Its hurts when you delete codeJuly 27, 2012
Sometimes as a developer I do things that make me so angry with myself. A couple of weeks ago I was doing some analysis on a performance problem I was experiencing loading a screen with 5 labels and 5 segmented controls. The screen was taking about half a second to load, when it should have been instantaneous. I started isolating the problem by removing code and QML.
Fast forward two weeks, I go back to those files and all of the code I deleted is gone. Typically I would copy and paste the code into a notepad and save it in a temporary directory, but no suck luck. What was I thinking?
Eclipse keeps past revisions of files, but due to the recent power outages that caused qde.exe to lock up, I had to delete my Eclipse metadata, meaning that backup is lost as well.
And most developers would be using a revision control system, but I haven't quite got Git setup yet.
So I'm out of luck, another couple of hours of work down the tubes. It's just not my week...
... and my dev alpha appears to be bricked again. GROAN.
BlackBerry Tax Form InformationJuly 27, 2012
A couple of weeks ago I posted about being confused about Tax Form requirements for App World. I had emailed customersupport@blackberrycommerce.rim.com. They sent a quick reply the same day saying they'd look into it, and ten days later I got my answer. Here's what I've learned -- I'm posting it here in the hopes of helping others like me that are confused.
As a Canadian selling into the US, it only potentially makes sense getting a US tax identification number if your apps involve subscription fees to your customers. If your apps are a one-time cost to your customer, then "the vendor would not be subject to withholding". My interpretation of this is that the US withholding tax referred to by RIM only applies to subscription revenue, so for the vast majority of devs, there is no US tax subtracted from sales, and there is no need to send forms to the IRS to get a US tax identification number. (and thus, no need to get anything notarized)
This simplies the process to simply filling out the
W-8BEN form, scanning it, and uploading it to RIM via the Vendor Portal.
Also to note is that the "foreign tax identification number" (field 7) on the form refers to the SIN (social insurance number) for Canadians.
Hope that helps. I've recommended to RIM that they should clarify their requirements to devs with information such as the above so that it's not a big mystery for everyone.
BB10 July SDK: Noticeable changesJuly 26, 2012
Now that I have my Baby Names app loading properly on the newest SDK and firmware, it's interesting to see the changes.
Faster app load time
The splash screen now only displays for a second or so while the app is loading. It was previously longer, so this is an improvement. Obviously we want users to be able to launch apps as quickly as possible.
ActionItems appearing in overflow menu
All of my action item buttons that were previously at the bottom of the screen are now tucked away in the overflow menu. I'll need to look at RIM's tutorials to see if they've changed how action items need to be added. Perhaps this is a sign that developers now have explicit control over which action items are displayed up front, and which are put in the overflow menu. If so, that will be great since I ran into needing that ability on the rating screen of my app whereby I only wanted two action items out front and wanted the rest to be in the overflow menu. (There was one action item for each letter of the alphabet)
Update: The following now needs to be added to action bar items so that they show up on the bar:
ActionBar.placement: ActionBarPlacement.OnBar
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It's great to have this flexibility, although I'm not sure why this isn't the default, since that would avoid having to write this every time for standard action items.
Loading animations fixed
BB10 includes automatic animations, which is great, but they were being used when screens involving images were loading, which looked terrible. This seems to have been fixed, thank goodness.
Performance improvements
The rating screen of my Baby Names app included 5 labels and 5 segmented controls. Unlike the other screens in my app, it was taking about 500 milliseconds for that screen to load. I couldn't figure out why, but the new SDK appears to have solved that. The screen now loads instantly, which is great. Another sigh of relief.
Strange white line above action bar
On my rating screen there is now a one pixel high white line above the action bar. That line isn't there on other screens, so I'm confused why it's there on the rating screen. I'll need to investigate.
Blue diagonal line to right of Back button
The UI team appears to have made the diagonal line to the right of the Back button blue, which is an interesting choice. It does add some color to screens which might otherwise be completely gray/black. It's nice to see the UI team still hard at work finalizing the look and feel of the UI.
Segmented control
The segmented control now appears to default to the first item being selected. Previously, none of the items would be selected until the user chose one. I actually don't like that change. In the context of my Baby Names app, I don't want to assume that every name is rated "A" until otherwise chosen differently. I'll need to investigate whether there is a way to turn that off.
The other change is that the selected item is now white instead of blue. I have to say I think I liked the blue better. Why make the UI a completely monochrome black/gray/white?
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