I'm currently working on developing a desktop application for MacOS for downloading batches of audio files from URLs at one time I've run into a question about UI design that I can't figure out.
I have a class called SongEntry.swift that holds information regarding the URL that was entered (e.g. url, title, length, author, etc.) and I want to create a vertically growing list of custom views that updates when a new one is added.
Where is what the base view looks like:
Inside of the big white area is where I want the list to be held.
I've tried to create a separate view controller that handles each entry but that didn't work. I know UI design for MacOS is much different from iOS, however I think what I'm looking for is a way to simulate the table views and cell prototypes from iOS but can't find a suitable option.
If anyone knows of a possible solution or can point me in the right direction, I'd greatly appreciate it!
What you want is one of the collection views. For vertical list, you'll probably use NSTableView with only one column and hide everything else like headers.
Here are roughly the steps you need:
You can use your existing view controller or create a dedicate view controller for just the table (and use the 'embed' option in Interface Builder)
This view controller will adopt the NSTableViewDataSource and NSTableViewDelegate protocols to provide the data (your SongEntry objects) and the view for each row.
You set your NSTableView's source and delegate to your view controller.
You create a view which will serve as your "cell", it will be used by each row to display the data. You can design it either in IB or in code.
The entire process is described in detail in the Table View Programming Guide for Mac.
This topic can be a bit confusing. Note that there are two main approaches: the view-based and NSCell-based tables. Don't bother with the NSCell way, it's more of a legacy leftovers.
Also note that there are some overlap of methods in both NSTableViewDataSource and NSTableViewDelegate to provide data and views that can be a bit confusing at first. Just play around with the code and samples and it will be clearer which delegate method to use when.
There are many examples both on Apple's developer site and github. Also a good tutorial on raywenderlich.com.
Related
This is a very noob question. I'm proficient in css, but swift is new to me and so I am trying to think object based, but it's not natural yet. I have tried to understand MVVM which I think is core to the problem but I'm not sure so asking for help.
I want to create an app which has an 'index' central nav type view which I have put in contentview. Depending on what button is pressed I want it to invoke series of functionality but there are up to 9 different types of function that are entirely independent of each other. In html / css, I'd have a central nav index and 'link' to other function specific capabilities.
I don't want to repeat code, so I am trying to work out how to create an architecture that supports it. Where I am getting stuck is in the scoping of it as it is telling me 'this variable isn't in scope'. Fine. I understand the concept but not how to do it right. And I've watched hundreds of hours of video and still not found anything. As an illustration, say the contentview was main actor, and it was a navigator for topics on cats, dogs, lizards, snakes, horses, and pigs.
My thinking is that I'd keep contentview as the nav, and have separate swift files cat.swift, dogs.swift, lizards.swift etc and include them into contentview so their content was globally available. In each of those files I'd have the let catName = etc and much more content specific to that function area. But then from within cat.swift I'd also want to include dog.swift, horse.swift etc as well so the user can navigate those too. In css I'd do this via links - which is probably utter idiocy in swift.
So how do I do this in swiftUI? I don't in detail know the detailed differences between #stateObject, and #state and private var versus var etc and have tried to find a guide that says 'if you want 'catModel' to be available throughout the app define it anywhere with #makeitavailableeverywhere catModel and just trigger it into the view you want by '#include catModel'.
Not sure if this makes sense, but if someone can point me to where I can get accessible, translation into how to do this I'd be so grateful. The app is nearly complete - and I'm pleased, I just can't get the different .swifts to be in scope to each other.
Thank you!
Any code examples for using a UITableView to implement in-app settings?
That is where to get the iPhone settings app look and feel one custom builds the settings into a UITableView. So you you would custom set the sections and cells that get returned with switch type statements.
In particular interested in reviewing the coding approach for how to:
best configure the cellForRowAtIndexPath and didSelectRowAtIndexPath
how to handle those cells for which you want in cell editing (e.g. text)
those cells where you need to launch off into another screen to set a date/time for example
how to collect up parameters and pass back to calling rootViewController (in my case need to persist data out to Core Data persistence)
Note: using Core Data so not interested in using libraries such as InAppSettings [any feedback re whether such libraries might be ok appreciated at this SO question I created].
thanks
I am not sure if you can use the inappsettingskit for your needs. It is open source so you are free to modify the code as you wish, but it doesn't look as an out of the box solution.
If you want to make these settings available in the settings app you will have to live with some workarounds for example saving NSDate AND getting a nice UI control to modify it: Use a textfield, there is no control specified which let's you pick a date. Have a look at Apple's documentation.
So the last option will be coding. First of all, determine what kind of types you want to support. Then create custom TableViewCells which reflect those kinds. If some kinds do need some special way of editing, for example a color picker, you'll have to write those controllers as well. You set a cell into editing mode with the delegate method tableView:didSelectRowAtIndexPath and present the custom controller or get into editing directly for example a UITextField. A Slider is handled directly without any coding.
The cells will need some kind of identifier so you can identify those in your model. A TableView and Core Data can interact with each other pretty well by using the NSFetchedResultsController. Create a simple window based app with a template and check the Use Core Data for Storage. The rootViewController illustrates how a tableView works together with Core Data. For your case it will be getting a bit more complicated as inserting a row will have to determine what kind of cell it should add.
I think you should look into this and get back with some more specific questions.
Do you create a Viewcontroller per view screen? or should you share a viewcontrollers? (ie in the example below Should there be 3 controllers or just 1 controller?)
Example
Screens are related
Screen1 (input information),
Screen2 (Review and confirm Information),
Screen3 (thank you / status response).
You should code according to the MVC paradigm. Parcel out your code and separate it based on overrarching function. Here is a high level overview of MVC
(Data) Model: contains all of your app data, objects that are passed around and used to populate the views
View: everything that is some sort of visual output
Controller: Classes that make the models and views work together.
What this is saying, in iPhone development parlance, is don't just jam a bunch of code into your UIViewController subclass. If you want to change the way part of the system works, having one huge class with a ton of code in it is a lot harder to edit and fix, than several smaller classes with a specialized use.
To answer your question, you should most definitely use one controller for each view function, but going beyond that, you should create specialized classes that take the inputs and manipulate that data, create specialized classes that then use the data to send it back to the user in an output.
Don't put all of your code into one class. It might work, but if you ever need to tweak it, or, just like when the iPad came out, it has to be adapted to use on another platform, it will be easier to manage if you only have to change something small to make it work
In your case you definitely don't need separate controllers. In fact you don't even need separate views. You can create a single view to take information, process it in the same controller and show the result in a UIAlertView.
I've been working on a Cook Book App and I've been making each page individually which takes a really long time to do, I asked a question similar to this and it was brought to my attention that you can setup a way to automate the design process so all you need to do is input your data.
Can someone please explain in as much detail as possible how you setup your xcode files/code to automate such a process
So for example I would just enter the page text and it would automatically put my standard background picture in and add a scroll view and appropriate buttons etc.
Thanks
You could make one master view that contains all the controls that you need: standard background picture, scroll view, appropriate buttons, etc, and make any subsequent views that you create inherit from this view, so that they all contain those controls.
You could also use just one view and work with multiple instances of it, one instance per page. Just make sure to have a Text property on it, or a constructor that takes in your text string, so that you could set it to a different text on each page.
Xcode project templates and file templates are pretty easy to make, with a few caveats.
Check the answers to these questions:
Add new templates in Xcode
Change templates in XCode
Also take a gander at these handy tutorials:
Custom Xcode Templates
Xcode: How to customize the existing project templates
It sounds to me like your putting your data into your views (pages). That's a big design error. You need to employ the Model-View-Controller design pattern and separate your data from your views. That will make it easy to create one view (template) that you can reload with data to display each individual recipe.
The first thing to do is to separate your data from the view. You need to have the recipes stored in an array, dictionary, Core Data etc and then wrap that data in a dedicated object. The second thing to do is to create a dedicated view to display all the recipes. As the user moves from recipe to recipe the app will simply remove and add information to the same view as needed.
I would recommend Cocoa Recipes for Mac OS X: The Vermont Recipes, Second Edition because it addresses these issues and it uses a recipe type app as its example. It's for Cocoa but the basic principles apply to iPhone apps as well.
So I am working on a simple iPhone app, that uses core data to manage objects. My code is similar in function to Apple's CoreDataBooks app, found here. There is a blank UITableViewCell, and you have the ability to add objects to this blank list. If you hit the add button, a DetailViewController pops up that manages the attribute of each object. In the coredatabooks example, the app is like a library, and you can add book objects. My question is about how I might go about making it so that multiple users can have their own separate list of these objects. Again, relating back to coredatabooks, you would be able to make different library objects whose attributes are the book objects themselves. So using the convenient and easy to use coredata ui, would it be very hard to set it up so that in the UITableView, there was Library-A and Library-B and then selecting one of the libraries would move me to a screen that has the list of different books unique to that specific library? If you then select a book, you would then be able to view that book's attributes as before. So I guess my question is regarding how to put another RootViewController-esque view in front of the native one. As you may gather from this post I am in the learning stage of iPhone development, so I don't even know if logically this is even feasible or the correct way to do it. Any help/insight on this matter would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for your patience!
Create another UITableViewController (.h, .m, .xib files). And you can put some functionality into that view controller for adding library.
You can set that viewcontroller as startup object from MainWindow=.xib file. OPen that xib file -> expand navigation controller -> click on root view controller.
then in attributes window you can select your new controller as startup. you have to also set startup class from identity window.
Ruchir is correct, you can add another table view and controller. You will have to make some adjustments so that it is loaded and displayed first.
Also, it sounds like you will want to create a new entity in your data model for a Library which should have a to-many relationship with the Book entity.
Library <-->> Book
The new table view controller can use a fetched results controller that fetches Library entities. When the user chooses a row, you can set a property on the books table view controller before you push it on the navigation stack. Then use a predicate on the books fetched results controller to only fetch books in that library.