I have an iPhone app that starts in a table view and goes to a different table view when the user selects a cell. The two table views are in separate classes (or whatever the proper Objective-C term is, ie. 2 different .h and .m files), and the second table view makes a request from a server based on the selection in the first table. There is a noticeable delay and I've been trying to put a UIActivityIndicatorView up when that happens, but that only displays for a split second when view segues to the second table view. I know this is an issue with threading, but I can't get this to work following any of the other posts on this topic. I call my startAnimating in didSelectRowAtIndexPath and the stopAnimating in the viewDidDisappear. I have also tried using the following code to get this to work by calling it in the didSelectRowAtIndexPath: [activityIndicator performSelectorInBackground: #selector(startAnimating) withObject: nil]; How do I make the activity indicator (or any loading animation for that matter) to work when the server request is going on?
I see that this is a frequent problem on Stack Overflow, but I did just find a working solution. I found this forum iphonedevsdk.com/forum/tutorial-discussion/… My issue was a synchronous connection taking up my main thread, so starting the spinner and then calling the connection in a separate method does the trick.
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I allow the user to manage records on other views. I set a flag if certain changes are made.
Then on the flag (where the data changes will have an impact) I run some methods / queries which create the data which is used in my table view(s). This workload currently happens in viewWillAppear(s).
This could take a few seconds and I'd like to show my progress indicator view which I wrote today, it uses a transparent view with a activity indicator in the center of the view.
[self performSelectorInBackground:#selector(startupStuff) withObject:sender];
However, viewWillAppear won't wait while I run the the work in the background.
Ideally I'm looking for a quick fix to work around this problem.
Any ideas ?
However, viewWillAppear won't wait while I run the the work in the background.
That's the whole point of it, isn't it? At the end of your startupStuff method, you should call another method on the main thread (with performSelectorOnMainThread:...) that is used to (a) inform the controller that your data is ready, (b) reload the table view and (c) dismiss your progress indicator view.
in my (quite simple) application,
--> i have one subview (named "Splash") loaded in the main view at launch time, like this (in my mainView class) :
-(void)awakeFromNib{
[self addSubview:splash];
}
--> I have also a UITableView (named "myTable") loaded by clicking a button (which calls the IBAction named "LoadData:") in the subview "splash".
(all views are made in interfaceBuilder, and each views have their corresponding classes in the xCode project)
What i want to do is to preload (cache) large amount of data (750 entries) from a SQLite database, before i load the second subView ("myTable"), which is using this data stored in an array.
To perform this, i have a method called "RefreshData:", which is called at a certain time to store the results in an array.
This array is used in the UITableView to show this data.
All is running perfectly well, but...
if i call "RefreshData" method at the end of the "awakeFromNib" method in the "mainView" class, my app takes ~15 seconds to show the first screen (named "splash") : not good.
if i call "RefreshData" within the IBAction "LoadData", the UITableView takes ~13 seconds to appear on screen : not good at all.
So, the question is :
is there a way to call the "RefreshData" method AFTER the first subView ("splash") did appear on screen, and BEFORE user clicks on the button which loads the UITableView ?
Any help will be appreciated, and please apologizes for my bad english !
Try calling refreshData a little later ie in
-(void) viewDidAppear:
Also if the SQL request is locking up the GUI you should perhaps think about pulling the data off in a new thread (although I thought SQL did this)
I have a UITableView subclass and a UITableViewCell subclass that I'm using for cells. I'm bulding all my cells in advance and store them in an array from where I use them in cellForRowAtIndexPath. Aside from this I have a thread that loads some images in each cell, in the background. The problem is that the cells don't get refreshed as fast as the images are loaded. For example, if I don't scroll my table view, the first cells only get refreshed when all cells have been modified and the thread has exited.
Any ideas on how I can effectively refresh my tableview/cell?
Have you tried calling [cell setNeedsDisplay] but on the main thread?
setNeedsDisplay when called on a background thread does pretty much nothing,
try this:
[cell performSelectorOnMainThread:#selector(setNeedsDisplay) withObject:nil waitUntilDone:NO];
Are you using a callback to notify the controller of your tableview that the images have been loaded? If not, that would be an ideal method.
When the image loads, fire off a callback to the table view controller that sets the image on the cell, and then calls reloadData on the tableView.
This way whenever a new image loads, the table will update to display it.
Not sure exactly what you are trying to achieve with the images - but can I guess they are coming from a server and that is why you want to download them in another thread?
I would not try to load up the cells before you display the table - you should use lazy loading as much as possible to make sure you are making the most of the memory on a device.
My suggestion would be to look at using a subclass of NSOperation to manage the loading of images. Firstly NSOperation will handle all the complexity of threading for you and allow you to queue up the operations. You will then be able to prioritise the operations that you want completed for the cells at the top.
As each operation completes you can make a call back to the cell or tableViewController (perhaps create a delegate protocol to make this really easy).
If you have an operation per image/cell combination then you should be able to refresh each cell as the operation completes. Doing this along with prioritising the operations will give you an optimal solution.
If the NSOperations sound complex or you are put off by this - please do try it - it is a lot simpler than I might have made it sound.
Have you tried calling [cell setNeedsDisplay]?
How do I create a loading screen that can be reused at any given time. I'm aware of the Default.png but I need the flexibility to plug in a loading screen at any point during the application life cycle.
This is what I have thus far.
//inside a method that gets called by a UIButton
LoadingViewController* loadController = [[LoadingViewController alloc] initWithNibName:#"Loading" bundle:nil vertical:NO];
[self.view addSubview: loadController.view];
//some method call that takes a few seconds to execute
[self doSomething];
//This loads some other view, my final view
[self.view addSubview: someOtherView]
but it seems that the loading view is never displayed. Instead the previous view stays there until the "someOtherView" gets added. I put trace logs and the code does seem to get executed, I even replaced [self doSomething] with a sleep(2), but the intermediate loading view is never displayed.
If I remove [self.view addSubview:someOtherView]; then after a few seconds...(after doSomething finishes executing) the load view is displayed since there is no view that is pushed on top of it, however this is obviously not the functionality I want.
Can explain this behavior? Is there something about the rendering cycle that I am misunderstanding because it doesn't seem like the view (on the screen at least) is instantly updated, even though I call a [self.view addSubview: loadController.view];
Would I need to create a separate thread?
In general, for changes in the UI to be made visible to the user, control must return to the main runLoop. You are only returning to the runLoop after taking the loading view down and replacing it with the other view. One strategy for dealing with this is to move the code that does the loading onto another thread. NSOperation and NSOperationQueue can be used for this.
An even simpler approach is to use performSelectorInBackground:withObject to do the processing. Once processing is complete the UI can be updated again to show the data. It is important to remember that the UI updates must be carried out on the main thread. Use performSelectorOnMainThread:withObject:waitUntilDone: to accomplish this from the loading thread.
This sounds like a lot of complication but it is really as simple as breaking your single method up into three separate methods as follows:
Display the loading view and start the background process - this is the button action method.
Do the background loading - called from the button action function with performSelectorInBackground:withObject.
Remove the loading view and update the display with the data - called from the background thread with performSelectorOnMainThread:withObject:waitUntilDone.
I created a subclass of UIView where I initialized how my loading-view should work and look like. (My view appeared and slided in from the bottom with an nice animation).
I then added code that handled whether the loading-view should be visible or not in a subclass of UIViewController.
I then let all my viewcontrollers be an subclass of my new viewcontrollerclass which made it possible for me to do:
[self showloadingMessage:#"loading..."];
in all my viewcontrollers...
I am working on a an application which is very simple
a navigation controller with a table view
when the user clicks a row, he is directed to the details view.
However, the details view pulls data from Core Data. i am pulling a relatively large amount of data that takes about three seconds to load.
I wanted to add that UIActivityIndicatorView to show progress.
I tried to start the animation once the user clicks the row, so i set it to animate in didSelectRowAtIndexPath
For some reason, the Activity Indicator doesn't start before the pushing of the details view.
Any idea why? or the best way to implement such an idea?
~Adham
Because you start the animation and then start a large operation in the same thread. Consider running that 3 second operation in a new thread. Look at NSOperationQueue and then create a NSOperation to run that procedure. It will work this way.
The UI doesn't update until the end of your run loop. You are, in sequence, displaying the activity monitor, then pushing the new table view, and then the UI updates. You need to change this order.
You can either move something to a different thread, or you could perhaps delay the loading of the new table view by calling performSelector:afterDelay: with a delay of 0. That will delay the loading of the new table view until after the activity indicator appears in the UI. Now, it's still all on the same thread, so you will be blocked from doing anything, but if the animation is threaded in the activity monitor, it would make for a quick and easy solution.
Call method in thread:
[NSThread detachNewThreadSelector: #selector(loadMethod) toTarget:self withObject:nil];
See following for more details:
http://iphone.zcentric.com/?s=UIActivityIndicatorView