Today I have finished working on a quick update to Tap Forms to make it more compatible with iOS4. The main area of focus was on the new multi-tasking features of iOS4, specifically with the Fast App switching capability. Now, on devices that support multi-tasking, Tap Forms will not have to re-launch fully when you switch to another app and go back again. iOS4 will preserve the current state of Tap Forms and bring you back to the same place you were at when you switched to another app.

Also in this update is a fix for the Dropbox issue where you could only download files from the root of your Dropbox account. And as an added bonus, I also added the ability to upload any file in the Files tab of Tap Forms. To facilitate this change, I modified slightly how you view, import, and upload files to Dropbox. Now, instead of being presented with the "View" or "Import" dialogue when you tap on a CSV or TXT file, I now just show you the selected file. To activate the Import or Upload to Dropbox function, simply tap the detail disclosure icon at the right of any file name. That's the blue circle with the chevron (>) inside it.

I have also improved memory use when importing larger files. Previously Tap Forms would use more and more memory as you were importing a file. Now the memory is cleaned up as the file is imported so hopefully you should be able to import larger files now. I imported a file with over 12,000 records without any troubles on my iPhone 3GS in testing without troubles.

I should be releasing this update to Apple for approval in the next couple of days. I'm just awaiting some returns for translations from my translation team. Once they are back, I will submit this update to Apple. If I don't receive the translations back in the next couple of days, I'll release to Apple anyway and then release a followup update with the updated translations. So far I have English, Dutch, German, and Japanese.

There's one more thing I wanted to talk about. Unfortunately due to an incompatibility with the WebDAV software I had licensed and iOS4, I have had to remove WebDAV functionality from Tap Forms. The WebDAV functionality inside Tap Forms was licensed from a company called Soft Bump Technologies. The library was called iSharingWebDAV and was very good software. The developer was very helpful in fixing any bugs I found with the software before I released it to my customers. But a while ago he sold the software to an unknown company who unfortunately wanted it taken off the market. I guess they didn't want any other developers to have a WebDAV server in their software without forcing them to re-invent the wheel on their own.

Unfortunately building a WebDAV server from scratch is not something I have the time to do. When I upgraded to iOS4, I was unable to compile Tap Forms with the iSharingWebDAV library included in the project. If I had the source code to the library I could have fixed it in about 2 minutes. But unfortunately I don't have the source code. I tried contacting the original developer, but he has not replied to any of my emails since last year. So unfortunately I have had to remove this feature.

But all is not lost as there are plenty of ways to get files into and out of Tap Forms now. One of the features provided by the iSharingWebDAV library was a built-in web server which would show you a web page for uploading files to and downloading files from Tap Forms. Fortunately there is an open source project called CocoaHTTPServer which I have used to re-implement the web server feature. So you can still use your web browser to connect to Tap Forms to upload your files. And with the current FTP and new Dropbox integration, you still have 3 different ways of getting files into Tap Forms.

Now... back to working on Tap Forms for iPad! :-)

Thanks for your time!

Brendan

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 12:24 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.