Monotouch OpenGL orientation event - iphone

I'm trying to do something that should be very simple, but the interface builder in xCode is doing some stuff behind the curtains that makes it all very unclear.
Basically I want to allow my OpenGL application to be orientation aware, and from what I understand I need to catch these kind of events in an UIViewController.
So, to make it simple, assuming I just created a new project using the standard MonoTouch OpenGL template, what code should I add to catch the orientation events?
Or even better, a template for starting OpenGl without the Interface Builder at all, since I am new to Interface Builder and it only seems to get in the way.

I am not sure if that is what you mean by "orientation aware" but you can have access to the current orientation of the device by calling the following code:
UIDeviceOrientation curOrientation = [[UIDevice currentDevice] orientation];
This will tell you whether the device orientation is Portrait, LandscapeLeft, etc. You can then rotate your views/images accordingly, depending on what you want to achieve.
Please note that UIDeviceOrientation refers to the orientation of the physical device while UIInterfaceOrientation refers to the orientation of the user interface as mentioned in this SO post:
UIDEVICE orientation
You can change the UI orientation by calling the following function:
[[UIDevice currentDevice] setOrientation:someUIInterfaceOrientation];
Hope this helps,

Related

How to change the orientation of the interface through code in iPad

Hello
I am wondering if it is possible to change the orientation of the interface through code in iPhone/iPad.i.e,for example i have a button.if i click on that my interface orientation should change.if it is possible please help me how to do.
Pls go through this
Is there a documented way to set the iPhone orientation?
There is an undocumented property setter on UIDevice that does the trick but obviously generates a compiler warning and could disappear with a future revision of the SDK.
[[UIDevice currentDevice] setOrientation:UIInterfaceOrientationPortrait];
Another link Forcing UIInterfaceOrientation changes on iPhone which may help you

Guide me on UIDevice currentDevice

I am using the following code to set the device orientation
[[UIDevice currentDevice] setOrientation:UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeRight];
when i used i got the warning and i found the below code to fix that warning.
#interface UIDevice (MyPrivateNameThatAppleWouldNeverUseGoesHere)
- (void) setOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)orientation;
#end
Now what i would like to know is ...
Can the app store accepts this code to be in an application?
Thanks for any help!.
oh god, no. The warning you're getting is because this is not a readwrite property; merely adding a category that declares the method will not let you set the orientation. Not only will the AppStore not accept this, it will crash the first time it's called, as there's no accessor. (well, it will PROBABLY crash. There may be an undocumented API here, in which case you'll JUST get rejected).
If you are trying to rotate the view programmatically, you should look at shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation and if you just want the App to be of a specific orientation, try using UIInterfaceOrientation set in plist.
Another useful post:
Forcing UIInterfaceOrientation changes on iPhone
Instead of setting an orientation, the proper way to do it is by having your application listen for when the user rotates the phone, then return YES or NO to indicate that the app should, in fact, rotate (i.e. always return NO if you want the app to always remain in its initial state.) The shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation: method is automatically called whenever the user changes orientation.
For example, in your view controller, implement the method to only allow the phone to be used in landscape right/left:
- (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation {
if (UIDeviceOrientationIsLandscape) { return YES };
return NO;
}
You will also want to set your app's default orientation (so it doesn't start in portrait mode) by adding the UIInterfaceOrientation tag to your app's info.plist file with the value UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeRight. Otherwise, the default value is portrait, and the user will have to tilt the phone to get it into the expected orientation.

Why can't I retrieve UIDeviceOrientation correctly while playing a movie in MPMoviePlayerController?

Everything works fine while I'm not playing anything (I'm calling beginnotifications, etc, and using the orientation to rotate my view). But after I start playing with MPMoviePlayerController everytime when I try
UIDeviceOrientation orientation = [[UIDevice currentDevice] orientation];
The orientation gets a UIDeviceOrientationUnknown.
Any clue?
When the movie stops everything works alright again.
I need this orientation to rotate the player's window, because Im using Iphone OS 3.1 so I can't directly use the view property inside MPMovie player controller.
I haven't found a way to do this at least in iPhone OS version lower than 3.2. I gave up.
But hey, I had to code a version for my app in the Ipad and I discovered that for iPhone OS 3.2, there's a way to do it.
The only thing you have to do is to use a custom class, that you have to make child of MPMoviePlayerViewController and override the method shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation to return yes whenever you want the autorotation to be performed. It's all in the MPMoviePlayerViewController class reference.
– Zelldweller

How can I programmatically know which interface orientaton I am in when the application loads?

Using some of the methods, I am able to check the orientations to which I am rotating my device. But how can I know the orientation in which I am in when the app is loaded? I want to write the code to rearrange the views in the viewDidLoad method by checking the way my orientation is in?
UIDeviceOrientation myOrientation = [[UIDevice currentDevice] orientation];
You could also use something similar to below in the ViewDidLoad/ViewWillAppear methods.
if(UIInterfaceOrientationIsLandscape(self.interfaceOrientation)){
}

Determine UIInterfaceOrientation on iPad

I don't need to specify the orientation in this case, I just need to detect it, but I'm having trouble. I have conditional code that should only work in portrait, and if the device is in landscape I need to do something else. Since the deviceOrientation is not necessarily the same as the interfaceOrientation, I can't come up with a way to test for portrait mode.
Most tutorials I find on Google are ways to force landscape or do some sort of rotation. The only thing I want to do is just determine what the orientation is. Here is my code, which is not working:
-(void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
//currentOrientation is declared as UIInterfaceOrientation currentOrientation
currentOrientation = [[UIApplication sharedApplication] statusBarOrientation];
NSLog(#"%#",currentOrientation); // == NULL
}
I need to determine the value of the interfaceOrientation and program conditionally. Thanks for your help!
Are you aware of the interfaceOrientation property of the UIViewController class?
- (void) viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
BOOL isPortrait = UIDeviceOrientationIsPortrait(self.interfaceOrientation);
// now do whatever you need
}
Or are you after [[UIDevice currentDevice] orientation]?
Especially at launch I have found the following to be always accurate for the UI, regardless of what the UIDevice says the orientation is.
[UIApplication sharedApplication].statusBarOrientation
self.interfaceOrientation is unreliable in certain situations. For example, re-arranging tabs in a tabbar application returns incorrect value.
However [UIApplication sharedApplication].statusBarOrientation is always reliable. You saved me a lot of time slycrel. Thank you.
UIInterfaceOrientation orientation = [UIApplication sharedApplication].statusBarOrientation;
if ((orientation == UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeLeft)
|| (orientation == UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeRight) )
{
//Landscape
}
else
{
//Portrait
}
I know it is a very old post. How ever I would like to add a point to say it is better to check status bar orientation is better. When ever you call self.interfaceorientation it is calling shouldRotateToOrientation every time. If you have written some code in that method it will be executed. So be cautious!.
UIDeviceOrientation deviceOrientation = [UIDevice currentDevice].orientation;
UIInterfaceOrientation statusBarOrientation = [UIApplication sharedApplication].statusBarOrientation;
if(deviceOrientation == UIDeviceOrientationFaceUp || deviceOrientation == UIDeviceOrientationFaceDown){
if(debug){
NSLog(#"Nothing to change because it is gone to Flat");
}
return;
}
if(deviceOrientation !=statusBarOrientation){
if(debug){
NSLog(#"\nApple has a bug?:\n UIDeviceOrientation : %d, UIInterfaceOrientation: %d",deviceOrientation, statusBarOrientation );
}
}
You won't believe me until you will see at the console the second output!
Some situations - and they exists! - is displayed the last NSLog content!
Than you have to do some workarounds to go on that way, where iOS has no bug, good luck for everyone!
Ah that ... forum moderator maybe will delete this post too, because this doesn't meant to be and answer in his opinion!
I hope it helps for somebody once, it happens on iphone too...(there I got)
Mix it up a little:
BOOL isLandscape = self.view.frame.size.width > self.view.frame.size.height;
(edit) Obviously the previous answers are the correct way to do this and this solution would fail in a situation where view controllers are not full-screen.
-(void)willRotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)toInterfaceOrientation duration:(NSTimeInterval)duration{</br>
if (UIDeviceOrientationIsLandscape(toInterfaceOrientation)) {</br>
some instructions;
} else {
some instructions;
}
}
This is a snippet from one of my programs.
You could of course use the if statement in your ViewDidLoad notification as well.
I already voted up the answer by #slycrel, but I would like to take the time to write this, and point some things out that seems to be lost in this old question, and lots of other questions on the subject.
It's true that Apple does not really want us to update most of our UI based on orientation changes, but it is still totally possible and sometimes necessary on a case by case scenario, and it will be that way until Apple improves their new(ish) APIs (e.g. viewWillTransitionToFrame: would be way more useful than viewWillTransitionToSize:. Just sayin')
Why I voted up the answer by #slycrel is related to what you need to keep in mind as the logical difference between UIDeviceOrientation and UIInterfaceOrientation.
Tthe status bar is what denotes an application's currently known UIInterfaceOrientation. All this stuff about FaceUp, FaceDown is only related to a device's orientation, not necessarily your application's. An application does not support device orientations anyway. Really, UIDeviceOrientation can be ignored completely if all you have to do is make sure you layout and animate things appropriately in your interface, which is 99% of an application developer's use cases. This is currently achieved with the status bar's UIInterfaceOrientation from #slycrel's answer:
[UIApplication sharedApplication].statusBarOrientation
It should be noted, the readwrite version of this property is deprecated, the readonly version is not.
Take this example:
I have an application that supports ALL interfaces orientations, and a root view controller that supports them as well.
Now, I am presenting a UIViewController that will result in the status bar orientation to become landscape.
Which landscape orientation (left or right) it goes to is based on what is returned by preferredInterfaceOrientationForPresentation for that view controller, what the current device orientation is, and what interface orientations the view controller supports (see next point).
The status bar will go to landscape, regardless of what the current device orientation is, because this view controller only supports landscape based on what is returned by supportedInterfaceOrientations. Lets say we support both landscape left and right with UIInterfaceOrientationMaskLandscape.
I also want to conditionally animate this view controller into position with a rotation transform. This will only be necessary when going from portrait or portrait upside down, to landscape left or landscape right. Otherwise it will be a more simple presentation animation without rotation.
Then, after some time and device use, I dismiss that view controller.
Now I want to conditionally animate this view controller off the screen with another rotation transform. This will only be necessary when going from landscape left or landscape right, to portrait or portrait upside down. Otherwise it will be a more simple dismissal animation without rotation.
At this point, the status bar's orientation will become whatever the system decides is appropriate for the combination of your root view controller's preferred interface orientation and supported interface orientations, as well as the device's current UIDeviceOrientation.
Since the view controller we are going to supports ALL interface orientations, if your device's orientation is FaceUp or FaceDown, you can not reliably guess the next UIInterfaceOrientation based on UIDeviceOrientation, and you do not have to anyway.
So... status bar orientation to the rescue!
The previous example is possible, because the status bar orientation is not updated when a view controller transition is about to start (the system asks a transition delegate for an animator, etc.). Then it is updated when the transition starts animating (e.g. by the time animationTransition: is called). This way you should have a good comparison just using the initial and current values of the status bar's UIInterfaceOrientation.
Even without using view controller transitions, it should still be safe to update views based on the status bar orientation.
Keep in mind, if you are manually updating the status bar, and if you are not using "View controller-based status bar appearance" in your Info.plist, then your application's logic must be aware when the status bar will and did change orientation. You will probably be looking for a couple NSNotification names for these cases, which are:
UIApplicationWillChangeStatusBarOrientationNotification
UIApplicationDidChangeStatusBarOrientationNotification
As well as these UIApplicationDelegate methods:
- (void)application:(UIApplication *)application willChangeStatusBarOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)newStatusBarOrientation duration:(NSTimeInterval)duration;
- (void)application:(UIApplication *)application didChangeStatusBarOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)oldStatusBarOrientation;
- (UIInterfaceOrientationMask)supportedInterfaceOrientationsForWindow:(nullable UIWindow *)window
And this other helpful UIApplication property:
#property(nonatomic,readonly) NSTimeInterval statusBarOrientationAnimationDuration;
As of iOS8, APIs have been deprecated or return unhelpful results such as .FaceUp .FaceDown
This is because Apple does NOT want you to update your UI using orientation, but rather by using size classes, constraints, and proportion (using n% of superview).
Indeed, orientation dependent code might fail to provide good results across the whole range of device and use case (especially multitasking)