ViewController with multiple views from nibs at a time - iphone

Question

I am in the process of developing an IOS rpg. This game is a controlled by a tab bar, and every view controller in the tab bar will have a common "header" that sits at the top of the screen and shows information about the player.
The rest of the screen, however, will show one of many different views. Each view controller will be responsible for showing multiple different "views" underneath the "header" view. In addition, many of these views will need to be scrollable, as they will not fit in the confines of the screen.
Questions:
1)How do you add two views from separate nibs to a single view controller.
2)How do you embed only one of those views in a scroll view.
Thank you.

Answer 1

You can load a nib through the loadNibNamed:owner:options: function on a NSBundle. What it will return is an array of all the objects in the nib (the list you see on the left when you create a nib in interface builder). If you're view is the first item on the list of objects in the nib, then its the object at the 0th index of that array.
NSArray *objects1 = [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:#"View1Nib" owner:self options:nil];
UIView *customView1 = [objects1 objectAtIndex:0];
NSArray *objects2 = [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:#"View2Nib" owner:self options:nil];
UIView *customView2 = [objects2 objectAtIndex:0];
UIScrollView *scroll = [[[UIScrollView alloc] init] autorelease];
[scroll addSubview:customView2];
[[self view] addSubview:customView1];
[[self view] addSubview:scroll];

Answer 2

If I have multiple views in a nib I make use of the restoration identifiers rather than relying on the order of the array and perform the following:
UINib *nib = [UINib nibWithNibName:#"Nib" bundle:nil];
NSArray* views = [nib instantiateWithOwner:self options:nil];
assert(views.count == 3);
UIView *aView;
UIView *anotherView;
UIView *yetAnotherView;
for (UIView* view in views) {
if ([view.restorationIdentifier isEqualToString:#"AViewId"]) {
aView = (SettingsCell *) view;
}
else if([view.restorationIdentifier isEqualToString:#"AnotherViewId"]) {
anotherView = (SettingsCell *) view;
}
else if([view.restorationIdentifier isEqualToString:#"YetAnotherViewId"]) {
yetAnotherView = (HeaderView *)view;
}
}
assert(aView && anotherView && yetAnotherView);

Answer 3

When you make a view controller, if you choose to generate an xib automatically, its view outlet will, by default be connected to a view. Now, create a new xib, with some different name, and make its files owner as your view controller class. Also, manually connect the view outlet.
Now, call the init method:
YourViewController *x = [[YourViewController alloc] initWithNibName: #"yourNibName" bundle:nil];
according to whatever xib you want to load, place the name instead of "yourNibName". Hope that helps.

Answer 4

You'll need to have references to both views, and you can simply [view addSubview:secondView]; as normal. As for how you get a reference to the views in the xib that is not associated with your view controller, there are several ways, but which you choose will depend on whether that view is already instantiated elsewhere in the app. I'm betting you're already instantiating that view elsewhere, and you simply want to add it. If it were me, I would use a singleton for that view's parent, so I could do something like:
[view addSubview:[ParentClass parentClassSharedInstance] viewToAdd]];
Scroll views are a beast you'll need to work with to fully understand, but you add views to them just like any other view. The important bit is that they have a contentSize property that can be bigger than their frame's size. I usually use a single view of the size I want to manage all views underneath the ScrollView. Good luck!