iPhone Dev Tip #1: Taking a Screenshot
Since this is what I do for a living, I thought I'd start posting some tips for iPhone development. Most of the time, these will be cross-posted (or asked by me) on http://www.stackoverflow.com since I participate in the Q/A there. The site is a fantastic resource -- check it out.
Without further adieu, tip #1. This is a pretty important thing to do in a lot of cases and not easily understood by looking at the documentation in the SDK. Funnily enough, it can be boiled down to a few short lines:
UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(self.view.frame.size); //size of your screenshot //render the view you want in the new image context [[self.view layer] renderInContext:UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()]; UIImage* image = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext(); [image retain]; //this is an unretained UIImage, so let's save it UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
That's it. There's a lot more to be said about CGContexts and the like, but a lot of the difficulty of working with these are simplified with the UIGraphics*() functions. Search for them in the XCode documentation.
Tune in next time for another helpful tip! 