How to use several viewcontrollers - iphone

I have problem concerning viewcontrollers. I have done some iphone games with just one
viewcontroller, but now I want to use several.
I have a MainViewController that creates two viewcontrollers called StageViewController (where the gameplay takes place) and a MenuViewController (where you select the stage you want to play).
My MenuViewController creates buttons from a custom button-class based on UIImageView. And this works fine. The problem is that when I press a button in the Menu I want to call a method in the MainViewController that inactivates the MenuViewController and activates the StageViewController.
What is the best way to do this? I don't want to use Interface Builder, just code.

did you read View Controller Programming Guide for iOS?
If not do so now, especially the section about Navigation Controllers

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.

facebook type left slide bar layout should appear in all view controllers

I have implemented Facebook type left Slide Bar layout in my first view of iphone app. Now, I want to implement this throughout all view controllers (screens) in application, means irrespective of the view the left slide bar should appear on clicking the menu button at the top in all views.
My app contains 25-30 viewcontrollers and my slide bar layout should appear in all views..
Can anyone suggest, how can I include above FB Layout in all views
Thanks in advance
Ramu
Simple, The one view controller in which you have implemented the FB layout and is working. Make it the base class on top of UIViewController. And as for the rest of all the ViewControllers, inherit them from the MasterClass that you just created. Doing this will make the swipe gesture that brings forth the slide bar available to all of your 30 view controllers.
EDIT
Lets see, we have UIViewController, now first of all you create a UIViewController's subclass: say FBViewController ..In this FBViewController you implement the FBLayout such that the swipe and all is working ..on it ..test your app first using only this FBViewController as rootViewController and check all the functionalities.Once everything is working fine, grow on it. What I mean is this.
Say you are creating a Tabbed application, where all the three tabs are supposed to have the same FBLayout style. Then do these steps.
Create FBViewController, it inherits from UIViewController (using UIViewController subclass template, also check the generate XIB button) also have an XIB for it FBViewController.XIB (fully implement FBLayout in it. This will be your base class)
Then Create three more ViewController classes (FirstViewController, SecondViewController, ThirdViewController) again from the UIViewController subclass template, but for these three dont check the generate XIB button. these three will use the XIB of the base class FBViewController (If you are wondering how, then go to step 3 :))
Go to header file of FirstViewController class you created, there you can see #interface FirstViewController: UIViewController replace it with #interface FirstViewController: FBViewController, but before it import FBViewController.h to the header file. Repeat the same for the Other two classes- SecondViewController, ThirdViewController. Since these three will inherit from FBViewController. In their viewDidLoad [super viewDidLoad] will load FBViewController and generate the view. after [super viewDidLoad]; line you can implement ur own methods.
In the three classes just change the initWithNibName method to change the tab bar name and title.
In appDelegate go to didFinishLaunching method and put these three view controller in a tabBarController, set the tabBarController as rootViewController.
And we are done. If your FBViewController is working fine. You will see that all the three classes behave the same way. Thanx to the power of Inheritance.
Cheers, play a bit, have fun.
I had the same problem. I was using a facebook-style menu, and needed it in all view controllers.
You can use a Container Controller. A Container Controller can have the base layout, which I defined in a nib, containing a navigation bar and a bar button item to toggle the menu, and then add child view controllers and remove them as you need them. That way, you can throw whatever view controller you need to the container controller and it will display it.
You can also add gesture control to slide open/close the menu easily.
You will have to make the Container controller your self, it is not standard. I think it is better solution than inheritance, since if you use inheritance you can't make a for example UITableViewController, all your controllers will be of the type of yuor master class. Of course, you can fix this anyway with delegates.
It may sound a bit tricky, but see this tutorial which I used: http://www.cocoanetics.com/2012/04/containing-viewcontrollers/
It wasn't accutally that hard.
EDIT: You can just use a UINavigationController as well. Just set the base view controller to the view controller you want to display, and you can prevent it adding the back button etc to the nav bar by overriding the default methods. Make a UINavigationController as rootNavigationController. Might be simpler.
I'd highly recommend using an open source solution that handles all the edge cases for you - it's both the easiest, most robust and most maintainable (since the community will keep it up to date fro you). ViewDeck seems to be the most popular solution though I have also had success with PPRevealSideViewController. They both provide a very robust implementation that would take a long time to do yourself (e.g. you can optionally enable swipe on the navigation bar or even content area to open the menu). Furthermore they separate the sliding logic and the revealed menu (which can be any view controller you like, but most likely a table view controller) out of your other view controllers. That way any viewcontroller can have a side menu without duplicating any code - separation of concern is great :)
You can make a SharedInstance for SideView class. I am doing same thing for iAD to show throught-out the application.
Please see the the link of iAdSuite ,In which the BannerViewController is SharedInstance so they are easily used for all View Controller
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#samplecode/iAdSuite/Listings/TabbedBanner_TabbedBanner_BannerViewController_m.html

How to design multiple views in 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.

How-to incorporate a UISegmentedControl inside a UITabBarController?

I used the following tutorial Red Artisan to create a UISegmentedControl which I use to switch between two views: a simple one and a table view.
Everything is fine when I create a new standalone project, but what I really want is to incorporate this functionality in another project with a UITabBarController as the rootController (the segmented control with two views will be inside the second tab).
In the above tutorial the segmented control, navigation and segment controllers are instantiated and configured from within the application delegate.
Any idea how this could be done from a lower level?
Thank you in advance!
Basically, you need to create a UITTabBarController based application (There are LOTs of tutorials on how to do this), and then in the second UIViewController (or a custom subclass), you would create your UISegmentedControl to switch between two pages.
It sounds like you might also be using a UINavigationController as your base controller in the first application, if this is so..you could have a UITabBarController that has two Controllers in it (two tabs), and the second one will be a UINavigationController like how you had it setup in the app delegate.
Also, there are tutorials to do basically this exact thing all over the internet. Try searching for " UINavigationController inside UITabBarController " or similar. One other thing, there is an example of how the "layering" works in the Apple UI documentation for having a UINavigationController be one of the tabs of a UITabBarController (This is a quite common approach for iPhone apps)
Good luck!

How do I switch between Navigation Controllers?

Situation:
I have an Xcode project based on the "Navigation-Based-Application" template. So that means I have a SINGLE UINavigationController that manages a UIViewController.
What I want To Do:
What I want to do is add one more UINavigationController to my project -- and be able to switch back and forth between them. (I want to do this to make space for some seperate unrelated content so that it does not have a back button pointing back to the root view controller.)
Question:
How do I add one more UINavigationController to my project and switch between the two UINavigationControllers?
The most common, and natural iPhone OS, way of doing this is to add a UITabBarController to your application. The Xcode template Tab Bar Application will guide you in the right direction on how to use it.
But...
If you don't like to have a Tab Bar in your application, and wish to switch between different UINavigationController instances (or any UIViewController for that matter), you can do something like this.
First you need to create your UINavigationController instances in a appropriate place (for example a new view controller, or in you Application Delegate, if you want to take the easy way out). You can then switch between controllers by just swapping which Navigation Controller's view that should be visible.
Example in the Application Delegate, "firstNavigationController" and "secondNavigationController" are UINavigationController instance variables:
- (void)showFirstNavigationController {
[secondNavigationController.view removeFromSuperview];
[self.window addSubview:firstNavigationController.view];
}
This will simply display the first instead of the second Navigation Controller. Note that this example is very simple. I didn't take into consideration that you should correctly handle the methods viewWillAppear:, viewDidAppear: and so on.