I've implemented workflow that uses a table view and a detail view with a navigation bar. I have been using the viewWillDisappear: message on the detail view to save the user's work, which I like because it makes sense intuitively, but it also gives the chance to set a cancel flag if the user wants to discard their work.
However, when I add the ability to take a picture to the workflow, it means that the viewWillDisappear: now is called both when the user goes back to the table and when going to the camera view. Is there a technique or method I can implement to make it so that the user's work is saved when going back to the table, but half finished work isn't saved when going into subviews?
You can check if a the detail view is being popped in the viewWillDisappear: method. The solution would be something similar to the answer to this question:
viewWillDisappear: Determine whether view controller is being popped or is showing a sub-view controller
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I get used to put either of viewWillAppear and viewDidLoad, it's OK until know. However I'm thinking there should be some rules that guide when to put into viewWillAppear and when to put into viewDidLoad?
Simple rule I use is this. viewDidLoad is when the view's resources are loaded. The view is not drawn onscreen yet. So calculations and code dealing with the geometry and visuals of the view should not be put here. They should be in the viewWillAppear or viewDidAppear method.
Also viewWillAppear can be called multiple times
When a popover/modal view is displayed and remove
When an alert view/actionsheet/uiactivityController's view is displayed and removed.
For these reason, viewWillAppear should not contain codes that takes longer to finish. (at least the code running on the main thread). Neither should codes that only needs to be run once per view display.
There are more I am sure but these are simple to remember and I hope it helps.
viewDidLoad: Alerts you that a view has finished loading
viewWillAppear: Runs just before the view loads
viewDidLoad is things you have to do once. viewWillAppear gets called every time the view appears. You should do things that you only have to do once in viewDidLoad - like setting your UILabel texts. However, you may want to modify a specific part of the view every time the user gets to view it, e.g. the iPod application scrolls the lyrics back to the top every time you go to the "Now Playing" view.
However, when you are loading things from a server, you also have to think about latency. If you pack all of your network communication into viewDidLoad or viewWillAppear, they will be executed before the user gets to see the view - possibly resulting a short freeze of your app. It may be good idea to first show the user an unpopulated view with an activity indicator of some sort. When you are done with your networking, which may take a second or two (or may even fail - who knows?), you can populate the view with your data. Good examples on how this could be done can be seen in various twitter clients. For example, when you view the author detail page in Twitterrific, the view only says "Loading..." until the network queries have completed.
What I am asking may be impossible and sound weird, but here it goes.
Here is similar to what I want to achieve:
A user opens the app for the first time, there are two tab bars, in the first one (he has not tapped the second one yet) he presses a button that should initiate a progress view and text view changes and other view changes EVEN THOUGH the user has not loaded the other view controller by clicking the second tab bar.
So, is there a way to generally load a view controller before the user manually loads it himself, I know calling viewDidLoad manually will not help, any suggestions? Pretty confusing, it is like modifying a view but the controller has not loaded yet...
Thanks!
Make the changes in the other view controller and then let the controller configure its own view when it does its natural loading.
I'm using a navigationController to push a new view onto the stack. Once I'm done with that view I pop it. I want the original or root view at the bottom of the stack which then becomes active to know when this has happened to it can call a method on itself
There are two options
1. implement -(void) viewWillAppear:animated: This is often a useful strategy for knowing that a view is about to become visible. If you are always doing the same thing when this happens, then this is quick and easy.
2. Send a NSNotification. This is useful when you want your underlying view to perform some action in response to a particular event happening elsewhere.
Use the viewWillAppear delegate. It is called right before showing the view.
i am using a view that displays multiple items depending on user input and i would like to when i press a button to be able to go back to the first view generated in the view (viewDidLoad).
I tried numerius methods such as adding an action to a selector to load a -(void) that reloads the view however that crashes too.
I havent been able to find a resolution to this problem for quite some time
Thanks
You may need to post some code to get a better answer. I'll assume that you are showing views on your original view, and some of them cover your original view. If this is the case, the original view still exists, and you simply need to remove the views that were added later. If they were presented as a modal dialog, remove with [childViewController dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES]. If you added them with [self.view addSubview:childView], remove them with [childView removeFromSuperView]. If you are using a navigation controller, you'll similarly need to pop your child view. Instead of adding and removing views you could hide or show them if they should only be initialized once. If you want a more specific answer, reduce your code to the minimum required to make it happen and post it!
I'm trying to figure out what logic should go into the different UIViewController methods like viewDidLoad, viewDidAppear, viewWillAppear, ...
The structure of my app is that I have a root view controller that doesn't really have a view of its own, rather it has a tab view controller and loads other view controllers into it. But in the future, it may have to load other view controllers instead of the tab bar controller depending on app logic.
My main question is, what do people usually put into the viewDidLoad, .... methods.
Currently I:
viewDidLoad - setup the tab bar controller and set its view to the view controller's own view
viewDidAppear - check if user has stored login info
if not - present with login
if so, login and get app data for first tab
I'm trying to figure out now if my logic for setting up my tab bar controller should go into loadView rather than viewDidLoad.
Any help would be great. Small examples found on the web are great, but they don't go into detail on how larger apps should be structured.
You should not implement both -viewDidLoad and -loadView; they are for different purposes. If you load a NIB, you should implement -viewDidLoad to perform any functions that need to be done after loading the NIB. Wiring up the tabbar is appropriate there if you haven't already done it in the NIB.
-loadView should be implemented if you do not use a NIB, and should construct the view.
-viewWillAppear is called immediately before you come onscreen. This is a good place to set up notification observations, update your data based on model classes that have changed since you were last on screen, and otherwise get your act together before the user sees you. You should not perform any animations here. You're not on the screen; you can't animate. I see a lot of animation glitches due to this mistake. It kind of works, but it looks weird.
-viewDidAppear is called after you come onscreen. This is where you do any entry animations (sliding up a modal, for instance; not that you should do that very often, but I was just looking at some code that did).
-viewWillDisappear is called right before you go offscreen. This is where you can do any leaving animations (including unselecting tableview cells and the like).
-viewDidDisappar is called after you're offscreen (and the animations have finished). Tear down any observations here, free up memory if possible, go to sleep as best you can.
I touch on setting up and tearing down observations here. I go into that in more depth in View controllers and notifications.
viewDidLoad will be called once per lifetime of each UIViewController's view. You put stuff in there that needs to be set up and working before the user starts interacting with the view.
viewDidAppear is called whenever the view has appeared to the user. It could potentially be called more than once. An example would be the root screen of an app using a UINavigationController to push and pop a hierarchy of views. Put stuff in there that you'd want done every time. For example, you might want to hide the UINavigationBar of the root screen, but show it for all subscreens, so you'd do the hiding of the bar here.
Therefore, you'd put your logic for setting up your UITabBarController in viewDidLoad, since it only should be done once.
Regarding your app, is there a reason why you don't just make the UITabViewController be the controller loaded by your app delegate? It seems that you have a level of indirection in your app that you may or may not need. It's probably better to simplify it now, and refactor later if you need something more complex.