I am trying to create a custom sidebar navigation pane in my iPad app something like Instapaper for iPad. With the help of some excellent tutorials like the one by Scott Sherwood, I was able to create a custom sidebar and switch between the view controllers.
I implemented this using a root view controller in which I have two views - one is the tabbar view, other represents the content associated with the tab selected, something like this...
Whenever I select the tab I just add a subview to the Root View Controller, like this...
#implementation RootViewController
//
// some code here
//
#define TABBAR_WIDTH 80.0F
- (void)buttonTapped:(UIButton *)aButton
{
UIViewController *newVC = [self.storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:#"SomeView"];
[newVC.view setFrame:CGRectMake(TABBAR_WIDTH, 0, self.view.bounds.size.width - TABBAR_WIDTH, self.view.bounds.size.height)];
[self addSubView:newVC.view];
}
Now what I want to do is push a new view into the Contents not based on tab selection but based on some interaction in the contents view. The way I have figured out to do this is adding another subview to the superview. In that case, however I will have to implement the pushing, popping, back buttons, animations between views all by myself.
I was wondering if I can implement this scenario using UINavigationController (so that the pushing, popping, back buttons are handled auto-magically).
Can somebody shed some light over this topic? May be even a brief overview of how this could have been implemented in Instapaper iPad app would help.
Here you require navigation in the container view.
So you can go with this thing:
Have one navigationController (alloc-init-set frame-navigation bar hidden, etc.) having your content1 view controller as root controller.
In Content1 view controller, on button tap event, just push your navigation controller to Content2 view controller, and do the same for pop event
Alloc - init your navigation controller in your root controller where you have your custom tab and container view in xib...
Note: Clear your container view before adding any other views.
I have already done this scenario so its working fine for me.
Hope this is what you required...
Enjoy Coding :)
Related
Im writing an application which the main view controller is a UIViewController. It has some icons in a grid and I want to dismiss (sliding down) this grid when one of the icons is clicked. This I've done already. The problem is: when the grid is dismisseed I want another View to come from the top of the screen. This view is in this same root view controller. But I want to display the content of other view controllers in this view. For example: I want this view to show a UINavigationController with a UITableView inside it, so the user can navigate through TableViews.
I'm doing this:
HorariosViewController *horarios = [[HorariosViewController alloc] init];
[vuashView addSubview:horarios.view];
HorariosViewController is a UINavigationViewController. It shows me only a blue NavigationBar and changes like self.navigationItem.title = #"Title" won't work.
Thanks!
You can show another view controller's views as subviews but their outlets and actions remain linked to their original view controller unless you write code to make new connections, so self.whatever shouldn't be expected to affect the other view controller's properties.
(Also, if HorariosViewController is a UINavigationController, it shouldn't be created as a UIViewController.)
One approach is to have the navigation controller already there, with the icon grid presented modally on top of it. (you can set the view up this way without animations, so the user doesn't see the navigation controller underneath).
Then, when it's time for the grid to go away, it can call dismissModalViewController on itself with animation.
I'm getting confused on view controllers and would love a straight example. Here's the preamble:
I have a UIViewController with a matching .xib.
By default IB gives me a single View in the Document window.
I can make it appear by telling my UIWindow to addSubview:controller.view and bringSubviewToFront:controller.view
Here's the questions:
Should I add another View to the ViewController in IB? Or is there a better, programmatical way?
How do I tell the ViewController to switch between the Views?
From the ViewController downward, what does the code look like to achieve this?
I'm trying things but just making a mess so I thought I'd stop and ask...
Note that every button, label, image, etc. in your main view controller is actually a view in itself, however I've interpreted your question to mean that you want to manage multiple full-screen views or "screens". Each screen should have its own view controller to manage it. So to get the terminology right, a view-controller is an object that manages a single full-screen view (or almost full screen if it's nested inside a navigation controller or tab bar controller for example) and a view is the big area managed by the view controller as well as all the sub-views (images, buttons, labels, etc.) within it (they are all UIView sub-classes). The view controller manages all of them on that screen, if you want another screen/page then you should create a new view controller to manage it.
The root view controller (the one you add to the window) can be a plain old normal view controller that you've designed in IB, however it's probably more useful if you use a navigation controller or a tab bar controller and add your designed view controller to that - then you can push additional view controllers as needed.
Another way (if you don't want navigation or tab-bar style) would be to transition to other view controllers directly in the main window using whatever transitions you like (or just replace the old one). We'll leave that for now though.
Any sub-views of your main view controller (the one you've designed in IB) will be automatically loaded from the nib file, but you can also add your own views programatically if you want (typically you would use one or the other, i.e. nibs or programatically, but you can mix and match if you want). To do it programatically, override loadView in the view controller and then call [super loadView]; then do [self.view addSubView:myOtherView]; (create the myOtherView first of course). Note that the first time .view is accessed on your view controller, it actually calls loadView to create the view, so inside loadView it's important to call [super loadView]; before trying to access self.view :D
To switch between views, using the navigation or tab bar controllers makes it very easy. So put your main view controller inside (for example) a navigation controller and put the navigation controller in the window, so you've got window->navigationController->myController. Then from an action method in your view controller (you can hook up the action methods in IB), for example when an "about" button is pressed do this:
- (void)doAbout
{
// Create the about view controller
AboutViewController* aboutVC = [AboutViewController new];
// Push the view controller onto the navigation stack
[self.navigationController pushViewController:aboutVC animated:YES];
[aboutVC release];
}
Note that the about view controller is created programatically here - if your about view is designed in IB then instead use initWithNibName:bundle: to create it.
And that's how you manage multiple screens.
I have been stuck on this for a few days now and it is killing me... In my viewDidLoad event, I am trying to programmatically add a full screen UINavigationController to a subview of my view controller. So far, I have only succeeded in doing two things...
1) Only a grey screen shows up
OR
2) I get something that resembles a navigation controller added to the view controller, instead of being my navigation controller from a XIB it is just a generic one... even though I loaded from the XIB. Oddly enough it is always shifted 25 pixels downward and slightly cut off.
I have read every single link on google and I can't seem to figure this out. I just created a new viewcontroller... added a UINavigationController to it... try to load that view controller and it messes up.
Any help is greatly appreciated!!!!
Instead of having the UINavigationController be a child of some other view controller, make the UINavigationController the root controller itself. The navigation controller is one of the special "container" view controllers, and it generally wants to own the whole screen and be at the root of the controller hierarchy (except in certain circumstances).
Try something like this:
UINavigationController * rootNavController = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:myRootControllerInTheNavController];
[window addSubview:[rootNavController view]];
Which will obscure any existing views with the nav controller (those existing things will still be there when you -removeFromSuperview the nav controller's view). The nuclear option is to set your UIWindow's rootViewController property with the nav controller, but it sounds from your comment that this may not be what you want to do here.
Possibly a cleaner approach: If it accomplishes what you want, I believe you could also take your nav controller and present it modally (see docs for uiviewcontroller) from whatever the current view controller is. Set the transition appropriately, and while you're in the nav stack, the nav controller will be visible.
I've been reading the Head First iPhone Development book and I understand how to get to a new view from a table but how exactly would I be able to get to a new view or view controller, by just simply pressing a button? Is that even possible?
I mean there are some apps where you click a button, not a table cell and it loads a new view. How exactly is that done? If someone could help out a newbie it would be greatly appreciated!
I think what you're looking for is a modal vew controller. THis presents a modal view like you described on top of everything else. If rootViewController is the view controller that is displaying your current view, and myNewViewController the view controller you want to display modally:
[rootViewController presentModalViewController:myNewViewController animated:YES];
There's plenty of examples of this kind of thing on the net, just search for presentModalViewController
Like bpapa said in the comments, it's hard to be specific without code. However, generally what you want to do is:
Build a navigation controller that contains one original view.
Create a button in your original view using the Interface Builder.
Build a callback method (usually defined with IBAction) that is run when the button is pushed.
In that callback method, create a new view and push it onto the navigation controller the same way you would using a table view cell.
Alternately, if you only want one level of hierarchy, you could use a modal view controller; instead of pushing onto the navigation controller in the last step, just present the modal view controller.
The general answer is that you have an object that manages which view controller loads when.
The most commonly used is the UINavigationController. It is a UIViewController that instead of controlling views, controls other view controllers. It works like a simple stack. You push views you want to display onto the nav's controller stack and when you want them to disappear you pop them off.
A common (though sloppy) way of using a nav is to make it a property of your app delegate. Then anywhere in your app you can references it by:
UINavigationController *nav=[[[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate] navigationController];
The view controller for the first the user sees is held in the nav's topViewController property. If you want to load a view based on a user action in the topViewController.view, you would have something like this:
- (IBAction) loadNextView:(id) sender{ // Action called by a a UI event such as a button press.
UINavigationController *nav=[[[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate] navigationController];
UIViewController *nextViewController=...// load from nib, connect with IBOutlet, create programmatically
[nav pushViewController:nextView animated:YES];
}
The first view disappears to be replaced by the next one. To return to the first view, you have a method in the next view controller like so:
- (IBAction) unloadSelf:(id) sender{ // Action called by a a UI event such as a button press.
UINavigationController *nav=[[[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate] navigationController];
[nav popViewControllerAnimated:YES];
}
... and the nav returns you automatically to the previous view regardless of what that view was.
When you first start out, especially if you use Interface Builder, the structure of the app is largely hidden. Behind the scenes all view controllers and their views exist in a hierarchy of some kind that leads back up to the app delegate. You should train yourself to think in hierarchal terms even if it is not immediately obvious how that hierarchy is constructed.
I have created an UITabView application. Each view selected from the bar is a seperate controller with own nib file. I switch between them succesfully.
In the first view I have two buttons (check out the screenshot). When clicking them I want to switch to another views which are the parts of the current view controller. I use:
[self presentModalViewController:anotherViewController animated:NO];
That switches the view, but hides the UITabBar. How to keep the bar on the screen after the switch?
P.S. Sorry for the blurred image. I am not allowed to share to much info.
Well I think you are misusing the modal view controller. For a problem like this I'll say you should put them in a view controller stack using UINavigationController. Instead of making each tab a UIViewController make it a UINavigationController, then you can push and pop view controllers on it, which still show the tab bar.
See http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/UIKit/Reference/UINavigationController_Class/Reference/Reference.html
use: tabBarController.selectedViewController = newViewController
edit: UINavigationController is not needed here.