Auto-Resizing a dynamic view when rotated - iphone

Question

I have a tab bar application where everything is working fine. I have rotations of the device all working fine with the various Tab Bar View controllers.
Alas it was suggested that a couple of the View Controllers needed a help page. To this end I created a new ViewController that contains a UIWebView (where help can be built into an HTML file).
I create the new "HelpViewController" as follows:
mpHelpPage = [[HelpPageViewController alloc] init];
[mTabBarController.view addSubview: mpHelpPage.view];
[mpHelpPage retain];
mpHelpPage.view.alpha = 0.75f;
This brings up the help page no problems when I'm in portait mode. Unfortunately when I'm in landscape mode and I do the above code it adds the HelpViewController in Portrait (meaning it extends off the bottom of the screen).
As such when I alloc the ViewController above I need some way of telling the ViewController to rotate to the current device orientation.
I am, however, at a loss as to how to get it to do this. Any help would be much appreciated!

Answer 1

I handle this annoyance by putting an orientation check in viewWillAppear:, e.g.
if (self.interfaceOrientation == UIInterfaceOrientationPortrait ||
self.interfaceOrientation == UIInterfaceOrientationPortraitUpsideDown) {
// custom code or call willRotate
} else {
// custom code or call willRotate
}
You can also do this if you prefer
if (UIDeviceOrientationIsPortrait(self.interfaceOrientation)) {
// custom code or call willRotate
} else {
// custom code or call willRotate
}

Answer 2

you should either set the frame-property of your subview in willRotateToInterfaceOrientation:duration: of your ViewController
or you write your own View and set the frame-property in layoutSubviews of your View
The added Subview should handle the layout of its subviews.

Answer 3

Since you've added HelpViewController as a subview and no UIViewController controls it, it will not be resized. You can resize HelpViewController's view manually by detecting a change in the orientation in the shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation: method of the current UIViewController. This method passes the current orientation as its argument, so just check which is the current orientation and set a frame accordingly as:
- (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation
{
if((interfaceOrientation==UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeLeft) || (interfaceOrientation==UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeRight))
mpHelpPage.view.frame = CGRectMake(0,0,480,300);
else
mpHelpPage.view.frame = CGRectMake(0,0,320,460);
return YES;
}
Or, Instead of adding HelpViewControlleras a subView, try [self.navigationController pushViewController:HelpViewController animated:YES];