In my iPhone app, I must have around 9-15 different views, all available from a main menu. I started yesterday with a simple tab bar controllers, but they are only ideal with 6-7 views. Which controller can I use? Is there a nice one for my needs?
Edit: I am talking about around 9-15 menu-points for my application.
Each point is a single, categorizable function. I though about something like the Facebook app, where the app shows 2 menu-pages (slideable) and 9 icons on each page, each with another view / function in it.
look for cocoacontrols.com . i think you will find your need there .....
I think the component you are looking for(the same used in facebook app) is in the three20 library. Its called Launcher. It's like having iphone springboard inside the app. I'd go with that.
Can your views be split into categories? If so, I would suggest using the tab bar tabs as categories, and then using a table view as a menu in each tab.
You could also try using a page control, but 9-15 views seems like they would be obnoxious to navigate with a page control.
I understand that you need to have access to those "views" all the time. You can do what an iphone CNN app does. It uses horizontal scroll, where it has lot's of "views".
This is propably the most challenging part of writing an app for mobile phones. At least i find it not that easy to find the perfect user interface. Espcially if you have so much content and navigation to show.
I think the best way to solve this problem is to write your own navigation. If you want to use something similar like the facebook app - this is not so hard.
Take a UIScrollView in combination with the UIPagingControl. Create a new View for your buttons or whatever you want your user to see and put it in the scroll view. Enable paging for the UIScrollVIew and your almost done. Maybe it's not the easiest way - but in the end it's the most flexible way. You can decide what you want to show and you dont have to be dependent on what some other developer wrote.
Just a thought :)
// Edit: Just read in another question about appLauncher. This might be such a control you are looking for.
https://github.com/rigoneri/myLauncher
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Hi guys i am very eager to know that how we can make a view like in this application having different icons calling different viewcontrollers and edit button to add shorcuts to tab bar at the bottom. Any tutorial link will be appreciated .
Thats a really long view, why would you want that? Unless you are putting that into a UIScrollView..
Check Three20 Launcher, it may suit your needs, and it is widely used in many apps.
Here is a tutorial for using the UITabBarController: http://21gingerman.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/tutorial-and-sample-code-for-iphone-app-with-tab-bar-and-nav-bar/
Which seems like what you're asking for.
It will allow you to have a "More" button which gives you the view you're looking for.
Otherwise, seems like if you need more control, what you're looking for could be accomplished fairly simply with a UIScrollView and some UIImageViews. There are two great videos on using UIScrollView in the developer videos section of the apple dev site. (They open up in iTunes) http://developer.apple.com/videos/
Does anyone know if Apple approve apps with a button in a tab bar that just refreshes the current view and not change the actual view?
I don't think so. The Tab Bar is a very well understood metaphor - like tabs in a folio. Using a tab as a button is definitely not expected behavior.
I'd recommend a UINavigationBar with a button to refresh.
EDIT:
This is a direct quote from Apple's HIG:
Don’t use a tab bar to give users controls that act on elements in the current mode or screen.
If you need to provide controls for your users, use a toolbar instead.
Unfortunately nobody here will be able to give you a definite answer on this. You might even have different results when submitting the app depending on who does the review, or it may change from one version to another when updating.
It clearly violates Apple's HIG, and I'm not sure I have seen many apps use a similar approach.
One thing I know for sure: I much prefer developers stick to the HIG and not do these type of "customizations". In fact, this annoyance might make me chose a competing product instead.
Yes, Apple will approve it. There is no problem with this.
I want like a firefox like multi-tab application for iOS
what would be a good practice?
The user should able to create new tab and close existing ones
are there any existing framework to do so?
Thanks
You'll need to roll your own. For a start, I'd suggest adding UIButtons to a UIScrollView.
i am starting my experience with iphone sdk. and i have a question, which is i am trying to create two pages to the app but i don't know how to link them or design them. like when i start the Xcode i find one page named View to design in it, i want to make that page a welcoming page then the user choose one of the three choices he see in that page. Once he clicked on one of them the program take him to the next page or the page he chose.
thank you
The standard approach on iPhone is a drill-down. Place a UINavigationController in your NIB, make the root-level view your welcome page. Then navigate to dependent views by invoking pushViewController on that navigation controller.
This is a very high-level description; you'd have to fill a lot of blanks. If you create a new project and specify a "navigation-based application", you'll get quite a bit of boilerplate code for this approach.
You really need a good book, I recommend Beginning iPhone 3 Development by Apress.
Take a look at using UIViewController's
- (void)presentModalViewController:(UIViewController *)modalViewController animated:(BOOL)animated
method. You can display your initial view, and when the user presses one of the buttons, display the intended view over top. If you build a new project, and choose "Utility Application" you will get some sample code for how this works.
I've gone through most of the example code and I still need some help. I want to make an uber-simple app: show one screen at startup with a label and a button. click the button and we slide over to another screen (I suppose these are called views) which has another label and the "back" button in the top menu bar. I just want to click back and forth between the two screens.
How do I do this?
Take a look at the NavBar sample on Apple's Developer website. http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/samplecode/NavBar/index.html
You'll need to use a UINavigationController to accomplish the "slide"/"back button" behavior you're talking about. It is as simple as you might think, as long as the app is setup correctly. Essentially, UINavigationControllers allow you to push and pop instances of UIViewController or subclasses thereof, and take care of the animation and view history tracking for you.
The best way to get started, by far, is just open XCode, choose "New Project", and start with the "Navigation-Based Application." Dig around that project for a while and I think you'll start to see clearly what needs to be done.
You can checkout how to get started with that using this tutorial: at wattz.net