cnicollonline

When programming in any language I find that there are always several things that no matter how hard I try to remember will never stick. One thing as of late has been using images within objective-c and iPhone development.

So many ways!

There are several ways to get images onto your display. The two I find I’m using the most are calling an image from the web, and using an image from your resource directory. Below are two snippets that I find useful to have within your snippet collection.

Snippet 1: Getting an image from the web

• The image link I’ll be using in the first example is: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4098/4911106000_9c3a16bb59.jpg

// ----------------------- .h ------------------------
...
UIImageView *imgHolder;
...
@property(nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UIImageView *imgHolder;

// ----------------------- .m ------------------------
// PART 1 - update url of path to the image
// PART 2 - update the variable reference to the UIImageView object
// -----------------------------------------------

// ===== PART 1 =====
NSString *imgURLpath = @"http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4098/4911106000_9c3a16bb59.jpg";
UIImage *imgURL = [[UIImage imageWithData: [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL: [NSURL URLWithString: imgURLpath]]] retain];

if (imgURL != nil) { // Image was loaded successfully.
	// ===== PART 2 =====
	[imgHolder setImage:imgURL];
	// ===== PART 2 =====
	[imgHolder setUserInteractionEnabled:NO];
	[imgURL release]; // Release the image now that we have a UIImageView that contains it.
}

Snippet 2: Getting an image from the resource folder

• The image I’ll be using is:



• The image above will need to be added to your applications resource folder. Note: Don’t forget to check off “Copy items to destination group’s folder. Unless that’s not your style”

	// ----------------------- .h ------------------------
	...
	UIImageView *imgHolder;
	...
	@property(nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UIImageView *imgHolder;

	// ----------------------- .m ------------------------
	// PART 1 - create an image object
	// PART 2 - update the variable reference to the UIImageView object
	// -----------------------------------------------

	// ===== PART 1 =====
	// note: the image in use should be in your resource folder
	NSString *imgName = @"4911106000_9c3a16bb59.jpg";
	UIImage *myImg = [UIImage imageNamed:imgName];

	if (myImg != nil) { // Image was loaded successfully.
		// ===== PART 2 =====
		[imgHolder setImage:myImg];
		// ===== PART 2 =====
		[imgHolder setUserInteractionEnabled:NO];
		[myImg release]; // Release the image now that we have a UIImageView that contains it.
	}