remember the last view in a tab inside a UITabViewController - iphone

I have a question that I tried to find an answer for the last four days without success. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
My design is in someway similar to the iphone "phone" app came with iPhone.
My root view controller is a UITabBarController. I have three UINavigationControllers controlled by this UITabBarViewController. Each UINavifationController pushes a number UIViewControllers in sequence.
My question is that if I clicked through the views in the first tab (e.g.: iphone "phone" favorites tab) to display a detail info (contact's detail info view). Now I switch to another tab (the "Recent" tab). When I click the first "Favorites" tab again, how do I make the "contact's detail info view" show up instead of the root view of the first tab (tableview list of "Favorites).
In another word, what is the way for the program to remember which "top" view (and the view stacks) for the other tabs. So when I click back to the tab, it will show the "top" view for me instead of the root view controlled by uinavigationviewcontroller?
Thanks for your help!

You shouldn't collide with this problem, since iPhone does what you want by default. I think the problem is either in the way you add the view controllers in the navigation controller, or in the way you create/store your navigation controller. Perhaps, you just erase the info you've just added somehow after you'd change a tab. Try to watch this video
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LBnPfAtswgw
it explains well step by step how to build the architecture you want with the help of interface builder.

Related

Using a Navigation Controller, Page View Controller, and a Tab Bar Controller

I've fairly new to Swift and I've been reading a lot of answers to questions but I'm still struggling to figure this out. For what I'm building, I want the option to swipe between three main pages but I also want a tab bar that serves as an index and another option to navigate between the three pages. Currently I have three main pages that are each embedded in individual navigation views which are embedded in a page view controller. I tried simply adding a tab bar for each of the pages but that doesn't seem very practical. I was reading on orders of embedding but it doesn't seem to be what I want. How would I go about doing this? Thank you!
sounds like a lot of hierarchy but maybe you can try this
Have a single UIViewController that holds your page view controller. Build a custom uiview guy that holds three buttons which will serve as your tab bar and pin it to the bottom of this UIViewController.
For your page view controller, you can proceed as normal and have it hold 3
children. You'll need proper delegation with protocols from: custom tab bar > uiviewcontroller to tell him to move the pages around.

Tab bar at top and bottom

I would like to develop a ipad apps which has a menu at the top of the screen as well as at the bottom.
There are four buttons on the top of the screen, and there are 10+ buttons at the bottom tab bar, which can be scrolled horizontally.
How can I write the root view controller as a framework for this operation?
Should I customize the UIViewController class or UITabBarViewController?
Thanks
EDIT:
Sorry for being unclear. Let me restate my question.
Actually my app will have the following hierarchy.
'Front Page' is simply a page (view controller) for user to choose language. After choosing the language, 'Menu Page' view controller is displayed.
Starting from Menu page and ALL view controllers (VC) in below, the page layout is something like this.
As you can see, there are top menu and bottom menu. Clicking on the buttons the app will quickly jump to the corresponding view controller (3rd level in the tree, VC1,VC2,VC3 etc) . And for every view, there is a BACK button on every page, clicking which will back to the parent view controller.
I was thinking to implement this by using a tab bar view controller and a navigation view controller but I still do not have a clear idea how to implement this.
Or maybe should I just use the navigation view controller and hide the top tool bar except the back button, and display an overlay UIView as menu which is on top of all other UIViews.
Can somebody help me? Thanks.
Since this is the outermost container for my app I hope to do it properly at start..
Sorry for my long question.
If you really want to develop a framework for this logic .You need to create Manager, ViewController, View, DAO ,Model and other classes according to your needs.
I assume you want to add the buttons dynamically to the tabbar (and if it scrollable , it must be a scrollview).You can use Toolbar for upper view but then it won't be in sync with the bottom-view(visually).In that case you will have to create your own customized views to look like a tabbar.
The manager will basically keep a track of all the buttons and different states of events and action on the views and the same information can be accessed via a static method form the viewcontroller.
Well you have not detailed on your needs , so it's difficult to predict the entire architecture.
You need a container view controller to manage selection of VC's 1-4.
clicking which will back to the parent view controller
Parent view controller is used to mean the container vc in a container view controller scheme - I'm not sure that's what you mean in this comment. Where exactly does the back button go?
See this link for more info about container VC's.
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/featuredarticles/ViewControllerPGforiPhoneOS/CreatingCustomContainerViewControllers/CreatingCustomContainerViewControllers.html
You should be able to embed a tab bar controller in the content view of the container VC. Should be able to but it might be really buggy if there is a lot of communication between the child vc's.
The hard part is the back button. Basically it must be a button that goes back to VC 1-4 depending on which section you are in. The easiest way to do it is to make sure that when you cycle view controllers, pass the back button information as to which VC is the current child so it knows which VC to navigate to when you press it.

Is there a way to implement four tabbed uitableviews that all have the same uinavigationbar

I am working on a mobile version for my company's web app. The structure of this application requires uitableviews with a tab bar on the bottom and a navigation bar up top to return to the previous view. As you drill down in the application the tab bar items change at each level allowing selection of different views pertaining to that specific level in the app. I need a way to implement this with a navigation bar on top that navigates back to the previous screen on every tab in said tab bar when a back button is clicked on any of the tabs.
for example: let's say i start out with an items tab and a simple about tab. When i click items it drills down to a new view called subitems and the tabs for this view are subitems, favorites, details, and notes. I want the navigation bar to go back to the previous screen when i click the back button on any one of these four tabs.
Is this at all possible? I can't seem to find anything related to this type of structuring within an app. any help/examples would be greatly appreciated.
I know that a negative answer always sounds bad, but I tried to do the same a few months ago and I could not find a way of doing it using the standard UITabBarController/UITabBar. Take also a look at this question/answer.
The good news is that it is not that difficult to implement from scratch a tab bar controller that can be pushed on a navigation stack. There are also several examples around, one is BCTabBarController. GtabBar is another example.
I actually found a way to do it you just have to implement the navigation bar's leftbarbuttonitem instead of the traditional back button. Then I just created a method that is invoked when the back button is pushed this updates the navigation stacks of all four views within the tab bar and sets the tab bar items accordingly to match with the previous views we are navigating back to. . . so long story short...it is possible.

Best iPhone app approach for project

I'm building an iPhone app and I'm sort of confused about which approach should I choose for views and controllers.
I would like to have a tabbar at the bottom with three options. I would also like to have a main view displayed when the app shows (along with the tabbar) but I don't want this view to be part of the tabbar options.
So, when the app begins, the tabbar has no option selected but the main view displayed. When a tabbar options is selected, in its top bar it should display a back button to the main view. When the back button is pressed, the main view display again with no tabbar option selected.
Which approach should I choose?
Hope it makes sense.
Thanks.
I understand what you're trying to do, but you shouldn't do that. I don't like that design at all. You should have one navigation controller for each tab.
You should probably read Apple's Human Interface Guidelines as it's possible they would reject your App if they thought such an implementation with a TabBarController was confusing.
As an alternative, you could possibly have the "main view" as you call it accessible with a button in the Navigation bar at the top and then add that to all three tabs. Not necessarily a better design but you probably wouldn't be breaking the guidelines.
A better alternative might be to use a UIToolBar at the bottom instead of the Tab bar which has the three buttons spawning your views modally which can then be dismissed as you suggest.
Remember though, your App's users have built up a knowledge of how App's are generally supposed to navigate, feel and control so you should think carefully before deciding to go against that.
Firstly, I think you should reconsider giving your Main View it's own tab. That way it's a no-brainer for the user to return to that screen. BUT, if you STILL don't like that idea, read on...
The UITabBarController has the unfortunate side effect of not being able to be removed once created (even if you delay it's creation by instantiating it programmatically).
SO...
Option 1: Make your MainView a modalPresentation sub-view, displaying it ON TOP of one of the views in your tab bar (hiding the tabs until you're ready to show them again).
Option 2: Give a subview of your first tab a...
mySubViewController.hidesBottomBarWhenPushed=YES;
This will make the UITabBarController disappear temporarily (just on that view, until you're ready to show the tabs again).
Both options seem kinda messy to me, but they are possible. Depends on how well you execute them, I suppose.
Hope this helps!
You could add the main view as another tab.
OR
You present the main view modally when the app starts over the tab bar views.
The first option would be used more if the view holds the same kind of content as the tabs, for example if the app was an online store, the tabs would be Categories, Search and Recently Added, with what you call the "main view" being the Home page (showing offers or something). (So all the views/tabs would be showing products on the store)
The second option would be more if the content of the main view is different to the tabs.
Keeping with the online store example, if the tabs were Categories, Search and Recently added and what you call the "main view" being a login/logout screen. (so the tabs would be showing products, but the modal view ("main view") being more admin related, and it's main purpose not being to display products.

Moving a 'UITabBarController with UINavigationController' iPhone app to 'UITabBarController with UISplitView' on iPad

I have an app where the appDelegate has a UITabBarController. Each of the tabs has a navigation controller which I currently use to push a single detail view onto the stack in each tab. I am hoping to replace my navigation controller on each of the tabs with a splitViewController. I use the Interface builder to provide the UINavigationController for each tab. I am having trouble loading a nib for each tab that has a UISplitViewController in it. I am getting an instance of the UITableViewController class displaying on the screen, but I am not getting the UISplitviewController or the Popover or the detail view etc. These classes are all working in a standalone app, but I am not able to get them into each of the tabs in one app. Although I am currently using the Interface Builder I am open to doing this programmatically. If someone has suggestions, or an example small project of a Tab based app with individual split views in the tabs I would appreciate it very much. (As this is my first question I am not sure how much code or other pictures from IB would be helpful for me to post. If you need further detail please let me know and I would gladly amend this post.)
Apple documentation
"The split view controller’s view should always be installed as the root view of your application window. You should never present a split view inside of a navigation or tab bar interface."
Moving on...
Not only shouldn't you -- if you do so, an error is thrown when you run. It's impossible.