I’m happy to announce the the availability of the Securely Titanium module.  The goal of Securely is to provide a security toolkit for Titanium developers to write more secure apps.

KeyChain Properties API

The first release of Securely (iOS only) provides a Properties API which provides access to the iOS KeyChain.  Designed for ease of use the Properties module should be familiar to anyone using Titanium as it mimics the popular Ti.App.Properties API.

var securely = require('bencoding.securely');
Ti.API.info("module is => " + securely);

//You can provide optional identifier and accessGroup 
//If none are provided we will use your bundle id as the identifier
var properties = securely.createProperties({
     identifier:"Foo",
     accessGroup:"Bar"
});

Since the Securely Properties module mimics Ti.App.Properties you simply call setString when you would like to save a value.  Instead of being written to Properties it is instead persisted to the device’s KeyChain.

properties.setString('String','I am a String Value ');

Similarly you use the getString method just like you would for properties, but instead you are retrieving values from the KeyChain.  We even support default values for API compatibility.

Titanium.API.info('String: ' + properties.getString('whatever',"Fred"));

All of your other Ti.App.Properties you rely upon also have a compatible equivalent in Securely.  To see the full list please read our documentation here.

Get the module

The module is available at benahrenburg/Securely on github.

Need an example?

The module’s example folder contains a sample app.js demonstrating all of the available methods.  You can view the sample in on github here.

Learn more

To learn more please visit the Securely github repo and read the documentation.

What’s next?

I am currently working on adding Encryption and File Handling features to Securely.  An Android version is also in the planning stages.

Occasionally you will need to a module’s GUID.  This is commonly done to avoid licensing conflicts with open source modules.

Updating a module’s GUID is a straight forward and simple process.  The below steps demonstrate how to change the GUID in your Titanium iOS custom module.

Before getting started it is important to note that Appcelerator doesn’t support updating your module’s GUIDs so please make a back-up of your original files just in case.

Generate a new GUID

The first step is to generate a new GUID.  I like to use GuidGenerator.com. Using this site we generate a GUID of 2016a336-bc2-494a-b112-98d6edd999de that we will us to update our Xcode module project.

Updating the Manifest File

When you create a Titanium Module project, a manifest file is automatically created for you.  This file contains your project name, version information, module id, and your module’s GUID.

The manifest file is located in the root of your Xcode project, as shown below.

Open this file in your favorite text editor and change the existing GUID to the new one generated by GuidGenerator.com.  In our case the manifest should now look like the below.

 

Updating your Xcode Project

The next step is to update your module’s moduleId method.  This is located in the <Your Module Name>Module.m file of your project. In this example our module is called BencodingNetwork, so we will want to look in the BencodingNetworkModule.m project file.

You will want to open this class file in Xcode and update the moduleGUID property.  You simply update the return value with the same GUID used in updating our manifest file.

Almost done, one last step

Now that you’ve updated your module’s GUID you will need to re-build your module.  To do this open terminal in the root of your module’s folder and run the ./build.py script as shown below.  This will generate a new compile module zip for you to use in your Titanium projects.

Apple’s iOS implements a custom URL scheme is a mechanism through which third-party apps can communicate with each other.  This allows your app to launch other apps.

Using this powerful iOS feature is simple, just provide the app’s url to the Titanium.Platform.openURL method.

List of Custom Url Schemes Resources

The most challenging part of using Custom Url Schemes is finding available url’s to call.  Several new services have been released to meet this need.  Below is a few of the most comprehensive resources I have found.  Unfortunately many of the examples only show the top level Url without detailed functionality mapping.

• Akosma iPhone URL Schemes – A large list of Apple and 3rd party app Urls
• handleOpenUrl – Large collection of custom schemes many with examples
• App Lookup – Lists many top level App scheme names
• Zwapp – 1 million top level App scheme names

Custom Url Examples:

Using the Custom Url Scheme resources discussed above you can quickly integrate with a wide variety of services using the same implementation pattern as shown below.  The below  are a few examples showing how you can use custom urls within your Titanium app.

FaceTime:

//Make a facetime call

var url = "facetime://1234567890";
if (Titanium.Platform.canOpenURL(url)) {
    Titanium.Platform.openURL(url);
}
else {
    alert('Cannot open app');
}

iBooks:

//Open an iBook from the App Store

var url = "itms-books://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-zombie-survival-guide/id419952002";
if (Titanium.Platform.canOpenURL(url)) {
    Titanium.Platform.openURL(url);
}
else {
    alert('Cannot open app');
}

Facebook:

//Open the facebook app to the friends section

var url = "fb://friends";
if (Titanium.Platform.canOpenURL(url)) {
    Titanium.Platform.openURL(url);
}
else {
    alert('Cannot open app');
}

More Resources

• Titanium.Platform.openURL documentation
• Titanium.Platform.canOpenURL documentation
• Apple documentation on creating a Url Scheme for your app
• Apple documentation on communicating with other apps

I’m happy to announce the latest release of the benCoding.MapView module.

This is a big release that provides support for the following:

• TileOverlays
• ImageOverlays
• Scalable Annotations
• GeoJSON

In addition to the above features the module’s memory footprint has greatly been reduced.

The module is fully documented with samples demonstrating how to use each feature.  To learn more please visit our module documentation here.

What to see more of the module in action?  The module’s samples has been updated with videos highlighting many of the advanced features of the MapView module.  Please visit the our showcase  to view the demos in action.

A special thanks to Jeff Bonnes (@jeffbonnes) for contributing TileOverlay support.

New Features In Action

Here are a few of the new features in action.

 

Recently I had a requirement to create a universal app that supported different orientation modes for iPhone and iPad. 

There are two key points to implementing a universal app that support different orientations by device.

1. Explicitly define your launch orientations in your tiapp.xml for both iPhone and iPad
2. On Window create explicitly set the orientation mode property.

Setting iPhone and iPad Launch Orientations

By configuring your orientation modes in your tiapp.xml tells the app what orientations are supported when the app is loading and your splash screen is active.  Since Titanium 2.0 you have the ability to set the orientation modes using info.plist format as shown below.

1. Add the UISupportedInterfaceOrientations node as shown below. This specifies the orientation mode used by the iPhone.
2. Add the UISupportedInterfaceOrientations~ipad node as shown below. This specifies the orientation mode the iPad will use.

If you do not add the iPad orientation node(UISupportedInterfaceOrientations~ipad) your app will use the UISupportedInterfaceOrientations settings to determine default orientation behavior.

The example below shows setting the launch orientations for the iPhone to Portrait and the iPad to both Portrait and Landscape.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ti:app xmlns:ti="http://ti.appcelerator.org">
    <deployment-targets>
        <target device="mobileweb">false</target>
        <target device="iphone">true</target>
        <target device="ipad">true</target>
        <target device="android">false</target>
        <target device="blackberry">false</target>
    </deployment-targets>
    <ios>
        <plist>
            <dict>
                <key>UISupportedInterfaceOrientations</key>
                <array>
                    <string>UIInterfaceOrientationPortrait</string>
                    <string>UIInterfaceOrientationPortraitUpsideDown</string>
                </array>
                <key>UISupportedInterfaceOrientations~ipad</key>
                <array>
                    <string>UIInterfaceOrientationPortrait</string>
                    <string>UIInterfaceOrientationPortraitUpsideDown</string>
                    <string>UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeLeft</string>
                    <string>UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeRight</string>
                </array>
            </dict>
        </plist>
    </ios>
</ti:app>

For more information please reference the iOS Specific Section documentation here.

Creating Windows with Explicit Orientations

It is a best practice to always set the orientations you wish to support on Window creation.

Below is a helper function and sample I use when creating all of my windows.  This can also be helpful for setting a common backgroundColor, or other setting.

1. CommonJS Helper ( file called helper.js)

var _isPhone = (Ti.Platform.osname == "iphone");
exports.makeWindow=function(a){
    a = a || {};
    var win = Ti.UI.createWindow(a);
    if(_isPhone){
            win.orientationModes = [
                Ti.UI.PORTRAIT,
                Ti.UI.UPSIDE_PORTRAIT
            ];  
    }else{
            win.orientationModes = [
                Ti.UI.PORTRAIT,
                Ti.UI.UPSIDE_PORTRAIT,
                Ti.UI.LANDSCAPE_LEFT,
                Ti.UI.LANDSCAPE_RIGHT
            ];  
    }

    return win; 
};

2. Sample Window Creation (app.js)

var helpers = require('helpers');
var winConfig = {
        title:"Foo", backgroundColor:'#fff', tabBarHidden:true, barColor:'#000
};
var win = helpers.makeWindow(winConfig);
var testLabel = Ti.UI.createLabel({
        text:"this is a test, turn the device to see if it worked", 
        color:"#000", top:40, left:25, right:25, height:60,
        textAlign:"center", font:{fontSize:12}
});
win.add(testLabel);
win.open();

For more information about window orientation please see the documentation here.

With Appcelerator’s release of Titanium SDK 2.1.2 you can now specify the minimum iOS version in your tiapp.xml file.  This is a big step forward in managing all of your cross platform configurations in one file.  For me this has removed the latest need for a custom plist,

Just add the min-ios-ver node to the ios configuration section in your project’s tiapp.xml.  The below example sets a minimum iOS SDK level to 5.0.

<ios>
    <min-ios-ver>5.0</min-ios-ver>
    <plist>
        <dict>
            <key>UIPrerenderedIcon</key>
            <true/>
            <key>UIStatusBarStyle</key>
            <string>UIStatusBarStyleBlackTranslucent</string>
            <key>UISupportedInterfaceOrientations</key>
            <array>
                <string>UIInterfaceOrientationPortrait</string>
                <string>UIInterfaceOrientationPortraitUpsideDown</string>
            </array>
        </dict>
    </plist>
</ios>

This has streamlined the deployment process for me both via Titanium Studio and Transport.py.