Dim out other components when UIPickerView is active - iphone

In my little iPhone application, I created UITableView with a UIPickerView which dynamically slides up when a cell is tapped. Since I don't want users to tap other cell when choosing value in the UIPickerView, I hope to make it less distractible by dimming out all the other components (the table, the title bar, etc). Kind of like what isolator does.
I think there might be some api method does this, but I can't find it. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

When a cell is tapped you can add another uiview and set its alpha 0.5 and keep uipickerview above it so the background will look dimmed.

If you have call back methods for presenting the picker, then you can disable and enable the user interaction of the root view of the view controller.

Related

Newbie TableView challenges

I am building an app that requires a tableview control so that users can select multiple rows and act upon them in some way. I find it easy to load my data and display it using the UITableViewController but it seems when I do it this way I am unable to place any other controls on the page, such as a toolbar to give the user some actions to perform on the selected rows. I can place a toolbar control on the form in the storyboard, but it doesn't render in the emulator.
Using a UIViewController and placing a TableView on it seems to come with its own set of confusing challenges (that will make total sense once I conquer them).
Is there any advice for a smooth way of getting a table view with toolbar controls? Thanks!
don't use a TableViewController. Use a Standard ViewController, then add a UITableView to it, and adjust the size. This way you will be able to do whatever else you want on that view without limiting yourself to the tableView only functionality.
When you do this make sure you add the datasource and delegate to the connected table. Then add cellForRowAtIndex, number of sections, number of rows, and whatever other delegate methods you need for your table.
Good luck
Is there any advice for a smooth way of getting a table view with toolbar controls?
Yes there are few ways to accomplish this, one way would be adding a footerview to your tableviewcontroller check these
http://developer.apple.com/
UIButtons on tableFooterView not responding to events
Easier way to add this is using storyboard.
Just drag and drop a view in to your tableviewcontroller, then you can adjust the views size and put anything from objects menu to inside of the view.
Now the problem with that is view will not be stable position at the bottom of the page like a tabbar. Lets say you have only 1 row in your tableview, footer view will go up just below that 1 row, lets say you have hundreds of items in your tableview toolbar will be at the bottom of the rows.
The other solutions for your problem would be either create a custom view and adding it to current view or window (this is little bit adbance),but if you want this just google it.
Or just as you said, create a viewcontroller and put a uitableview inside. Dont forget to add <UITableViewDelegate,UITableViewDataSource> to your .h file and then you can call UItableview delegate methods.\
Good Luck.

UITableview with UIPageControl?

I am in the making of a restaurant "step by step" ordering app, where I want to list the menu (appetizers, main course etc) in a tableview with the ability to organize the menu contents with a UIPagecontrol. Something similar to the eat24 app way of doing it or how the weather forecast app is constructed.
I already have the tableview set up, now I just need to implement this, which I hope you will help me with or guide me in the right direction, for me to accomplish this :). Would I need to setup a tableview for each of the categories or would it be possible to just update one tableview with the needed information, by swiping to the left or use arrows in a toolbar in the picture? What would the best way to add a toolbar like the one picture (white ring), using the storyboard -> resize tableview and drag the image in or to set it up programmatically?
Option 1 - Updating your tableView
You may update your dataSource so it reflects the state of the "new" tableView. Than you call reloadSections:withRowAnimation: by using UITableViewRowAnimationRight or UITableViewRowAnimationLeft, depending of whats fitting at the moment. This will feel like scrolling to a new tableView. For swiping you could use a UISwipeGestureRecognizer.
Option 2 - Using a scrollView with multiple tableViews
If you want it a little bit easier just setup three tableViews and throw them in a UIScrollView with paging enabled.
PageControl
Of course you need to add and setup a UIPageControl, if you want to show those dots.
Regarding the UI:
You can setup everything in your Storyboard. The background, the arrow buttons, the UIPageControl, you can even add the UISwipeGestureRecognizer within the Storyboard.

Updatable, custom view on a UIToolbar

I want to make a small area to present some information in the middle of a UIToolbar and was wondering what the best way to do this is.
I need to show some text and a graphic, both of which need to be updated (around every 3 seconds) as new information arrives. The graphic is similar to the iPhone signal strength indicator, so it can be either custom drawn or selected from one of 3 graphics (low, medium, high strength).
I'll probably use initWithCustomView: to create a UIBarButtonItem, although I would like the view to be clickable (to allow the user to change the information shown).
What's the best way to make that view? Can I use a NIB, or do I need to do custom drawing in the view? What's the best way to update the buttons? I'm assuming that I'll have to remake the toolbarItems array each time and set it when the information changes. Is there a cleaner way to do this? Thanks.
Using initWithCustomView: sounds like a good way to go. You can create your custom view any way you want: with a NIB, by drawing it, even using images. It can also have its own subviews. It can be any object that inherits from UIView. (So, if you wanted, you could even make it actionable by using a UIButton, a custom UIControl, or a custom UIView with a gesture recognizer attached.)
You shouldn't have to remake toolbarItems (or, for that matter, do anything with it after you've added all your button items) if you just keep a pointer to your custom view UIBarButtonItem. It could be an instance variable. Then, to update the custom view, you could access it as you would any other view. I've never actually tried this, but I can't see any problem with doing it.
You sound like you had it mostly figured out. Hope this is helpful.
I needed the same solution and was hoping for some code examples from you. So I ended up doing it all in IB and the steps are here as follows:
Create UItoolbar in IB with no Items. (A Bar Button Item will be added again once you add the UIView)
Add UIView as subview of UIToolbar
Add UILabels to subview of UIView that is already a subview of the UIToolbar.
Create IBOutlets from UIToolbar, UIView and each UILabel and then you can reference the labels in your app.
I did set the backgrounds to clearColor so the text appears on top of UIToolbar without any box or borders.
And the text updates dynamically which was the desired outcome.
Hope this helps someone as this has been eluding me for a while.

UITableViewCell Swipe for Drawer

This is really more of a curiosity than a hard coding question.
Both Facebook and Twitter both have a feature where swiping a UITableViewCell animates the cell off the side to reveal a drawer with more controls underneath. How is something like that accomplished?
Here is a great open-source method for doing exactly this, based on the behavior of the Twitter app:
https://github.com/thermogl/TISwipeableTableView
This is a problem I have tried a couple of different solutions to. I really liked the behavior of Mailbox (mailboxapp.com). So I set out to achieve this. In the end I ended up with what I believe is a very simple solution: use a UIScrollView inside your cell. I have blog post that discusses and a sample app that demonstrates this behavior.
2 ways to detect swipt action
look at the willTransitionToState: method of UITableViewCell.
this method will be invoked when you swipe at the cell.
Custom swipe detection in a TableViewCell
and then you can change your cell view easily.
You could just implement -tableView:willBeginEditingRowAtIndexPath: in your table view delegate.
From the doc,
This method is called when the user swipes horizontally across a row; ... This method gives the delegate an opportunity to adjust the application's user interface to editing mode.
As a UITableViewCell is just a UIView, you can use this fact to basically do anything you like with it.
To solve your problem, I'd attach a UISwipeGestureRecognizer to detect the swipe and then animate the view to a different state.
For example, you could create a custom cell that has it's content view laying above the "actions view". Whenever there is a swipe, you use a UIView animation to move the content view aside and show the action view with a couple of buttons instead. In a custom UITableViewCell you could add a delegate protocol to have the pressed action and the cell being sent to the delegate, i.e. your controller. There you'd trigger what ever there is to trigger and then transition the cell out of the state.

UITableViewController with a UIPickerView sliding up the screen

I have a UITableView where a cell needs to be filled in with a date by selecting it through a pickerview. Instead of pushing the pickerview onto the navigationController I would want to let it slide up halfway into the screen with the tableview still visible in the upper half of the screen. I've seen some apps doing this neat effect before but I don't see on how to accomplish this.
Anyone some helpful hints on this ?
I did this a little while back and asked about it.
I ended up doing exactly what the highest voted answer says: Put the UIPickerView in the same View as your other items and animate the sliding motion using UIView's beginanimation method.
Add a done button in your tool bar. Add a new target/action to the button to call a method on the UIViewController that has your table view and picker controller. Then have it animate the view back off the screen using a UIView animation block.