Update 2011

Learn to make cross-platform native apps with JavaScript

The Titanium Mobile workshop will be an intensive two day training course on the fundamentals of writing native mobile applications in JavaScript.

Over the course of two days, students will be exposed to a best-practices approach to building cross-platform mobile applications with Titanium. Using an increasingly complex example application, students will learn how to leverage cross-platform and device-specific APIs to deliver a "best of breed" mobile application for both iOS and Android. Some of the topics to be covered include:

• Best practices for structuring JavaScript code
• How to build in device-specific features while maximizing cross-platform code reuse
• How to prepare applications for distribution in the App Store or Android Market
• Proper use of core APIs for user interface, Filesystem I/O, local and remote data access, media assets, location services, and more

Extra class time will be given to address questions and specific use cases as time allows. New Titanium developers will find this course a brisk and challenging quick start introduction, while experienced Titanium developers have found a great deal of benefit from examining a best-practices approach to building applications and leveraging core platform APIs. A functional Titanium development environment (Titanium Studio IDE) and beginner-level JavaScript knowledge are required to get the most out of this class.

Before taking the course, make sure you:

• Learn JavaScript basics
• Get set up with Titanium Mobile

Bio

Kevin Whinnery is an experienced web developer on both the client and server side. Prior to joining Appcelerator, Kevin has worked on a diverse set of web development projects, including a web service API for ERP software, front-end code for a mutual fund trading application, and built a student information system from the ground up in his spare time. With Appcelerator, Kevin can usually be found educating developers on the Titanium platform, or building mobile and desktop applications for one of Appcelerator's awesome clients. Kevin lives in Saint Paul, MN with his wife and three children.

Space is limited, secure your place today!

Overview

Designing for iPhone and iPad is becoming a natural progression in many jobs and an expectation from employers.

The learning curve can be quite steep and many underestimate just what is involved with designing for these devices, finding themselves knee deep in a project but not knowing where to start. This workshop will conquer the unknown and is suitable for anyone who is starting out in iOS Design or expected to design for iOS Devices as part of their everyday job. By the end of the workshop day, you will be able to plan, design and prepare final documents for developers and gain a full knowledge of all the essential stages of designing for iPhone and iPad.

A basic knowledge of Photoshop will be required for the design session late morning and a flair for design a bonus, but obviously, not essential.

Schedule

Morning

• Introduction to iOS Design
• ADS Writing and Preparation
• Wireframing, covering interaction design and planning
• Design Session

Afternoon

• Design Session continued
• Designing the perfect icon
• Preparing for Retina Display (iPhone 4)
• Preparation of final documents for onward developers

Space is limited, secure your place today!

Overview

Core Animation underpins the user interface of virtually all iOS apps. Even if you don't use the framework directly, it forms the base upon which the view classes rest, and has consequently played a pivotal role in the success of the platform.

In this hands-on workshop, you'll learn how to leverage Core Animation in your own apps, to provide feedback to the user, and — dare we suggest — add delicious effects and other eye candy. We'll start the day learning about utilizing Core Animation via the UIView class, before moving on to more advanced usage and the CALayer class. Numerous types of animations will be covered, from basic translations and rotations, to dissolves and advanced transforms. Techniques for producing sequences of animations will be discussed, and you'll even learn how to apply and animate Core Image filters.

In-depth

This one-day workshop will be very hands on, with the aim of imparting skills that you can take away and start using in your own software straight away. You will need to bring a laptop with Xcode installed, so that you can complete the exercises, and build and run examples.

The workshop will be based around a single, deceptively simple example: bouncing a ball. In the real world, bouncing a ball poses little challenge to most of us, but — as will become apparent as the day progresses — bouncing a virtual ball with Core Animation can be as simple or complex as you want to make it. Riffing on this one example will introduce all of the skills you need to incorporate Core Animation effectively in your own iOS apps.

Here is an outline of the day's sessions:

1. What is Core Animation, and what is it good for? Introduction to the framework, explaining what it is good for, and — just as importantly — what it is not good for.
2. UIView Animations. How you use class methods in UIView to access basic features of Core Animation. We'll start bouncing the ball, but only in very basic ways. We'll also look at how timing is controlled in Core Animation, and how you can combine animations to make animated sequences.
3. CALayer: The Unsung Hero. Digging down into the Core Animation framework itself, we'll meet CALayer, the class upon which everything depends. You'll learn how to put content into your layers using Quartz drawing, or an existing image.
4. Implicit Animations. You get a lot for free with Core Animation. Often you don't need to write any code at all to produce great animations. In this section, you'll learn how that works, and how you can set default animations for your layers which are triggered by events.
5. Explicit Animations. Sometimes you can't leave it to chance: you need to get down and dirty, and build your animations up by hand. In this session you'll be introduced to explicit animations, and the two most important animation classes: CABasicAnimation and CAKeyframeAnimation. We'll start to bounce the ball in more creative ways, including accounting for inelasticity to improve realism.
6. Transforms. You can apply advanced mathematical transforms to layers to create interesting effects. Translate, rotate, scale, skew, and everything in between. What's more, transforms are fully animatable. We'll use some of these transforms to add more physical effects to the ball, squashing it on impact, and introducing spin and wobble.
7. Other Layer Classes and Effects. In this session, we'll look at some of the more obscure aspects of Core Animation. Layer classes to create gradients, shapes, and even particle effects. We'll also learn how to apply and animate Core Image filters. Your balls will never look the same again.

Space is limited, secure your place today!

Introduction to Core Data (6th Sept)

This is a full day workshop on Core Data. In this session we will start at the beginning of Core Data and work very quickly up to the daily usage of Core Data. What do we use most often and how? What do all of the bits do?

Some things we will be discussing:

• Creating a Core Data Stack
• Creating managed objects
• Finding existing managed objects
• Versioning the data model

This will be a workshop format so there will be exercises and one on one opportunities as well as open periods where the class decides what direction the tutorials will take.

Advanced Core Data Workshop (7th Sept)

This is a full day workshop on Core Data. In this session we will be taking a deeper dive into Core Data and all of the sharper edges. This workshop will assume you have a working knowledge of the fundamentals of Core Data.

Some things we will be discussing:

• Threading, threading, threading
• Importing and exporting
• Performant Searching
• Edge case migrations
• Real world horror stories and solutions

This will be a workshop format so there will be exercises and one on one opportunities as well as open periods where the class decides what direction the tutorials will take.

Take both workshops

Get started in Core Data and go beyond the basics by taking both classes together as a two-day workshop.

Space is limited, secure your place today!

Overview

Building rich interactive web sites...dare I say web apps - is a reality with the smart phone browsers shipping with all the latest JavaScript and CSS technologies.

This day long workshop will be a mix of introducing the latest technology & tricks on the mobile device and hands on practical exercises where you'll get to play with what you're learning.

Although this workshop will have an iOS focus, a lot of the technology we will look at applies to most new WebKit based devises (Android, Playbook, etc) and smartphones running Opera Mobile.

What you'll learn

• How to take advantage of unique properties of the mobile device, using some of the latest technologies
• Handling and working with touch and other mobile specific events
• Debugging approach: going way, way beyond the bad old alert
• Working offline: storing application assets and all it's data locally to the device
• Looking at framework and libraries to speed up development and time to release
• Deployment optimisations: getting your mobile app to your user real quick

Prerequisites

• Bring your mobile device, preferably an iPhone or iPad with the latest OS
• A little knowledge of CSS and JavaScript will help
• The latest install of Google Chrome or Safari

Space is limited, secure your place today!

Course outline

• Welcome (& maybe a corny joke)
• Introduction
  • Very Brief History of OpenGL ES
  • Overview of OpenGL ES Architecture
  • OpenGL Naming Conventions & Datatypes
  • Fixed Pipeline (GL ES 1.0) vs Programmable Pipeline (GL ES 2.0)
  • Why OpenGL ES 2.0
  • Introduction to GLKit
    • Other libraries for < 5.0 support
  • When to Use, When Not to Use
    • Alternatives to OpenGL ES
  • Hardware Architecture
    • GPU vs. CPU
    • Limitations of GPU
• Fundamentals
  • Cartesian Coordinate System
  • 2D vs. 3D
  • Vector vs. Scalar Datatypes
  • Vertices
  • Datatype & Terminology
  • Role in Programmable Pipeline
  • Polygons (Triangles)
  • Winding Rule & Backface Culling
  • Euclidian Vectors
  • Color
• The Programmable Pipeline
  • Shaders
    • Vertex Shader
    • Fragment Shader
    • Intro to GLSL
      • Datatypes
      • Built-in Functions
  • Attributes
  • Uniforms
  • Varyings
  • Programs
    • MCGLProgram class
• The Third Dimension
  • OpenGL ES Buffers
    • Render Buffer
    • Frame Buffer
    • Depth Buffer
    • Configuring Buffers using GLKView
  • Drawing
    • Vertex Arrays
    • glDrawArrays() vs. glDrawElements()
    • Drawing Modes (points, triangles, triangle strips, triangle fans, etc.)
• Matrices
  • Overview of Matrices
  • Matrix Datatypes
    • GLKMatrix2, GLKMatrix3, GLKMatrix4
  • Primary Uses of Matrices in OpenGL ES
    • Model, View, & Projection
  • Model
    • Translation (Movement)
    • Rotation
      • Euler Angles & Gimbal Lock
    • Scale
  • View
    • Look At
  • Projection
    • Orthographic
    • Perspective
  • Matrix Stacks
• Lighting
  • Overview of Lighting Concepts
    • Light Components: Specular, Diffuse, Ambient
    • OpenGL ES Lighting is a Cheat
    • Normals
  • GLKBaseEffect lighting
    • Per vertex vs. Per pixel
  • Shader Lighting
    • Per Vertex
    • Per Pixel
      • Directional
        • Simple
        • Blinn-Phong
      • Point Light
      • Spot Light
• Textures
  • Overview of OpenGL ES Textures
  • Texture Units
  • GLKTextureLoader
  • Textures and Uniforms
    • Warning about glUniform1i() for texture use & relationship to shaders
  • Blending Modes
  • Repeating & Clamping Textures
  • UV Texture Mapping
    • Texture Coordinates Datatype
  • Cube Maps

Time permitting

• Space & World Organization
  • Overview of Spaces
    • Model Space (aka Object Space)
    • Camera Space
    • World Space
  • Modeling a Camera System
• Advanced Lighting &Shader Effects
  • Normal Mapping & Dot 3 Lighting
  • Toon Shading
• Keyframe Animation
  • Overview of Keyframe Animation
  • Drawbacks
• Quaternion
  • Overview of Quaternion
  • Quaternion Datatype
    • GLKQuaternion
  • Conversion from Quaternion to Matrix and Back
• Skeletal Animation
  • Overview of Skeletal Animation
  • Benefits & Drawbacks compared to Keyframe Animation
  • Ways of Representing Bones & Skeletons
    • Joints vs. Bones
    • Quaternions vs. Matrices

Space is limited, secure your place today!