How to design multiple views in iPhone - iphone

I am making code for iPhone. My first screen has only one button with text Menu. When user will click on this button next screen is coming with multiple navigation bar.Each Navigation bar has their own Text information which are being selected after clicking on any Navigation bar.
How i should to design it for iPhone ? Please give me concept. Should i take multiple views ? If i have multiple views how will i hide and show on button click event ?
Thanks in advance.

You will have to adapt your user interface to comply to how Apple wants an app to work, look, and feel - or make your own custom viewcontrollers. Even then, you might not get the exact behavior you want.
My hottest tip is to look at similar apps on appstore and see how they are navigated.
I don't get a picture in my mind from your description, but it seems you want what is called "drill down". This is best done with tableViews.
You can't have multiple navigation controllers on the same "screen"; it doesn't work like that on the iPhone. Instead, what you have is one single Navigation controller, that controls the pushing of views. You decide which sub-view to push depending on which selection the user makes, and the Navigation controller handles the rest of the interaction with the user to let him or her navigate between the views.
Example structure:
Window-based app
+-MainWindow.xib
| +-First view with button
| +-UINavigationController
+-tableview1.xib
+-tableview2.xib
+-any more views you need.
Make the app delegate a <UINavigationControllerDelegate> and declare navCt *UINavigationController, and connect it in Interface Builder. You can then write a pushVC method, which takes as argument a UIViewController *vc. It does a [navCt pushViewController:vc animated:YES];
Connect the button to an IBAction, which then calls the method in the app delegate, [PushVC myVC], where myVC refers to any viewcontroller in your app, in this case table view 1.
In this table, on didSelectRow... event you can use the same method to push the sub-view table view 2.
I think this is minimum code if you are unsure about iPhone app design. Either way, I hope it gives some ideas.

You should read about UINavigationController, UITabBarController, UIViewController.
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/uikit/reference/UIViewController_Class/Reference/Reference.html
You almost always make one view pr. viewcontroller.

Related

Objective - C How to manage multiple views with View Controller iphone

I am new in developing iOS apps. I am trying to develop a multiple views app. My doubt is how to manage a multiple views app with View Controller, I mean, I do not want to use Navigation Controller nor Tab Controller.
My idea is to show a first View to choose the language, and after this, I want to show some different profiles in a table view. When you choose the profile, you get into a menu where you have some different functionalities (Once in this menu, I might use Navigation Controller).
My problem is that I don't know how to manage these two first views. I don't know if I have to declare them in the appDelegate, or if I can do it nesting one to other, I mean, I do the first view, and when I pressed the button, I declare the new view. Once in the new view, when I pressed a row in the table view, I make the another view.
I know it is a little bit confusing, so I hope you could understand it quite well.
EDIT:
I want to clarify that I am not using storyboards. My main doubt is what to do with all de view controllers, Do I have to declare all of them in the appDelegate? or Can I declare each view in every controller?
If you are using storyboards, you can use Segue's to navigate between the views, so you would show your first view, then you could tie a button to the next view (by control dragging in storyboard). If you want to transition programmatically you can use the performSegueWithIdentifier method. You could use the same approach to get from your tableViewController to your next viewController by using the performSegueWithIdentifier method from within the tableViewController's didSelectRowAtIndexPath delegate method (i.e. when a user taps a cell).
That should get you started. Good luck!
EDIT:
You really should be using storyboards. It's the way to do things these days. If you refuse, then the best approach is to create a container view controller that manages your "children" view controllers. You can find information on doing this, as well as the methods needed to present/remove child view controllers here:
Custom Container View Controllers
You can use navigation controller with "hidden" property.
self.navController.navigationBarHidden = YES;
If you want to have two different views and transition between them, you will want to use UIViewControllers presented modally. Here is Apple's Guide to this.

Right way to switch between UIViews in ios programming

Hy everybody
I am a newbie ios programmer and I'm facing many doubts when I must switch the pages of my app.
With the term "page" I mean a UIView that fills the whole screen with some widgets (buttons, textboxes. tables..)
As far as I have understood what I've read I should use an UIViewController to manage each of these pages
since each page should be a screen’s worth of content.
My App starts with a ViewScroller with many buttons and when the user clicks one of these it opens a new page.
The first page is the UIView connected to the RootController Of the Window.
So far to open the new pages I add a child controller to the RootController and it's view as a child of the view of the RootController:
RicLocaliController = [[RicercaLocaliViewController alloc] initWithNibName:#"RicercaLocaliViewController" bundle:nil];
[self addChildViewController:RicLocaliController];
[RicLocaliController didMoveToParentViewController:self];
[self.view addSubview:RicLocaliController.view];
RicLocaliController.view.frame = self.view.bounds;
When the user clicks the "Back" Button I remove the child controller and the child view.
Going down this road I would get a dynamic tree of Controllers with their Views.
So far I have not encountered problems and my app can go up to a third level in the tree and come back. Each page behaves correctly when orientation changes.
But I'm afraid that adding, for each subpage, a child controller and a child view could be not the right thing to do.
I'm afraid that if I nest a lot of pages when the orientation changes the app could respond slowly since also the superviews will do something to manage this event.
So what I wonder is if what I am doing is completely senseless, if I should use Navigation controllers or some other way to manage my page changes.
Unfortunately my boss is not giving me enough time to study well the subject and so I would like an advice to follow the best solution possibly using the most standard and less complex component offered by the framework instead of the newest features.
I read a lot of web pages on the subject but it seems to me that there are many ways to manage the navigation beetwen pages and this makes me confused.
I apologize for my bad english but i'm tired and English it's not my first language.
You HAVE to do some studying. You will spend more time clearing up all your problems later otherwise... but, here are some tips.
Using nested ViewControllers leads to all kinds of trouble so if you are short of time, skip that.
Think of each "Page" as one ViewController. A ViewController has a property called View but that is actually just the top view of a whole hierarchy of views. A view is the base class for any visual object, like labels, buttons etc. All views can have subviews, so you can add an image under a label etc. and do really wierd stuff if you want to. I am just saying this to free your mind about how you can use views.
Now, ViewControllers are supposed to hold to code to ONE view hierarchy. That view hierarchy is for that View Controller only.
When the user wants to navigate to another page, you have a few alternatives:
NavigationViewController - that should be used when the user wants to delve down into data, like opening a detailed view of an item in a list etc. The NavigationViewController gives you help with back buttons, proper animation etc. You "pop" a viewcontroller to go back one level. If the user click the back-button, this is automatic.
TabBarViewController - use that if you want a tab bar at the bottom of the screen. Each tab is connected to a ViewController, that has it's own view hierarchy.
PushModal - If you are in a ViewController and just needs to get some data from the user, which is not part of the normal navigation of the app, you can push a new ViewController modally. This is the way you interact with iOS built in ViewControllers. This is also a good way to get a value back from the view controller.
There you have it. Go learn more. :)
It sounds like, for what you are using, you should be using a navigation controller. This will automatically handle pushing views onto the stack and then popping them off again later. This will also automatically create a back button (it is customizable) in the navigation bar.
If you are using iOS 5 or 6, I highly recommend trying out "storyboards" in Interface Builder. Storyboards allow you to graphically represent transitions (called "segues") between different views.
On top of being easier to design and implement, another advantage is that, if in the future you want to change the design of your application, you don't have to trawl through all your code and manually update each view connection.

Is this a valid structure of an app

I have the following structure in my app, is this a correct/valid way of doing it?
UINavigationController attached to the window, the rootcontroller in this navigationcontroller is a UIViewController that presents a tableview. When a user taps one of the rows a UITabBarController is pushed on the stack.
This works, however I began to be unsure when I read this:
Because the UITabBarController class
inherits from the UIViewController
class, tab bar controllers have their
own view that is accessible through
the view property. When deploying a
tab bar interface, you must install
this view as the root of your window.
Unlike other view controllers, a tab
bar interface should never be
installed as a child of another view
controller.
This is not recommended, but it should be OK. The aweful Wordpress app also does this. This depends on the design of your app.
I'm not shure about Apple's approval.
The reason why this is not recommended (and thus might not get approved - now or at a later point!) is user confusion.
Users are used to regard the tab bar as top-level navigation. So if dig down using the table and navigation, and then getting a UITabBar, this is horrible for navigation as the user doesn't know what to expect.
The solution here, of course depending on the use case, is a "switch" in the navigation bar or a toolbar. UISegmentedControl would be a natural choice.

iPhone, how what I show smaller views ontop of normal view and switch between my current normal views?

I'd like to display some small tutorial dialogs on top of my exiting views. I want to be able to see my existing views behind these smaller views.
Do I have to use view controllers in the same I way I would me normal views, and presentmodalviewcontroller etc ?
I haven't tried making a smaller view in interface builder before.
Also, say I want to move to another one of my existing views, full screen, while in my tutorial view. How would I close my tutorial view move to the next full screen view and launch another tutorial view ?
Example code or pseudo code would be welcome.
If your tutorial dialogs are just text, you could use UIAlertView to show the information to the user, so they can just read it and click the OK button when they're done. It's a very easy way to show some text to the user.
If you need to include images or other interactive items in your tutorial dialogs, the easiest way might be for you to just have your fullscreen view's view controller create a new view and put it up. So in this case, you'd create your view in Interface Builder, and when you want to show it, instantiate it using -[UIBundle loadNibNamed:owner:options:] and add it as a subview of your main view. Of course, it may even be easier to create the tutorial view programmatically from your view controller rather than using a nib for them at all.
Regarding the question of moving on to another fullscreen view, you would probably want to look into embedding your view controllers in a UINavigationController. This would allow you to push from the first controller to the second very easily, and the user would be able to just tap the Back button to get back to the first. If you're not looking for a navigation bar type of interface, you could present the second view controller as a modal view controller by calling -[UIViewController presentModalViewController:animated:] on your main view controller. This will pop up the second view controller fullscreen, and the user can dismiss it when they're done. Check out Apple's great documentation on UINavigationController to get a feel for how to use that:
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/ViewControllerPGforiPhoneOS/NavigationControllers/NavigationControllers.html%23//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007457-CH103-SW1
I would think that you could use existing UIViewController and simply add a new UIView that is of desired dimensions, that sits in front of other views and which is non-opaque and has alpha less than 1.
If you want a general purpose tutorial mechanism that can be placed atop any one of many UIViewControllers, then you would want to extract the navigation logic, etc.
Sorry, no code - just a few quick thoughts.

UINavigation controller problem

I'm developing an iPhone application and I'm trying to do this:
I want an application with tree views. The view shown first, doesn't have a navigation bar. If the user tap on a button, I need to open the second view with a navigation bar and a table view. The user can also add new items to the table view. If the user do so, the application will show the third view where the user can add fields (this view has also a navigation bar).
It may seem simple, but for me it is not. I don't know how to use the UINavigationController and have not found yet a similar example for what I do (paragraph translated by google).
UPDATE
I don't know how where to put UINavigationController.
How can I do that? Can I use a UIViewController to call a UINavigationController?
Thank you.
take a look at the Recipes example (it also uses core data which may confuse things a little) http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/samplecode/iPhoneCoreDataRecipes/Introduction/Intro.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS40008913
There is also a simpler starting point here http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/samplecode/TableViewSuite/Introduction/Intro.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS40007318 but the Recipe example covers just about everything you need.
EDIT:added the following
For the very simplest example use XCode to build a new application - a navigation based application (sorry, I'm in front of a PC today so that is from memory). That will give you a blank application with the navigation controller created. You then use the navigation controller to push and pop your view controllers
ViewController Programming Guide