I have implemented Facebook type left Slide Bar layout in my first view of iphone app. Now, I want to implement this throughout all view controllers (screens) in application, means irrespective of the view the left slide bar should appear on clicking the menu button at the top in all views.
My app contains 25-30 viewcontrollers and my slide bar layout should appear in all views..
Can anyone suggest, how can I include above FB Layout in all views
Thanks in advance
Ramu
Simple, The one view controller in which you have implemented the FB layout and is working. Make it the base class on top of UIViewController. And as for the rest of all the ViewControllers, inherit them from the MasterClass that you just created. Doing this will make the swipe gesture that brings forth the slide bar available to all of your 30 view controllers.
EDIT
Lets see, we have UIViewController, now first of all you create a UIViewController's subclass: say FBViewController ..In this FBViewController you implement the FBLayout such that the swipe and all is working ..on it ..test your app first using only this FBViewController as rootViewController and check all the functionalities.Once everything is working fine, grow on it. What I mean is this.
Say you are creating a Tabbed application, where all the three tabs are supposed to have the same FBLayout style. Then do these steps.
Create FBViewController, it inherits from UIViewController (using UIViewController subclass template, also check the generate XIB button) also have an XIB for it FBViewController.XIB (fully implement FBLayout in it. This will be your base class)
Then Create three more ViewController classes (FirstViewController, SecondViewController, ThirdViewController) again from the UIViewController subclass template, but for these three dont check the generate XIB button. these three will use the XIB of the base class FBViewController (If you are wondering how, then go to step 3 :))
Go to header file of FirstViewController class you created, there you can see #interface FirstViewController: UIViewController replace it with #interface FirstViewController: FBViewController, but before it import FBViewController.h to the header file. Repeat the same for the Other two classes- SecondViewController, ThirdViewController. Since these three will inherit from FBViewController. In their viewDidLoad [super viewDidLoad] will load FBViewController and generate the view. after [super viewDidLoad]; line you can implement ur own methods.
In the three classes just change the initWithNibName method to change the tab bar name and title.
In appDelegate go to didFinishLaunching method and put these three view controller in a tabBarController, set the tabBarController as rootViewController.
And we are done. If your FBViewController is working fine. You will see that all the three classes behave the same way. Thanx to the power of Inheritance.
Cheers, play a bit, have fun.
I had the same problem. I was using a facebook-style menu, and needed it in all view controllers.
You can use a Container Controller. A Container Controller can have the base layout, which I defined in a nib, containing a navigation bar and a bar button item to toggle the menu, and then add child view controllers and remove them as you need them. That way, you can throw whatever view controller you need to the container controller and it will display it.
You can also add gesture control to slide open/close the menu easily.
You will have to make the Container controller your self, it is not standard. I think it is better solution than inheritance, since if you use inheritance you can't make a for example UITableViewController, all your controllers will be of the type of yuor master class. Of course, you can fix this anyway with delegates.
It may sound a bit tricky, but see this tutorial which I used: http://www.cocoanetics.com/2012/04/containing-viewcontrollers/
It wasn't accutally that hard.
EDIT: You can just use a UINavigationController as well. Just set the base view controller to the view controller you want to display, and you can prevent it adding the back button etc to the nav bar by overriding the default methods. Make a UINavigationController as rootNavigationController. Might be simpler.
I'd highly recommend using an open source solution that handles all the edge cases for you - it's both the easiest, most robust and most maintainable (since the community will keep it up to date fro you). ViewDeck seems to be the most popular solution though I have also had success with PPRevealSideViewController. They both provide a very robust implementation that would take a long time to do yourself (e.g. you can optionally enable swipe on the navigation bar or even content area to open the menu). Furthermore they separate the sliding logic and the revealed menu (which can be any view controller you like, but most likely a table view controller) out of your other view controllers. That way any viewcontroller can have a side menu without duplicating any code - separation of concern is great :)
You can make a SharedInstance for SideView class. I am doing same thing for iAD to show throught-out the application.
Please see the the link of iAdSuite ,In which the BannerViewController is SharedInstance so they are easily used for all View Controller
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#samplecode/iAdSuite/Listings/TabbedBanner_TabbedBanner_BannerViewController_m.html
Related
I am new in developing iOS apps. I am trying to develop a multiple views app. My doubt is how to manage a multiple views app with View Controller, I mean, I do not want to use Navigation Controller nor Tab Controller.
My idea is to show a first View to choose the language, and after this, I want to show some different profiles in a table view. When you choose the profile, you get into a menu where you have some different functionalities (Once in this menu, I might use Navigation Controller).
My problem is that I don't know how to manage these two first views. I don't know if I have to declare them in the appDelegate, or if I can do it nesting one to other, I mean, I do the first view, and when I pressed the button, I declare the new view. Once in the new view, when I pressed a row in the table view, I make the another view.
I know it is a little bit confusing, so I hope you could understand it quite well.
EDIT:
I want to clarify that I am not using storyboards. My main doubt is what to do with all de view controllers, Do I have to declare all of them in the appDelegate? or Can I declare each view in every controller?
If you are using storyboards, you can use Segue's to navigate between the views, so you would show your first view, then you could tie a button to the next view (by control dragging in storyboard). If you want to transition programmatically you can use the performSegueWithIdentifier method. You could use the same approach to get from your tableViewController to your next viewController by using the performSegueWithIdentifier method from within the tableViewController's didSelectRowAtIndexPath delegate method (i.e. when a user taps a cell).
That should get you started. Good luck!
EDIT:
You really should be using storyboards. It's the way to do things these days. If you refuse, then the best approach is to create a container view controller that manages your "children" view controllers. You can find information on doing this, as well as the methods needed to present/remove child view controllers here:
Custom Container View Controllers
You can use navigation controller with "hidden" property.
self.navController.navigationBarHidden = YES;
If you want to have two different views and transition between them, you will want to use UIViewControllers presented modally. Here is Apple's Guide to this.
I'm making an app with interface builder using storyboarding.
I want to have a tab bar where no item is selected. This can be accomplished by setting
TabBar.SelectedItem = null;
But if you try to do that, you get the following error:
'Directly modifying a tab bar managed by a tab bar controller is not allowed.'
So I can't use the standard UITabBarController. I've created a custom UIViewController, and added a UITabBar. Switching between tabs is working fine, and having no selection is also working as it should.
But I have no idea how to show my other view controllers from my custom view controller with the tab bar. Remember that I'm using interfacebuilder, so I can't just create my view controllers in code as new objects and add them to the view. (as suggested in UITabBar funcionality without UITabBarController)
So how do I show my own views without using the UITabBarViewController?
Edit: Still haven't found a solution, but I did a hacky fix. Simple create an other tab bar and place it on top of the original tab bar. Listen to those events and use SelectedIndex to change the view displayed. Then add some function that will select / deselect the items on your own tab bar.
In fact, even if you design your others UIViewControllers from IB, you can instantiate them from code. You'll probably have to play a bit with frame and autoresizing properties to make them fit the part of your main view you want them to display inside, but it's possible.
So, knowing that, a simple solution is to create a simple UIView (we'll call it 'tabFrame') in your main UIViewController, which fill the screen from the top of your UITabBar to the top of the screen; instantiate the UIViewController corresponding to your tabs and add their view as subview of tabFrame. Now you just have to catch item selection from tabbar to hide or show the desired subviews.
Hope I'm clear enough, else don't hesitate to question!
EDIT: pointed out this morning that in storyboarding context, you can effectively instantiate viewControllers / scene from code, but for not loosing designer settings it must NOT be done through directly calling their constructors, but through StoryBoard.InstantiateViewController("vc_identifier") calls, after having set identifiers to VCs in storyboard editor.
See http://docs.xamarin.com/ios/recipes/General/Storyboard/Storyboard_a_TableView for example
In a navigation based application, when I want to create and use other uiviews and uitableviews I need to create their controller and views. in an example I saw that I can simply create a new controller with .xib file, design it, and just call that xib file from my navigationcontroller.
In another example, some stuff was going on also in the mainwindow.xib and some new controllers and navigation items were added from the mainwindow.xib.
What is the difference between these methods? when and why I should need to open and edit the mainwindow.xib file to add a controller?
The mainwindow.xib is your UIWindow component which you can see as a representation of your iphone screen, it will always be there no matter what. In your examples when you are showing your view controller dirrctly that is because the controller is already a subview of your UIWindow which is the mainwindow.xib in the Interface Builder.
There really is no difference between the 2 methods, in the first one you are adding your controller as a subview progrmatically using:
[window addsubview:mynavcontroller]
And in the second one youbare doing it thru interface builder, you may use whichever method you feel more comfortable with.
You do not really need a controller to show a view, however they can be handy if you want to do any extra stuff such as rotating your view or loading certain data when the view is loading. That being said you could add your view as a subview of your window and it would still work.
I'm trying to find the best way to refactor this. Right now, each of the view controllers (about 20 of them) have a function that initializes the content of the toolbar / navigation bar like so ie,
-(void)toolbarInit
and on each of the controller's viewDidLoad, you will see that the function is being called ie, [self toolbarInit];
Basically what that toolbarInit does is to put a loginButton on the navigation bar's rightBarButtonItem.
Should I:
a. put the toolbar/nav bar setup in the app delegate ( is it possible to initialize each of the view controller's nav bar no matter how deep down the stack it is already?)
b. create a toolbarController or something and just put all the setup code/login code over there?
Many thanks for any other suggestions.
I'd consider one of these options:
It sounds as though you're repeatedly pushing the same or similar UIViewControllers onto the stack. Is it possible they should all derive from the same UIViewController subclass? If so, the initialization could take place in a superclass shared by all of the 20 or so items in the stack.
If the view controllers have different superclasses, consider defining a category on UIViewController that handles the instantiation and addition of your buttons. Then you need only import the header and call the same [self toolbarInit] in viewDidLoad.
Same as above, except instead of using a category, create a standalone class for handling setup like this. The logic in toolbarInit could be stuck in a class method like setupNavigationItem:.
I have always sort of wondered when to use a UIView vs. a UIViewController on the iPhone.
I understand that you shouldn't use a UIViewController unless it's a full-screen view, but what other guidelines are there?
For example, I want to build a modal overlay - a screen that will slide into place over the current screen. If this modal overlay is full-screen, should it be a UIViewController? The last time I built something like this, I subclassed UIViewController, but now I wonder if that was correct.
From Apple's View Controller Programming Guide for iOS:
"The most important role of a view controller is to manage a hierarchy of views. Every view controller has a single root view that encloses all of the view controller’s content. To that root view, you add the views you need to display your content."
Also:
"There are two types of view controllers:
Content view controllers manage a discrete piece of your app’s content and are the main type of view controller that you create.
Container view controllers collect information from other view controllers (known as child view controllers) and present it in a way that facilitates navigation or presents the content of those view controllers differently.
Most apps are a mixture of both types of view controllers."
This is a great question.
My basic rule of thumb. Is that every major 'page' of an application gets it's own view controller. What I mean by that is that during the wire framing stage of application design, everything that exists as its own entity will eventually be managed by its own View Controller. If there is a modal screen that slides over an existing screen, I will consider that to be a separate 'page' and give it its own view controller. If there is a view that overlays and existing page (such as a loading screen or help popup.) I would treat those differently, implement them as UIView subclasses and keep the logic in that 'pages' view controller. It the popup has behavior I will communicate back to that pages View Controller using the delegate pattern.
I hope this helps. It is very much a philosophical and architectural question and much could be written about it.
I use UIViewController whenever a view is full screen and either has outlets/actions and/or subviews.
Put everything on a screen into a UIViewController until the view controller starts to have too much code, then break out the screen into multiple UIViewControllers contained by one master view controller...
To put that into context of your answer, make a view controller for that modal overlay. It will have one anyway if you are using a nav controller to present it (and you probably should).
I have a somewhat different approach:
Override UIView if you plan to do custom drawing in drawRect. Otherwise, subclass UIViewController and use [self.view addSubview: blah] to add the components of the page.
There are a few other special cases, but that handles about 95% of the situations.
(You still will often need a UIViewController with a custom UIView. But it's common to have a custom UIViewController with no corresponding custom UIView.)
Is the thing that slides in a self contained screen? I mean, does it directly interact with the parent? If so, make it a UIView, if not, probably recommend a UIViewController.
A UIView is part of the UIViewController see the view property of UIViewController for this. As you pointed out correctly UIViewController manages a complete screen and there should be only one visible UIViewController at a time. But in most cases you will have more UIViews or subclasses of UIView visible on the screen.
The example you gave would be a correct use in most cases. As you may have noticed you will get a lot of functionality when subclassing the UIViewController. Animating the appearance and dismissal of the UIViewController would be one of them.
As marcc pointed out if the thing you want to slide in is not a self contained screen you would be better off using a UIView.
As a conclusion I would say that if you want to use the functionality that comes with subclassing UIViewController than go for it make it a UIViewController. Otherwise a UIView might be better.
The itunes U Standford class has a great lecture on UIViewControllers I would recommend watching it, because it has a lot of information regarding UIViewControllers in general.
If you are familiar with the MVC pattern, then you should be able to understand the difference between UIVIew and UIViewController. To make a simple statement, UIView is for rendering UI elements on screen. UIView is the superclass of pretty much all Cocoa Touch UI elements. Those elements do not know what information they are supposed to display, what they should do when a user clicks a button, what happens when an async network request is completed and so on. UIViewController is for all that and more. The view controller is responsible for placing the UI elements in the correct locations on screen, setting the contents of the UI elements, handling button presses and other user inputs, updating the model when needed etc.
Conceptually, a single UIViewController controls the contents of the whole screen in an iPhone App and that is why it is often easy to think of things in terms of view controllers. If you need a view where the user can select ingredients for a food recipe, you'll need a UIViewController for that. I made this distinction for myself because coming from a Java background I wasn't used to the framework enforcing MVC. I would think of things in terms of UIViews, and start implementing them that way and then run into all sorts of trouble because of that. If you are going to stick to UIKit for your App, then the workflow Apple has made for you is: for each separate view in your App, create a UIViewController subclass and then use Interface Builder to place the UI elements and to create connections for buttons etc. It works wonders, saves a ton of time and lets you concentrate on making your App function well.
I use UIViewController for showing View on full Screen.
For better control on custom view I prefer subclass of UIViewController instead of UIView, earlier I was using UIView for making custom sub class.