Best Practice to Float a View over Another View? - iphone

I have a 320x460 view with a number of buttons, depending on the button pressed, a 280x280 view pops up over the 320x460 view (similar to the behavior of the UIAlertView) using code like this:
UIView *overlayView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(20, 200, 280, 280)];
overlayView.backgroundColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
[overlayView autorelease];
[overlayView addSubview:label]; // label declared elsewhere
[overlayView addSubview:backgroundImage]; // backgroundImage declared elsewhere
//... Add a bunch of other controls
[label release];
[backgroundImage release];
//... Release a bunch of other controls
[self.view addSubview:overlayView];
Everything works fine displaying the overlayView and all its controls.
The question I have is, how do I get rid of the overlayView once it's displayed? I want to make it not only not visible but to remove it completely, since the user will be popping up the overlayView repeatedly during use.

You need access to overlayView to remove it, I'd suggest adding this to the create side:
overlayView.tag = 5; // Or some other non-zero number
Then later you can use it like this:
-(void)removeOverlayView
{
UIView *overlayView = [self.view viewWithTag:5];
[overlayView removeFromSuperview];
}

Related

Very odd UIView position issue

I'm having a strange issue when it comes to adding content to a UIScrollView.
Below are the results for the same method getting called. The one on the left is the result of the call from viewDidLoad. The one one the right is called from a custom method which fires when the label is touched.
The code is pretty straight forward:
CGRect scrollRect = CGRectMake(0, 64, 320, [[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds].size.height - 49);
_containerView = [[UIScrollView alloc] initWithFrame:scrollRect];
_containerView.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
UILabel *myLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(10, 5, 300, 40)];
myLabel.text = #"my label";
myLabel.textColor = [super colorFromHexString:0x472C37];
myLabel.numberOfLines = 0;
[myLabel sizeToFit];
y_offset += myLabel.frame.size.height;
[_containerView addSubview:myLabel];
[self.view addSubView:_containerView];
I've checked the parent (self.view) and its coordinates are always 0,0. Really stumped by this...
In viewDidLoad your subViews components are not totally initialized yet, so if you are using the frame of some of them you will get an undesired result. viewDidLayoutSubviews is probably what you are looking for. This is the method where all the subviews frames are completly initialized.
Try to call your code inside this method and you should get the same result as the one when clicking in the button.
-(void)viewDidLayoutSubviews
{
[super viewDidLayoutSubviews];
[self setupView];
}

UIActivityIndicatorView in an UIScrollview

I have a full screen UIScrollView to display my image. An UIActivityIndicatorView is added to the UIScrollView, it spinning well, but how could i make it always spinning in the middle of the screen while I am scrolling, zooming, rotating?
If you add the UIActivityIndicatorView directly to the scroll view it will scroll with the scroll view. But, if you add it to the parent of the scroll view it will remain where it was placed. So, the solution is to add it to the parent of the scroll view.
Notes:
I would recommend having a UIViewController in your window, and then adding these both to the UIViewController.
See the discussion here about adding views directly to your window:
View Controller being sent a message even though it has been deallocated
In ur .h file
UIView *primaryImage;
UIView *secondaryImage;
UIActivityIndicatorView *indicator;
In ur .m file
-(void)indicatorView
{
primaryImage = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0,0,320,480)];
primaryImage.backgroundColor = [UIColor blackColor];
primaryImage.alpha =0.5;
//[self.view.superview insertSubview:primaryImage aboveSubview:self.view.superview];
//[theTableView addSubview:primaryImage];
[self.view addSubview:primaryImage];
secondaryImage = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(127.50,215,65,50)];
secondaryImage.backgroundColor = [UIColor blackColor];
secondaryImage.alpha = 0.9;
secondaryImage.layer.cornerRadius = 12;
[primaryImage addSubview:secondaryImage];
indicator = [[UIActivityIndicatorView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(30, 25, 25, 25)];
indicator.center = CGPointMake(32, 25);
//[indicator hidesWhenStopped];
[indicator startAnimating];
[secondaryImage addSubview:indicator];
}
-(void)dismissCoverImageView {
[indicator stopAnimating];
[indicator removeFromSuperview];
[secondaryImage removeFromSuperview];
[primaryImage removeFromSuperview];
}
and after that you can call [self indicatorView];
and [self dismissCoverImageView];
Define the UIScrollViewDelegate of your UIScrollView. And in the delegate method –(void)scrollViewDidScroll:(UIScrollView *)scrollView change the frame of UIActivityIndicator object.

UIScrollView covers UIButton

I have created a UIScrollView and am now trying to place a UIButton over the scroll view. However when I build and run the application the scroll view still works fine but I cannot see the UIButton.
I link the UIButton IBOutlet inside the interface builder.
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];
// Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.
scrollView = [[UIScrollView alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] applicationFrame]];
scrollView.backgroundColor = [UIColor blackColor];
scrollView.delegate = self;
scrollView.bounces = NO;
backgroundImage = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:#"auckland-300.jpg"]];
image = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:#"249a-134206f1d00-1342071f5d9.ImgPlayerAUCKLAND.png"]];
// Note here you should size the container view appropriately and layout backgroundImage and image accordingly.
containerView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0,0,601,601)];
playButton = [[UIButton alloc] init]; //test button cannot see it.
[containerView addSubview:backgroundImage];
[containerView addSubview:image];
scrollView.contentSize = containerView.frame.size;
[scrollView addSubview:containerView];
scrollView.minimumZoomScale = 0.5;
scrollView.maximumZoomScale = 31.0;
[scrollView setZoomScale:scrollView.minimumZoomScale];
self.view = scrollView;
}
Any help would be appreciated
Everything seems ok. But I think the reason you are not able to see the button playButton is because you are not adding it to the view itself.
Dont you need to do this ? [containerView addSubview:playButton];
To help you out, here's what I do for debugging -
UIView implements a useful description method. In addition, it
implements a recursiveDescription method that you can call to get a
summary of an entire view hierarchy.
NSLog(#"%#", [controller.view recursiveDescription]);
The button is probably in the nib that you linked the controllers view to, right? By assigning the scrollview to the view, you remove the view from
The nib from the controller, that's why you can't see te button or press it.
You can either place the button in the scrollview or you add both scrollView and thenthe playButton as subviews of self.view.
Maybe you want to rethink your design tho.
Placing a button over a scrollview doesn't really seem like good practice to me.

iPhone: Add "loading" subView

I am wanting to show a simple loading dialog when certain things are happening in my app. I figured I would just create a new view, add a label to that, and then set that view to a subView of my current view.
When doing this, I don't see anything!
Here is how I am writing my method:
- (void)showLoading {
UIView *loading = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 200, 200)];
loading.backgroundColor = [UIColor blackColor];
UILabel *txt = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(198, 9, 94, 27)];
txt.text = #"Loading...";
txt.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
[loading addSubview:txt];
[super.view addSubview:loading];
[super.view bringSubviewToFront:loading];
[loading release];
[txt release];
}
Am I doing this completely wrong?
EDIT:
I added it to the viewDidLoad method, and it works how I want:
loading = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(100, 100, 200, 200)];
loading.backgroundColor = [UIColor blackColor];
UILabel *txt = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 94, 27)];
txt.text = #"Loading...";
txt.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
[loading addSubview:txt];
[txt release];
[self.view addSubview:loading];
[self.view bringSubviewToFront:loading];
But when loading it from a method, it seems to lag, and not show up for a bit.
Although this doesn't directly answer your question, I'd recommend grabbing MBProgressHUD from GitHub and using that in place of a static label. Looks better, less code for you to directly maintain, etc. You can find it at http://github.com/matej/MBProgressHUD
The way I use it is by creating a subclass of UITableViewController and defining a handful of methods to show and hide the HUD view. From there, I call each relevant method when I'm loading or done loading.
Specifically, I have four methods: -hudView, -showLoadingUI, -showLoadingUIWithText:, and -hideLoadingUI.
-hudView creates a new MBProgressHUD object if one doesn't already exist, and adds it to the current view ([self.view addSubview:hudView]).
-showLoadingUI calls -showLoadingUIWithText: with a default title, -showLoadingUIWithText: just unhides the MBProgressHUD and sets a label value for it (self.hudView.labelText = #"foo";).
-hideLoadingUI hides the hudView ([self.hudView hide:YES]).
First, I don't think UIView has method called init. You may just call the super of it. The appropriate method you should call is - (id)initWithFrame:(CGRect)aRect . The frame is the position, the size of the View you want to display. More here
Another thing is why you call [super.view addSubView:], I think it should be self.view, isn't it?

UINavigationBar Bottom Separator Line Color

How can I change the line's color that separates the navigation bar and the view?
For instance flickr changed it to gray (http://www.geardiary.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Screen-shot-2009-09-08-at-8.00.06-AM.png)
By default mine is always black...
Thanks in advance for your help,
nico
They used a custom bottom bar and not the Apple provided ones. I dont know your setup, but if you can make or draw your own custom view however you want (you can do this), and stick buttons on it (you can do this too), then you have a toolbar
#define TOOLBAR_HEIGHT 44
CGRect frame = CGRectMake(self.view.bounds.size.height - TOOLBAR_HEIGHT, 0.0, self.view.bounds.size.width, TOOLBAR_HEIGHT);
UIView *customBottomBar = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:frame];
[customBottomBar setBackgroundColor: [UIColor grayColor]];
UIButton *button = [[UIButton alloc] initWithFrame:<frame goes here>]
... <button setup>
[customBottomBar addSubview:button];
[button release];
...<more buttons>
...<more buttons>
[self.view addSubview:customBottomBar];
[customBottomBar release];
And to answer your question, you can add whatever you want to any view, so while the way I just suggest is the most customizable, you might just want to place a 1pixel high colored bar at the right spot (on top of the existing toolbar) by doing this:
CGRect frame = CGRectMake(self.view.bounds.size.height - TOOLBAR_HEIGHT, 0.0, self.view.bounds.size.width, 1);
UIView *customLine = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:frame];
[customLine setBackgroundColor: [UIColor grayColor]];
[self.view addSubview:customLine];
[customLine release];