On many occasions, I’ve spent quite a bit of time adding contacts to the emulator to test something. Then when I change emulator version, they all get erased. This is very frustrating. So I put together this simple application which allow you to programatically fill up your address book.

Currenly the address book is populated with U.S. Presidents. Values are set for:
* first name
* last name
* photo
* phone number
* birthday

I’ll make it more robust in the future. But you may find this useful for now. The code might also be interesting if you’re learning how to program the address book.

Download: addressbookfill-10.tar

The one thing I did not find, was sample code for was posting an image to a server. Here is some sample code:

// Initilize Queue
[networkQueue setUploadProgressDelegate:statusProgressView];
[networkQueue setRequestDidFinishSelector:@selector(imageRequestDidFinish:)];
[networkQueue setQueueDidFinishSelector:@selector(imageQueueDidFinish:)];
[networkQueue setRequestDidFailSelector:@selector(requestDidFail:)];
[networkQueue setShowAccurateProgress:true];
[networkQueue setDelegate:self];

// Initilize Variables
NSURL *url;
ASIFormDataRequest * request;

// Add Image
NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory,
     NSUserDomainMask, YES);
NSString *documentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0];
NSString *dataPath = [documentsDirectory
     stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"myImage.jpg"];

// Get Image
NSData *imageData = [[[NSData alloc]
     initWithContentsOfFile:dataPath] autorelease];

// Return if there is no image
if(imageData != nil){
	url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://myserver/upload.php"];
	request = [[[ASIFormDataRequest alloc] initWithURL:url] autorelease];
	[request setPostValue:@"myImageName" forKey:@"name"];
	[request setData:imageData forKey:@"file"];
	[request setDidFailSelector:@selector(requestWentWrong:)];
	[request setTimeOutSeconds:500];
	[networkQueue addOperation:request];
	queueCount++;
}
[networkQueue go];

Note: It’s not necessary to use a queue here because I’m only uploading 1 thing. But in my application I’m uploading many things and a queue was helpful. It also runs in the asynchronously in the background, which prevents the UI from getting locked up.

Note 2: When sending large files you should use “setFile” instead of “setData”. Files are then read from disk instead of memory. Here is an updated example. Thanks again to Ben Copsey for this library and his useful comments below.

NSString *imagePath = [documentsDirectory
     stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"myImage.jpg"];
url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://myserver/upload.php"];
ASIFormDataRequest *request =
    [[[ASIFormDataRequest alloc] initWithURL:url] autorelease];
[request setPostValue:@"myImageName" forKey:@"name"];
[request setFile:imagePath forKey:@"photo"];

More info on streaming here: http://allseeing-i.com/ASIHTTPRequest/How-to-use#streaming

• Copy/rename the folder into new name
• Get inside the new folder and rename the .pch and .xcodeproj files. Example rename AppleSample.xcodeproj to MyCoolApp.xcodeproj — and — rename AppleSamplePrefix.pch to MyCoolApp_Prefix.pch
• Delete the build folder. (Using the finder)
• Open .xcodeproj file in text editor, like TextMate or TextWrangler. That’s actually a folder, which contains 4 files (you can also right-click and do Show package contents, which will reveal the files)
• Open project.pbxproj in text editor and replace all instances of the old name with the new name. Be careful not to do a find an replace. Since the default name was AppleSample, there were several references to: AppleSampleAppDelegate.h and AppleSampleAppDelegate.m. You do not want to replace these unless you also rename that file.
• Open .pbxuser where is your user name. Then repeat the previous step by renaming. I’m not sure if this is necessary. You may even be able to delete this file? But changing this file worked for me.
• Load the project file in XCode, do Build/Clean all targets

After following these steps, I was able to open the project and build it to the simulator and the device.

I had one additional problem that I came across later that required a fix. When I finially built the application for “deployment” to the App Store, I had problems signing the code. I complained that it couldn’t find the Certificate for “Scott Anguish”. I looked in the build settings and couldn’t find reference to this name. So again I opened project.pbxproj inside of MyCoolApp.xcodeproj and found 2 instances of this line:

CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY = “Scott Anguish”;

I replaced both of them with the correct code signing identity and it worked!

UPDATE: Check out this bash script which does it for you automatically:
renameXcodeProject.sh

WebStickies is a place on the web to save your notes.  You can login using your Google Account and your stickies will be saved. 

I’ve got lots of feature in mind, but who know if I’ll have time to add them. Enjoy.