I'm wanting to make a multiview app with 5-6 different screens and a data source to store user information. I've never made a multiview app before, and I have a good idea on how to start, but I'd like to hear some recommendations on "structuring" your app to properly support this.
A very simple analogy could be going about making a background color on a website... You could either use an image of a solid color or simply use the background-color style. Both get the job done, but using the style is a bit easier/more efficient.
I just want to make sure I'm starting off on the right foot. Should I keep all my functions in one class' .m/.h file? What's the best/efficient way to go about different screens?
Thanks, and I'll definitely try to help others out once I get a much better grasp on Objective-C and Xcode.
If you are new to the iPhone/iPad I highly recommend you check out the CS193P lectures, they are also avaliale on itunes. They give a good overview of iPhone programing and how things are done in Objective-C / Cocoa Touch. It will get anyone started in the right direction.
As to your specific question. Just start coding. In 6 months you'll realize eveything you wrote is cr*p and needs to be rewritten anyways, but doing it is the only way you'll realize what you wrote is cr*p so...
Some suggestions, specific to multi-viewed apps (which almost every app is) and I'm sure someone else can expand on this...
Learn (as much as possible) to code interactions between different views and viewcontrollers (vs using interface builder). The twitter app for example doesn't use Interface Builder at all.
If you use IB, don't dump everything into one .xib. Learn how to break them up. One .xib per viewcontroller should be it. I never use the IB UITabBarController or IB UINavigationController, those get initilized and used in code only.
Absolutly learn MVC (Model view controller).
The Apple documentation is often a good place to start for most things. Try here first. Hope this helps and good luck!
I used to use a UINavigationController. I created it as a singleton and accessed it statically so I could push and pop controllers easily (theres a reasonably good tutorial here). This is quite lightweight and theres enough documentation to get going with it quickly.
However the best approach I've used is the Three20 framework's TTNavigator. In a nutshell its a beefed up UINavigator that lets you push a new view onto the screen by calling an internal URL:
//(In your app delegate)
//Start up the navigator
TTNavigator* navigator = [TTNavigator navigator];
navigator.persistenceMode = TTNavigatorPersistenceModeTop;
//Map url's to controllers
TTURLMap* map = navigator.URLMap;
[map from:#"*" toViewController:[TTWebController class]];
[map from:#"ac://search" toViewController:[SearchViewController class]];
[map from:#"ac://results/(initToView:)" toViewController:[ResultsViewController class]];
Then to navigate to a controller:
[[TTNavigator navigator] openURLAction:[[TTURLAction actionWithURLPath:#"ac://results/searchResults/"] applyAnimated:YES]];
Whats also cool is that calling that #"ac://results/" the way we have above passes in the param #"searchResults" to the init method of the ResultsViewController ("initToView:") as we defined in the mapper
All the best!
Related
Now,I gonna Develop an App ,which wants to switch from many different Views irregularly,also the views need to load large resources,AKA,it's hard to manage memory.Are there any good solustion?
PS：I created a ViewController as RootViewController,and When a button was Touch,run the code as
"ViewController=newController"
.The problem came,The new View loaded wrong way,it rotate so that couldn't show in a correct way.
I google for the solution,some one said ,I should replace the rootViewController,just like that,
[UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate.window.rootViewController=newController;
But I can't get/set the rootViewController in other class though it's a singleton.
Why not having a class that handles all the view switches ?
This article describes an architecture that might be helpfull: http://www.mikeziray.com/2010/01/27/handling-your-initial-view-controllers-for-iphone/comment-page-1/#comment-607
I'm new to iOS development, obviously, and I'm running into a bit of an issue with many of the tutorials that I find online. While I understand the majority of the code that is going into these programs, I cannot figure out how to translate this one fact, which is probably simple.
Many tutorials either use the Navigation-based template or View-based template, but I would like to try building tab bar applications. Tutorials either use the App Delegate or rootViewController (being the navigation controller), but since my tab bar is my rootViewController, I always run into an issue. I'm also unable to use the applicationDidFinishLaunching method in most of my code, because it technically only applies to the first tab at launch.
These are my questions:
Is there a way to "translate" these files into new classes (for example, creating an instance of NSObject for the App Delegate code for each individual tab or creating instances of UINavigationViewController)?
If I can create the instance of NSObject, how do I ensure that the code links up to the objects that I create in my viewController?
If I can create a file that uses UINavigationController, how do I trick the program into temporarily allowing the Nav Controller to be the rootViewController.
Many thanks in advance!
Right off the top of my head, I can only answer number 3 for you, you could do that in one of two ways that I am aware, and if anyone sees either of these is incorrect or bad practice, I hope someone corrects me, as this is what I have been doing.
[appDelegate.window addSubview:appDelegate.newRootViewController.view];
appDelegate.window.rootViewController = appDelegate.newRootViewController;
or
[self.navigationController pushViewController:appDelegate.newRootViewController animated:YES];
Both should accomplish the same thing, though if you can help it, the second version is ideal. Its also worth noting that for the first one, there is no tricking, you are actually setting the rootViewController of your app to something different.
I'll do some digging and see if I can answer any of your other questions for you too.
Edit: So after re-reading and thinking a bit more about it, I think the other two questions can be answered by maybe clarifying a tab bar application. Unfortunately, I'm fairly new to iOS as well, and I haven't had to opportunity to create a tab bar application, so I don't want to give you incorrect info. I would recommend checking out http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/Creating_an_iOS_4_iPhone_Multiview_Application_using_the_Tab_Bar_%28Xcode_4%29 and hopefully it can give you a little bit of a better idea of how Tab Bar Apps work. I've been using that eBook along with another from that site combined with Ray Wenderlich's tutorials to teach myself.
Anyways, I hope this helps to some extent, if you want me to try to clarify or go into detail on anything just comment and I'll see if I can help.
Good Luck!
-Karoly
You're misunderstanding how the app delegate works.
It's the delegate for the application, not a controller. Your controllers may be loaded from a xib by the time applicationDidFinishLaunching is called, but there's no connection between the two events.
applicationDidFinishLaunching is just the place where you do final setup before the app is ready for use.
If you don't instantiate your tab bar controller in your main xib file, you can instantiate it here, then instantiate all of it's controllers and add them to to the tab bar controller. While you're doing that, you can load plists, set properties on the controllers, etc.
If you do instantiate your tab bar controller in your main xib file, you can still get access to its controllers here. You can edit those controllers or throw them out and create new ones. You can even throw out your tab bar controller and switch to a navigation controller.
I can't answer questions 1 and 2 because the assumptions behind them are invalid.
Rather than ask how you work around perceived problems with the app delegate and tab bar controllers, describe what you're trying to accomplish.
I assume this is going to be a very basic question, but maybe somebody can help me. I've come to iPhone SDK from a C# .NET background.
I would like to know if there is some mechanism similar to what is called in ASP.NET "UserControl" which encapsulates logic and interface. It would be desirable to launch "events" too.
I'm trying to design something like a common header for the entire application, which shows different types of buttons depending of the view where it is placed.
Normally Objective C will support only single Inheritance.We can achieve multiple inheritance
through Delegates called as protocols(user defined).i think it will help you when you google based on this(user defined protocols in iphone sdk).
First of all thanks for your contribution. I realized that I was looking for something different: The views (yeah, I know there were here since the beginning).
I've realized that when I allocate one of my controllers by default it tries to load the xib with the same name. Therefore, I can design the view on the interface builder and then load it on another view as a subview (that's similar to usercontrol concept).
How to make the view adjust to the desired size?:
Controller *controller = [[Controller alloc] initWithNibName:nil bundle:nil];
controller.view.frame = CGRectMake(100, 100, 200, 200);
[self.view addSubview:controller.view];
The only missing here is how to comunicate the view with the subview, but I supose that can be made with a reference to the parent.
Thanks a lot
(PS: I'm going to check the answer as correct just for close the thread. I don't know if this procedure is the best or has enough quality)
TTMessageController (from the Three20 framework) was recommended to me to replicate the email creation behavior. However, I am running into a bit of a problem integrating it with my application. The rest of my application uses a UINavigationController in order to show the various UIViewControllers, but it doesn't seem that TTMessageController works when called by -pushViewController. When I attempt to use pushViewController for a TTMessageController, the size of the view becomes smaller and the buttons on the navigation bar stop working. If anyone could give me any advice regarding how to show the TTMessageController correctly using this method, please let me know.
Thanks for any help!
You should present it modally, using presentModalViewController:animated:.
You should use also the TTNavigator component from the Three20 library.
For instance, basic navigationController doesnt not dispatch appear/disappear events ... so I assume Three20 components work better together !
i have problem with autorotate on iphone
i set up in all classes
- (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation {
return (interfaceOrientation != UIInterfaceOrientationPortraitUpsideDown);
}
but it is not respond ;/
Sample code is: http://b6.s3.p.quickshareit.com/files/testautorotatecb367.zip
problem is only with first tab, if i switch application to second tab, and rotate iphone, interface is rotating. it is not rotating in TAB1, where i put custom UINavigationController
OK
problem is that i do not init navigation views, i use only alloc, after i add alloc] init] all started works OK
Okay, i think i see what the problem is in you code. You need to add your UINavigationBar to the delegate like you did with the tab bar, otherwise it doesn't know of its existence and therefore it isn't rotating because it is confused on what is in the view.
Because I use Interface Builder to take care of all my GUI needs, i'm not sure how to do this manually in code, so, to help you out, here >> http://www.radford.edu/ebalci/Tutorials/SimpleTabNavTemplate.zip is a tutorial kind of thing i made a few days ago for a friend, you can use it as sort of a template or guide to help you out (i hope it will help you)
[my tutorial uses UItableViews for navigation but that is optional]
also, i commented out my rotation methods because i wasn't worried about it at the time, but
if you uncomment them (and i think you have to add the method to one of the classes because i deleted it) it will rotate, i just checked, but was too lazy to re zip it and upload it.
I just want you to know that I pretty much just made this thing a day ago, there is a rich text file in the zip that has instructions, but, it is a rough draft, i haven't really revised it yet so, i hope you can read through it with ease despite the fact it is a rough draft.
Let me know if it helps =) Good Luck
And your custom UINavigationController also has the same
shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation
method that returns YES to landscape views?