Develop fun and exciting games and create amazing animations for your existing apps with SpriteKit, Apple's 2D game development frameworkAbout This BookLearn the key concepts of game development in iOSTake advantage of SpriteKit to create your own games and improve your appsFollow the step-by-step chapters to create a complete product ready to submit to the App StoreWho This Book Is ForGetting Started with SpriteKit is for beginner-level iOS developers who want to add an extra edge to their apps and create amazing games using SpriteKit. It doesn’t matter whether you have experience in iOS development or not as this book will show you the swift tricks you can use to create games.What You Will LearnCreate and configure a SpriteKit project from scratchLoad and manage the basic elements of games such as sprites, labels, and geometrical primitivesHandle touch events, detect collisions, and play sound audio filesCreate complex elements, animate sprites, and run the parallax effectComplete your games with key components such as a main menu, transitions between scenes, a tutorial, and the ability to load and save dataIncrease the efficiency of your device using the accelerometer or by adding shaders, lights, and shadowsGain complementary techniques such as creating or finding audio resources, applying SpriteKit to apps, or using third-party toolsIn DetailSpriteKit is Apple’s game engine to develop native iOS games. Strongly boosted by the Apple Inc., Cupertino, it has increased in popularity since its first release. This book shows you the solutions provided by SpriteKit to help you create any 2D game you can imagine and apply them to create animations that will highlight your existing apps.This book will give you the knowledge you need to apply SpriteKit to your existing apps or create your own games from scratch.Throughout the book, you will develop a complete game. The beautiful designs implemented in the game in this book will easily lead you to learn the basis of 2D game development, including creating and moving sprites, and adding them to a game scene. You will also discover how to apply advanced techniques such as collision detection, action execution, playing music, or running animations to give a more professional aspect to the game. You will finish your first game by learning how to add a main menu and a tutorial, as well as saving and loading data from and to the player’s device.Finally, you will find out how to apply some mobile games techniques such as accelerometer use or touch detection.Style and approachWritten in an informal way with plenty of illustrative screenshots, this easy-to-follow and practical guide will help you get the most from SpriteKit. The main part of the book provides step-by-step instructions to develop of a complete product, while the last chapters give you some complementary techniques than can be used in mobile 2D game development.

Integrate the power of R with the simplicity of Shiny to deliver cutting-edge analytics over the WebAbout This BookUse Shiny's built-in functions to produce engaging user interfaces, and integrate them into your own web pagesImplement powerful user-contributed packages to access graphics from the web, make your own dashboards, use interactive maps, and moreExtend Shiny using JavaScript and jQuery with minimal coding using this handy, step-by-step guideWho This Book Is ForThis book is for anybody who wants to produce interactive data summaries over the web, whether you want to share them with a few colleagues or the whole world. No previous experience with R, Shiny, HTML, or CSS is required to begin using this book, although you should possess some previous experience with programming in a different language.What You Will LearnBuild interactive applications using Shiny's built-in widgetsUse the built-in layout functions in Shiny to produce user-friendly applicationsIntegrate Shiny applications with web pages and customize them using HTML and CSSHarness the power of JavaScript and jQuery to customize your applicationsEngage your users and build better analytics using interactive plotsDebug your applications using Shiny's built-in functionsDeliver simple and powerful analytics across your organization using Shiny dashboardsShare your applications with colleagues or over the Internet using cloud services or your own serverIn DetailR is a highly flexible and powerful tool for analyzing and visualizing data. Most of the applications built using various libraries with R are desktop-based. But what if you want to go on the webHere comes Shiny to your rescue!Shiny allows you to create interactive web applications using the excellent analytical and graphical capabilities of R. This book will guide you through basic data management and analysis with R through your first Shiny application, and then show you how to integrate Shiny applications with your own web pages. Finally, you will learn how to finely control the inputs and outputs of your application, along with using other packages to build state-of-the-art applications, including dashboards.Style and approachLearn by doing! Each chapter includes code and examples to use and adapt for your own applications. As the chapters progress, the code and examples are built upon until you have all the materials required to build a large, complex, real-world analytics application.

Harness the power of ElasticSearch to build and manage scalable search and analytics solutions with this fast-paced guideAbout This BookNew to ElasticSearchHere’s what you need—a highly practical guide that gives you a quick start with ElasticSearch using easy-to-follow examples; get up and running with ElasticSearch APIs in no timeGet the latest guide on ElasticSearch 2.0.0, which contains concise and adequate information on handling all the issues a developer needs to know while handling data in bulk with search relevancyLearn to create large-scale ElasticSearch clusters using best practicesLearn from our experts—written by Bharvi Dixit who has extensive experience in working with search servers (especially ElasticSearch)Who This Book Is ForAnyone who wants to build efficient search and analytics applications can choose this book. This book is also beneficial for skilled developers, especially ones experienced with Lucene or Solr, who now want to learn Elasticsearch quickly.What You Will LearnGet to know about advanced Elasticsearch concepts and its REST APIsWrite CRUD operations and other search functionalities using the ElasticSearch Python and Java clientsDig into wide range of queries and find out how to use them correctlyDesign schema and mappings with built-in and custom analyzersExcel in data modeling concepts and query optimizationMaster document relationships and geospatial dataBuild analytics using aggregationsSetup and scale Elasticsearch clusters using best practicesLearn to take data backups and secure Elasticsearch clustersIn DetailWith constantly evolving and growing datasets, organizations have the need to find actionable insights for their business. ElasticSearch, which is the world's most advanced search and analytics engine, brings the ability to make massive amounts of data usable in a matter of milliseconds. It not only gives you the power to build blazing fast search solutions over a massive amount of data, but can also serve as a NoSQL data store.This guide will take you on a tour to become a competent developer quickly with a solid knowledge level and understanding of the ElasticSearch core concepts. Starting from the beginning, this book will cover these core concepts, setting up ElasticSearch and various plugins, working with analyzers, and creating mappings. This book provides complete coverage of working with ElasticSearch using Python and performing CRUD operations and aggregation-based analytics, handling document relationships in the NoSQL world, working with geospatial data, and taking data backups. Finally, we’ll show you how to set up and scale ElasticSearch clusters in production environments as well as providing some best practices.Style and approachThis is an easy-to-follow guide with practical examples and clear explanations of the concepts. This fast-paced book believes in providing very rich content focusing majorly on practical implementation. This book will provide you with step-by-step practical examples, letting you know about the common errors and solutions along with ample screenshots and code to ensure your success.

Regardless of whether this is your first time working with WordPress, or you’re a seasoned WordPress coding ninja, WordPress Top Plugins will walk you through finding and installing the best plugins for generating and sharing content, building communities and reader base, and generating real advertising revenue.

This is a step-by-step tutorial for developing web applications using Yii. This book follows the test-first, incremental, and iterative approach to software development while developing a project task management application called "TrackStar". If you are a PHP programmer with knowledge of object oriented programming and want to rapidly develop modern, sophisticated web applications, then this book is for you. No prior knowledge of Yii is required to read this book.

This book is a step-by-step tutorial guide, explaining many common and fundamentally important Plone site administration tasks. This book is designed for site administrators, webmasters, or content editors managing a site with Plone. These users will not be new to Plone itself, but they will be new to the site administration tasks. The reader is also expected to know basic Python programming. This book caters to these users, and builds their confidence by helping them to get their Plone sites up, running, and customized with minimal peripheral knowledge.

This book is packed with step-by-step exercises that illustrate how to explore the different ways to create your themes for PrestaShop. Each chapter begins with an explanation of the topic and provides a quick exercise that can be applied to your theme. All topics are discussed using a simple yet practical approach to ensure that concepts are grasped easily. This book is meant for beginners to PrestaShop who want a hassle-free way to come up with their own themes. If you are a designer who enjoys creative work but does not want to spend too much time exploring the code, this book is for you. This book is also useful for those "layman" online store owners, who want to do their own modifications for their PrestaShop store.

This book has real-world samples of how to solve problems related to Design and Technology and offers tips on how to enhance the use of Moodle to get the most out of the subject. Worked examples will act as a base from which to build complex and exciting courses for students in all age ranges and abilities. If you are a Design & Technology teacher, teaching assistant, head of department, SMT, or IT technician in school and would like to use Moodle to design, create, or administer a VLE for Design and Technology, this book is for you. You need to know the basics of Moodle for teaching and learning and should have some experience with Design and Technology.

This book is aimed at enterprise architects, development leads, project managers, business systems analysts, business systems owners, and anyone who wants to implement packaged software effectively. If you are a customer looking to implement COTS software in the future then this book will provide a strategy to maximize your investment. If you are in an internal IT role and you find that your internal software development methodology doesn't quite work for an off-the-shelf business software package then this book will provide you with perspective on how to adjust your approach. If you are an implementation partner looking to minimize the blood, sweat, and tears shed with implementing COTS software then this book will be a guide to filter out obstacles and enable implementation focus.

Theme design can be approached from two angles. The first is simplicity; sometimes it suits the client and/or the site to go as bare-bones as possible. In that case, it's quick and easy to take a very basic, pre-made theme and modify it. The second is "Unique and Beautiful". Occasionally, the site's theme needs to be created from scratch so that everything displayed caters to the specific kind of content the site offers. This book is going to take you through the Unique and Beautiful route with the idea that once you know how to create a theme from scratch, you'll be more apt at understanding what to look for in other WordPress themes. This book can be used by WordPress users or visual designers (with no server-side *ing or programming experience) who are used to working with the common industry-standard tools like PhotoShop and Dreamweaver or other popular graphic, HTML, and text editors. Regardless of your web development skill-set or level, you'll find clear, step-by-step instructions, but familiarity with a broad range of web development skills and WordPress know-how will allow you to gain maximum benefit from this book.

This book is an example driven tutorial that takes you through the process of building Model-View-Controller-based web applications. You will create and develop an online store application. It also covers best practices for better and quicker application development. This book is for PHP web developers who want to get started with Symfony 1.3. If you are already using Symfony 1.0 or are new to Symfony, you will learn how to use it in the best way to produce better applications faster. Basic knowledge of Object Oriented design and ORM will be quite helpful.

This is a Packt Beginners Guide, which means it focuses on practical examples and has a friendly approach, with the opportunity to learn by experiment and play. We work through the project tutorials one block of code at a time, and we periodically pause to reflect on the relationship between our code blocks, our project, and Scratch programming in general. As you work through the book, you are encouraged to experiment with the concepts presented. As each chapter in the book progresses, the topics get increasingly more complex. Scratch is a teaching language, so it's ideal for people who want to learn how to program or teach others how to program. Educators and parents will learn how to program using Scratch, so they can use Scratch to teach the latest learning skills to their students and children. No previous computer programming knowledge is required. You only need to know how to perform basic tasks on a computer and this book will teach the rest. You can then use it as a platform to learn more advanced programming languages. Parents, stuck with a child who wants to play video games all nightMake a new rule. He can only play a video game if he programs the game first.

This is your practical guide to setting up a working environment and using Oracle Scheduler. Packed with simple examples and clear explanations, real-life scenarios are discussed to make you comfortable in implementing them in your own system. This book is intended for Administrators and Developers who currently use tools like cron, DBMS_JOB, and the task manager, but who now want more control or who have a need to scale up to tools that can handle the network. Complex tasks can be built that easily control business process and enable the completion of important tasks in limited time. The reader is expected to have some experience of Oracle Database Management, and a working knowledge of SQL and PL/SQL.

Employing a comprehensive tutorial-based approach, this easy-to-follow book shows the reader various means of using AOP with Spring in a real-world scenario. Clear step-by-step instructions ensure that you will not get lost in the new world of AOP and Spring. If you are a Java software architect, engineer, or developer and want to be able to write applications in a more modular and concise way by using Spring, then you need this book. Readers need basic knowledge of Spring and its configuration.

This book is for System Administrators or Web Developers seeking a lean deployment platform for web applications or who want to switch to a "lighter" web server than Apache.

This book takes a tutorial approach and each chapter contains step-wise instructions to perform specific tasks. This book is for Linux/Unix System Administrators interested in designing and setting up a CUPS network and provides enough knowledge to understand how the technology works, make decisions about deployment, and then implement a stable work environment. No knowledge in CUPS is required but readers need to be comfortable with working in the Linux/Unix environment. On the whole, readers should have basic knowledge of the Linux environment.

Being a beginner's guide this book has a very simple and clear approach. It is a practical guide that will help you learn the features of Django and help you build a dynamic website using those features. This book is for web developers who want to see how to build a complete site with Web 2.0 features, using the power of a proven and popular development system, but do not necessarily want to learn how a complete framework functions in order to do this. Basic knowledge of Python development is required for this book, but no knowledge of Django is expected.

This book describes the topic first and then gives step-by-step instructions on how to go about a particular example. PHP developers who need to use PDO for data abstraction.

Conversational and practical, this book is full of real life examples of where and how you would use the Audacity software. Not only does it give you task-based step-by-step instructions from installation to advanced audio editing techniques, it caters to the beginner to familiarize them with all the jargon, suggests recording equipment, it walks them through a simple sample project showing off everything Audacity can do. If you are new to audio recording and editing, and particularly using the Audacity software, this book is for you. It explains everything from common audio industry terms and software basics. Technical sound engineering details and jargon are omitted to keep the book friendly and easy to understand.

A hands-on and practical tutorial that shows administrators how to implement and use 3CX and its range of functionality. Using real world experiences from the authors, you will learn tricks and tips that will help you develop and optimize your 3CX system. This book is for beginners who know nothing about 3CX or VoIP. It will guide them to set up a complete system. Advanced users will also gain insight from information on real-world hardware and software tips and tricks.

The book offers readers both a detailed de*ion as well as step by step instructions on deploying software solutions as well as Asterisk configurations. Screenshots are provided in sections to give a visual perspective of the instructions. For Asterisk configurations actual sample code is listed in the book which can be directly inserted into your Asterisk solution.This book is aimed at anyone who is interested in building a powerful telephony system using the free and open source application, Asterisk, without spending many thousands of dollars buying a commercial and often less flexible system. This book is suitable for the novice and those new to Asterisk and telephony. Telephony or Linux experience will be helpful, but not required.