-34

What's New in UIKit Dynamics and Visual Effects

^

35-35

iOS Accessibility

^

36-1

Apple Watch Design Tips and Tricks

Design

37-2

Designing for Apple Watch

^

38-3

Designing for Future Hardware

^

39-4

Designing with Animation

^

40-5

Introducing the New System Fonts

^

41-1

Advanced Debugging and the Address Sanitizer

Developer Tools

42-2

App Thinning in Xcode

^

43-3

Authoring Rich Playgrounds

^

Date:

Junly 10, 2015 (My progress）

44-4

Building Better Apps with Value Types in Swift

^

45-5

Continuous Integration and Code Coverage in Xcode

^

46-6

Improving Your Existing Apps with Swift

^

47-7

Optimizing Swift Performance

^

48-8

Profiling in Depth

^

49-9

Protocol-Oriented Programming in Swift

^

50-10

Swift and Objective-C Interoperability

^

51-11

Swift in Practice

^

52-12

UI Testing in Xcode

^

53-13

What's New in LLDB

^

54-1

Getting the Most out of App Analytics

Distribution

55-2

Supporting the Enterprise with OS X Automation

^

56-3

What's New in Managing Apple Devices

^

57-4

What's New in iTunes Connect

^

58-5

iTunes Connect: Development to Distribution

^

59-1

Apple Design Awards

Featured

60-2

Building Watch Apps

^

61-3

Introducing WatchKit for watchOS 2

^

62-4

Keynote

^

63-5

Platforms State of the Union

^

64-6

Think Audacious

^

65-7

What's New in Cocoa Touch

^

Date:

July 16, 2015 (My Progress）

66-8

What's New in Swift

^

67-9

What's New in Xcode

^

68-1

Deeper into GameplayKit with DemoBots

Graphics and Games

69-2

Enhancements to SceneKit

^

70-3

Going Social with ReplayKit and Game Center

^

71-4

Introducing GameplayKit

^

72-5

Managing 3D Assets with Model I/O

^

73-6

Metal Performance Optimization Techniques

^

74-7

What's New in Metal, Part 1

^

75-8

What's New in Metal, Part 2

^

76-9

What's New in SpriteKit

^

77-1

Audio Unit Extensions

Media

Date:

July 22, 2015 (My Progress）

78-2

Content Protection for HTTP Live Streaming

^

79-3

Editing Movies in AV Foundation

^

80-4

Monetize and Promote Your App with iAd

^

81-5

Safari Extensibility: Content Blocking and Shared Links

^

82-6

Using Safari to Deliver and Debug a Responsive Web Design

^

83-7

What's New in Core Audio

^

84-8

What's New in Core Image

^

85-9

What's New in Web Development in WebKit and Safari

^

86-1

Achieving All-day Battery Life

System Frameworks

87-2

Apple Pay Within Apps

^

88-3

Building Responsive and Efficient Apps with GCD

^

89-4

CloudKit JS and Web Services

^

90-5

CloudKit Tips and Tricks

^

91-6

Debugging Energy Issues

^

92-7

Introducing Search APIs

^

93-8

Introducing Watch Connectivity

^

94-9

Low Energy, High Performance: Compression and Accelerate

^

95-10

Networking with NSURLSession

^

96-11

Privacy and Your App

^

97-12

Security and Your Apps

^

98-13

Wallet - The home for Apple Pay and more

^

99-14

What's New in CloudKit

^

100-15

What's New in Core Location

^

Date:

July 27, 2015 (My Progress）

101-16

What's New in Core Motion

^

102-17

What's New in Network Extension and VPN

^

103-18

What's New in Notifications

^

104-19

Your App and Next Generation Networks

^

Date:

July 27, 2015 (My Progress）

References

• Apple/s WWDC 2015：Videos

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