ios : same ui controls across various screens in ios app - ios5

Question

I am fairly new to iOS development. My requirement is I am designing an app that contains 5 screens . I have a set of UI controls( 1 UIImageView 5 UIButtons acting like tab bars for each screen) that are common for all the screens. When a button is clicked only the bottom half of the view needs to change with a relevant details while the buttons stay intact(similar to tab control in windows).
Is there a way to achieve this design? Can I share UI controls across multiple screens without repetition in code or
Is there a way to change only the bottom half of the screen when a button is clicked?

Answer 1

You could have a separate class that would create your UIControls and then for each viewcontroller you call the appropiate method to get the UIControls you want.
#interface UIControlMaker : NSObject{
id controlmakerDelegate; // This is so that you can send messages to the viewcontrollers
}
#property (nonatomic,retain) id controlmakerDelegate; // Release it in dealloc method
- (id)initWithDelegate:(id)delegate;
- (UIView *)createCommonUIControls;
In the implementation file
#implementation UIControlMaker
#synthesize controlmakerDelegate;
- (id)initWithDelegate:(id)delegate{
if(self = [super init]){
[self setControlMakerDelegate:delegate];
return self;
}else
return nil;
}
- (UIView *)createCommonUIControls{
UIView *uicontrolsHolder = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(2,40,320,50)];
// Create as many uicontrols as you want. It'd be better if you have a separate class to create them
// Let's create a button for the menuItem
UIButton *button = [[UIButton alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0 , 0, 50, 35)];
button.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
[button setTitle:#"Button 1" forState:UIControlStateNormal];
[button addTarget:controlmakerDelegate action:#selector(buttonOnClick) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
[uicontrolsHolder addView:button];
[button release];
// Add more uicontrols here
retun [uicontrolsHolder autorelease];
}
Then in your viewcontrollers create an instance of UIControlMaker and call the createCommonUIControls method which will return a View that you can add to your viewcontroller. Hope that was clear.