Last week I had an opportunity to visit Kaski District and made a plan to do a short hiking of Ghandruk within my limited short leave. I had total 4 days and had to be back home on the 4th day. That left me with 2 days of hiking. I made a plan to hike small section of Ghandruk loop trail that starts from Syaulibazar and ends in Kande after Australian camp. Ghandruk loop trek is very short beautiful trail in Nepal on foothills of Annapurna range. My cousin tagged along.

How tough is the trek?

While working with search input in html form I came across steps of information that helped me manipulate iOS keypad. What do I mean by manipulating iOS keypad? It doesn’t mean changing anything about core physical appearance or device capability of software keyboard or device.

• Search should be the text over return/action button
• When I press Search on keypad then action should take place or some event should fire off without redirecting or refreshing the page.
• Lastly when I press ‘Search’ then keypad should also go down or dismissed.

The most common culprit causing AVAudioPlayer not playing sound is ARC. When my audio player's scope is just within a function ARC deallocates the memory before playing sound after function is called. Here is an example code:

func playSoundEffect(assetName: string?) {
    if let sound = assetName{
        if let asset = NSDataAsset(name:sound){
            
            do {
                // Use NSDataAsset's data property to access the audio file stored in Sound.
                let soundEffect = try AVAudioPlayer(data:asset.data, fileTypeHint:"wav")
                // Play the above sound file.
                soundEffect?.play()
            } catch let error as NSError {
                print(error.localizedDescription)
            }
        }
    }
}

Right now I am at the stage where I am writing foundation to manage my sound effects and background music for my upcoming game. I found two most popular way to play sound effects in SpriteKit:

• SKAction
• AVAudioPlayer

We may have stumbled upon strange sorting behaviour of array based on string literal of number where sorting order isn't based on number's value but the alphabetical order.

For example objects in array have property of type string which are all literal of numbers:

slot1.indexStr = “1”
slot2.indexStr = “14”
slot3.indexStr = “2”

slots = [slot1, slot2, slot3]
 

 slots = slots.sorted { $0.indexStr! < $1.indexStr! }

 1
 14
 2
 

It sorted alphabetically based on first character of string. What we want is to sort based on values of number.

Our hike started from Sisne Khola. It’s few meters after or before Jhumsa Bridge if you are coming from Butwal or Tansen. There is a message board with direction too but in Nepali language so if you are a foreigner you could ask tea houses. They will guide you to the start of trail.

This weekend I did a short hike to Ranimahal or Ranighat palace located in the banks of Kali Gandaki River. My first time visit to Ranighat was in Jeep vehicle. Journey was very unpleasant due to bumpy and dusty road so have your expectations set accordingly. Near the end of road trip - view of Ranimahal from distant was spectacular with river valley behind and river flowing nearby the banks. Landscape was picturesque. The insides are vacant. Once again don’t have your expectations too up. There isn’t much to the architecture of interiors that could be praised about.

Later I found information on short hiking route/trail to Ranighat. This peaked my interest. What Ranimahal lacks in interiors is compensated by the beautiful landscape around it. I planned the hike with my cousin. The hiking journey was memorable where we passed through clean rustic villages, corn fields, green slopes of hills, lush green forests, lots of creeks and small waterfalls. There were countless small creeks and streams on the trails. I could feel the nature and that is the experience all hikers needs.

Photography and vlogging is my recent new hobby and the craft I am learning. Primary reason behind this new found interest is because I want to capture my hiking and outdoor travels other than my eyes. I want to share the experience with people.

Secondary reason is mental exercise that I recieve in a good way. I am from the field of software engineering and if you may believe or not it requires creativity to solve problems which is the most important skills required in any form of engineering. It’s an art too. No wonder why there are less good engineers among many in saturated market here. I learn new skills whether it is related to my work or if it is a new hobby. It keeps the flow of neurone active and sharp.

Remember new hobbies can be expensive in your wallet based on what hobby you choose so tread carefully and plan.

I have this neat view controller setup for my comments system. At the bottom of the screen is inputAccessoryView which will be fixed until interacted with to bring keypad up for user to post comments. When keypad is up view will be above it and if keypad is dismissed then view will stick at the bottom of screen.

To achieve this I override two methods of my UIViewController:

-(BOOL)canBecomeFirstResponder{
    return YES;
}

-(UIView *)inputAccessoryView{
    return commentInputView.contentView;
}

I am using custom xib and my custom input view is composed within the class.

It works fine except in iPhone with notch.

This weekend I decided to go doban and stretch some extra kilo metres to my daily hike. My daily trail extends upto 5 km uphill and back downhill isn’t a big stress, credits to the fresh air, smoky mountains and chirping of birds that are enough to heal my body and soul.

I decided to backpack for the weekend hike to cover small settlement called Doban beside Tinau river.

There is an official short hike trail from near Fulbari zoo in Butwal. Tourist and locals use it. I wanted to walk along the peak of hills and embrace the scenic beauty from top. Hence I took long path instead. Nuwakot village was my first destination from where Doban was 3 Km downhill. I started my journey from northwest outskirts of Butwal city, somewhere between Belbas and Jeetgadhi.