Replace ViewController in Storyboard while keeping Segues - swift

I have a Storyboard where I have for example a UITableViewController with some incoming and outgoing Segues. Let's say I want to make this UITableViewController a UIViewController. Currently I would delete the UITableViewController, drag a UIViewController on my Storyboard and recreate all the Segues.
Alternatively, I would split my Storyboard using Xcodes Storyboard refactoring so that I at least only have to recreate all the outgoing Segues. But this cannot be done or at least is not practical in some cases where I want my ViewControllers to be in the same storyboard because they belong together.
As you know, this is cumbersome and I think it is prone to error.
So my question is: Can I replace a ViewController in my Storyboard without losing the incoming and outgoing Segues?

As I know it isn't possible with IB. It's only possible to exchange the controller class name in the settings. But a UITableViewController has additional settings that wan't disappear/appear by a simple rename.
My suggestion is to create the new view controller, link the seques one by one and than remove the no longer linked UITableViewController.
(That's one of the several reasons I do not use storyboards anymore. Instead I try to implement screens independent of each other, so I can change flow and/or replace single screens more easily.)

Unfortunately Xcode does not have this, at least as of 9.2. The solution is to edit the storyboard file in an editor, but it's really not so bad.
Get the Object ID of the controller you want to replace, and the one that will replace it. It's in the Identity Inspector, Document section, labeled Object ID.
Make sure you save the Storyboard before editing it outside of Xcode.
Each of the segues looks like this in the storyboard file:
<segue destination="S3O-z0-PFf" kind="showDetail" identifier="abcde2" id="x0q-y6-ZkJ"/>
Replace the destination ID with the new view controller's Object ID:
<segue destination="b5A-4F-zOe" kind="showDetail" identifier="abcde2" id="x0q-y6-ZkJ"/>
Save the file, and Xcode will reload it automatically. The segues will point to the new controller.

Related

ViewController for Second View - iOS 7

I'm a beginner to iOS development, so forgive me if this is really basic. It's probably answered somewhere, but I've looked for a long time, and I'm struggling.
I have a second View on my story board that I've successfully linked to the first view using a Navigation controller and stuff, and I'm able to navigate to it. I can also add actions/outlets from elements on my first view by Control-dragging to the .h file.
I have a label on my second view, and I want to be able to do the same: add actions and outlets from elements. But when I try Control-dragging, nothing happens. What am I doing wrong, and how do I fix it?
Hmm, well first of all welcome to Stack Overflow! And thanks for asking the question.
Let me know if I have this right - you have two view controllers to the right (linked with segues) of a navigation controller and currently you can navigate to the second from the first using a button at the top right? Then when on the second view controller there's a nav button at the top left with a little arrow by it? And this should take you back to the first. Is that right?
Now on the second view controller you want to create a button that performs an action, but when you right-click-drag (ctrl-drag) onto a .h or .m file nothing happens?
If that's the case I've seen a few reasons for that. You might try:
You need to make a button, a label can only recieve actions, not create them. Read this article on IBOutlet vs IBAction
Restart Xcode (I know, it's lame, but humor me)
Make sure you're dragging (if on the .h file) between "#interface" and "#end"
Make sure you're dragging (if on the .m file) between "#implementation" and "#end"
Do you have a custom view controller class for your second view? If so, select the second view controller in your storyboard and go to the identity inspector. Set the custom class to your custom view controller's class name. Now you will be able to control-drag IBOutlets and IBActions.

How to load a xib file from a storyboard?

I am new to iOS programming and I am working on a project which will use both XIB files and storyboard.
I have two modules in it basically. First module is made from XIB files which also runs independently. I have made another module using storyboard and I had to integrate these two independently running modules. The screen of my first module which I want to connect to my storyboard is a subclass of UIViewController and I was able to do that with the help of stackoverflow (How to load a storyboard from a XIB file?) by creating an object of UIStoryBoard. Now my application is able to go to the storyboard but I can't come back to my first module which is made up of XIB files.
Please let me know how can I connect to the same instance of the last screen of the first module through which storyboard is called so that I can move back and forth through these views easily. Connecting to the same instance of the XIB file is important because it is a chat screen and when I come back to this screen, I would like to get back to the chat where I had left it and also when I come back to the storyboard (by clicking a button on the chat screen) I have a slider on the screen which should display the value which the user must have chosen when they were on this screen last time. I guess creating a new object should give me a new screen which won't work in this situation. This kind of mechanism works well within storyboard with the use of segue where we can define both source and destination view controller.
Please help me achieve the same in my situation.
Please also check the screen shots of the XIB file and the storyboard which I want connected.
Thanks.
Convert the nib files into storyboard, it will help you easier to manage your application.
Well in your case, what i see is from nibs is that there is a navigation controller in storyboard and also there will be a root view controller navigation controller from xib files.
Well the navigation controller stack has all VCs you pushed into and you can get back it in different ways.

Storyboard done, Do I need to create .h and .m View Controller file for each View created?

I have created Storyboard with several views calling each other, now I need to create the code
I notice that XCode didn't created .h and .m controller files for each View from storyboard.
Should I create them manually?
Should I keep only one controller? (or few depending of separation of concerns on MVC)
Is there a pattern for developing this?
thanks
The usual approach is one view controller pr. screen full of content. You can imagine having one view controller for a tableview, with any sort of content, and then another view controller that presents that content in a new screen full of content if a row is pressed.
Normally when you have subviews inside of your view controllers, you wire them up in interfacebuilder. Then for instance if you want to populate a view that has a uiimageview and a uiactivityindicatorview inside it, you can control their behavior and how their populated from the view controllers code. You could also if you want something very generic and you feel that one view will probably take up a lot of code in your view controller, create a uiview subclass for it, and then set the class in interface builder.
Did this help? Please let me know if you need more clarification.
It's entirely up to you whether you have a ViewController for each view. If you have many views I would recommend it. Even if you have 2 or 3 views you probably still should. Things can get really confusing when each view has a different task but all have similar IBOutlets.
TLDR; Personally, I would say it was good practice to have a ViewController for each view if each view has a separate task.

Use storyboards in a project which has .xib files- iPhone

I want to use generally the old .xib files in my iPhone application. But when it comes to tableViewController storyboard is a lot more convenient in order to make custom cells etc. Is it possible to make a .xib based application and in the middle of it, to use a storyboard for a UITableViewController and its DetailedViewController only?
You can use a storyboard for any part of a program. Storyboards are not an all or nothing concept. You can have just one view controller in a storyboard, or a small network that just represents a subsection of your app.
To use just one view controller from a storyboard:
Add a new storyboard to your existing project.
Add a single view controller to the storyboard.
Assign an identifier to the view controller in the inspector.
Use the UIStoryboard class to load the storyboard resource
Use -[UIStoryboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:] to create a new instance of that view controller.
Install the view controller some place in your app by doing something like pushing it on to a navigation controller, or run it modally.
Both can work fine together (Storyboards and Nib files). In the TVC that is part of your storyboard, just instantiate the destination VC in code and use the usual initWithNibName method to load the nib file.
You can add a storyboard to any project, but the point of storyboards is to centralize your XIB files into one location rather than having 10 XIB files you can have 1 .storyboard file that contains 10 scenes representing your views. This shows your connections to other scenes, and you can manage all the seques and transitions of each scene. So is it possible, yes you could add a storyboard to your project, but I would recommend you design you entire application in a storyboard if you want to use them.

reuse view from storyboard

I have a tableview with custom section headers. The view for the section header is defined in the storyboard and wired to an instance variable. Is there a way to request a new instance of the view from the storyboard?
In the past I have done this by having the section header defined in its own xib file and getting a new instance by using
[[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:#"TimerViewSectionHeader" owner:self options:nil];
UIView *newHeaderView = self.sectionHeaderView;
I dont' think there is a way to do that. Best bet is to put the tableview custom header view in a separate nib and load it like you did in your code sample whenever you need to use it.
I tried to do the same thing and ran into the same problem.
I like to work with storyboards a lot and was impressed how fast I could create a working UI. However, as soon as you need to re-use views it makes a lot of sense to put those into a separate nib along with its UIViewController subclass.
You can then place a generic UIView in all the places where your re-used view should go and add the view using your ViewController:
[myReusableViewController loadView];
[myReusableViewController viewDidLoad]; // You have to handle view callbacks yourself.
[self.myReusableViewPlaceholder addSubview:myResusableViewController.view];
[myReusableViewController viewWillAppear:YES];
So to sum it up:
Use storyboard, it's great
Create the scaffold of your application in the storyboard, along with any static view (like About screens etc.)
Create re-used views in a custom nib + UIViewController subclass and add UIView placeholders in your storyboard.
In another answer I thought about some Pros and Cons of Storyboard
The solution I've come up with for this is as follows:
I have a tableview with multiple prototype cells that displays complex data. There is a segue to a detail view, and a transaction process view.
This first tableview has a search button that displays a new tableview with the results. It needs the same functionality as the main tableview that pushes it; including segues to the detail and transaction progress views so:
On storyboard, select and copy your main tableview. Deselect and paste. Create a push segue from your main tableview to your 2nd tableview; or from where ever you want to navigate to it from. Modify the 2nd tableview as you like. IE: If it requires some UI changes no problem.
Create a new viewcontroller class that is a subclass of the viewcontroller running the main tableview.
Override the data delegate in your subclass to serve up the subset of data you want.
Back in the storyboard, select your 2nd tableview controller and in the identity inspector select your subclass as the custom class.
For this solution to work smoothly, your app really needs to be managing data for the views. You could use prepareforsegue to pass data from 1st tableview to the second, but I've found the app data model far more flexible from numerous points of view.
Unless you have buttons that push to the sub views via segue, your subclass will need to override functions that push via segues with identities. NB Segues must have unique identifiers if you id them at all.
It took a lot of trial and error to figure this out, but once you understand the concept, it's a relatively smooth solution that is quite adaptable and not so bad to implement.
I am not sure about just views, but the way that I was able to get view controllers out of my storyboard is as follows.
UIViewController *viewController = [self.storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:#"IdentifierName"];
From here, perhaps you might be able to use this similarly to how it was once done with nibs.
I've been able to reuse a view in the storyboard just by connecting a transition from one tableview into the one I want to reuse.
so my tableview that I want to reuse is pointed to twice.
It sort of works but the problem I'm running into it setting a variable (using instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier) in my app delegate to my table view that is getting reused.
It seems that if I reuse it, the storyboard is creating 2 instances of my tableview and the one I get with instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier isn't the one I want.
I'm not really sure if this is the proper way to do it. But I assume many others are doing this somehow. With the custom table cells in storyboard I suspect lots of people want to reuse their views.
For example: We want to reuse the view(include subviews) in storyboard shown below.
The best solution I know so far is clip and paste the view related code to the New Singe View file without losing the information.
Detailed steps are as follows
Step 1: Rename the view we want reuse. Just prepare for step 2.
Step 2: Open storyboard as source code in order to clip the XML code we need
Step 3、4: Search and clip the code we need
Step 4.5(Not needed): Open as Interface Builder to see the view removed
Step 5、6: New XXX.xib and paste the code we clipped just now
Step 7: Important. Insert code<freeformSimulatedSizeMetrics key="simulatedDestinationMetrics"/> to XXX.xib source code.
Warning: Do this before open it as Interface Builder! Otherwise, you will see wrong size and layout waring.
[![step 7][9]][9]
Step 8: New XXX.swift to connect the XXX.xib
[![step 8][10]][10]
Step 9: Add the view anywhere we want
[![step 9][11]][11]
I get warning: "You need at least 10 reputation to post more than 8 links."
Can you support me to upload the remaining 3 screenshots?