Multiple Windows Rotation Problem - iPhone / iPad - iphone

My app uses 2 UIWindows.
The first shown has a TabBar controller with ViewControllers that only rotate to Portrait orientations. Up to here everything woks fine.
- (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation {
return (UIInterfaceOrientationIsPortrait(interfaceOrientation));
}
On the other window I have a UIViewController that rotates to all orientations.
The problem is that when I show the second window
[secondWindow makeKeyAndVisible];
And then return to the first one
[firstWindow makeKeyAndVisible];
The statusbar rotates to all directions and the event shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation is not fired. How can i solve the problem?

Its fine to have multiple UIWindows in one app, but the caveat here is that Apple's code seem to check through every UIWindow you have and see if the topmost view controller allows for a certain rotation. If any of those windows allow a rotation your status bar will rotate regardless of whether the UIWindow is frontmost or visible.
In my own app I hide the UIWindow I'm not using, and added a isHidden check in the relevant UIViewControllers to not allow rotation if the window is currently hidden.

Its fine to have multiple UIWindows in one app, but the caveat here is that Apple's code seem to check through every UIWindow you have and see if the topmost view controller allows for a certain rotation.
Per the answer, did many testes and got the conclusion that Status Bar's rotation depends on the top-most view controller of every window.

Related

iOS6: do we have to set rootViewController in App delegate in order to support different orientations?

The app was perfectly fine working in iOS5 in landscape orientation. However in iOS6, it started to use portrait orientation in all view controllers. The methods shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation are not called anymore. I read the new stuff about changed rotation mechanism in iOS6 and I was able to fix that by adding a line in my AppDelegate:
self.window.rootViewController = _viewController
_viewControler is the starting screen (Home-menu). All other view controllers implement shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation method and returns YES for landscape orientations only. So, it's perfectly working solution for the app that needs to support only one orientation.
However, the problem is I need one view controller (lets call it phone-VC) to be presented in portrait orientation. Now, if I want this view controller would be rotated then I need to return YES in Home-menu controller that is assigned to rootViewControler in appDelegate. However, I can't do that because this rootViewController is starting window that need to presented in landscape only, otherwise the layout with graphics in this window will break. But if I don't return YES from its shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation (Home-menu) then the same method is not called in my view phone-VC that needs to be presented in portrait.
Any ideas? Does the assignation of rootViewController is mandatory in AppDelegate?
UPDATE: the problem exists on device (at least on iPhone4).
Yes, from iOS 6.0 onwards, you must have rootviewcontroller assigned to Windows.rootViewController. This controller will decide whether their children rotates or not. By default all orientations supported but you can restrict them by implementing shouldAutoRotate and supportedInterfaceOrientations delegate methods. I had an instance where I didn't have rootviewcontroller assigned to Windows in using MGSplitViewController which was adding viewcontroller as subview to window. I just needed to change it to make rootviewcontroller and all worked fine!
Check UIKit section on Apple documents - iOS 6.0 release notes.

Best practices for landscape only apps?

I'm a new iOS programming and I'm developing a simple iPhone game that needs to run in landscape only. I've ...
set supported orientations in the target settings
added the req. plist item (initial interface orientation)
overridden shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation to return YES only for landscape modes
.. and the app "looks" correct, but there are a few odd things going on.
Issue 1 - I'm trying to manually position my views and not rely on autolayout. I've got a UIView in a NIB that I'm loading that needs to be positioned 150px from the right edge of the screen. I have to get the UIViewController's view's height (not width) to correctly position it - like it's not rotated to landscape at this point in the code.
Issue 2 - Implementing a UINavigationController to go from the title screen to the game interaction. When I'm pushing the interaction UIViewController to the stack, it slides in from the right like it's supposed to. When I go back to the title by popping the interaction, it slides UP to the title. It's seems like it's rotating back to portrait?
I think there is something very basic that I'm missing, but I can't find it in my app code. I've gone over the lists for a landscape app but they don't mention more than the list above.
Are there any other things/settings/methods to override that I should be on the look out for?
You need to set shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation in your other viewControllers as well. Especially the ones displayed inside your UINavigationController.
Issue 2:
Don't use many UIViewController's. Use one view controller. Create one main UIViewController and for other UIViewController's just do:
[mainviewcontrl presentModalViewcontroller: child_viewcontrl animated: YES];
For delete a child view controller, use
[child_viewcontrl dismissModalViewControllerAnimated: YES];

Best Practices for more than one UIWindow in an application

Experts, Please share the best approaches and practices that must be taken care while adding a UIWindow on top of current window.(Window1) I have a situation where I have locked the orientation of a view "A" to Portrait in a view controller. Then I create a new UIWindow and make it as key and visible. The root view controller of this new UIWindow is again a view controller which supports all orientations. The issue I am having is whenever I make the previous window (say window1)as key and visible again, and try to rotate the device,eventhough the view stays locked to specific orientation(say Portrait), the status bar is rotating which looks very wierd.
I think it is a bad idea to rotate a custom alert to an orientation that is not supported by an application. Anyway. To prevent a status bar rotation you should remove your second window
[alertWindow setHidden:YES];
[alertWindow release];
alertWindow=nil;
after disappearence of your alert.
You also might consider usefull this liks:
https://github.com/eaigner/CODialog
https://github.com/gpambrozio/BlockAlertsAnd-ActionSheets
https://github.com/kyoshikawa/ZPopoverController
https://github.com/TomSwift/TSAlertView

Separate interface orientations per view

I am working on an iPhone app with a UINavigationController interface and there I want all views to ONLY allow default portrait rotation except for one. I know I can return 'NO' in the shouldAutoRotate method but basically when I am in the view that does allow rotation and go back to the previous view, the other views are then stuck in landscape as well. Any ideas?
you need to change status bar orientation when you go back to previous view.

Selective Autorotation of UIControllers

I did some experiments on autorotation.
The situation: I have a TabBar 4(tabs), three should be portrait only. The last one is a UINavigationController, which by itself should not autorotate any of the stacked controllers. It is basically a browsing application, as I show file and folders everything should be portrait. Some times, a special UIViewController is pushed, and I would like only this one to autorotate (it is always the last on the stack). In this last view, the tabbar is hidden.
How I achieved the goal: I subclassed the UITabBarController, to override the standard shouldAutorotate method behaviour:
- (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation {
if([self.selectedViewController isKindOfClass:[UINavigationController class]])
return [[(UINavigationController*)self.selectedViewController visibleViewController] shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:interfaceOrientation];
else
return [self.selectedViewController shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:interfaceOrientation];
This way, the answer of shouldAutorotate is forwarded to the controlled tabs, and in particular for the UINavigationController, it is again delegated to the visible UIViewController. Basically this works, as I have all the UIViewControllers answering NO, except for the particular one I described above: correctly, when rotating the Simulator, only when the special UIViewController is visible, the interface rotates to landscape, whici is perfect. The Tabbar here is hidden, so user don't get that also that one is rotated (which would be unconsistent in my design: basically whenever the tabbar is visible, which means everywhere except in this special view, the application is portrait only).
The problem is that I would like that, even if the device is still in landscape mode and user pops the special ViewController, the interface should behave consistently and return to portrait mode. Instead, when I pop, the interface stays in landscape (it's not designed in that way so it's a mess, of course) even when showing a UIViewController that would answer NO to shouldAutorotate... this is because (I think) the method is called only when rotation occurs, so until the rotation actually occurs again, the interface is rotated to landscape anyway.
How do avoid this? My first solution would be somehow to intercept the popping of the last view, and rotate manually the view before popping... but I'm not sure, I hope there is some more robust method to handle!!
I use the simulator with 3.0, dunno if this makes a difference.
I know that this is not a solution to your problem, but I think you should really avoid this kind of user interface when portrait-only portrait+landscape or landscape-only pages mixed on the same UINavigationController. Unfortunately the rotation management is extremely buggy and the bugs vary on different firmware versions.
I managed to quite the same thing in one of my projects, but had to remove it later due to firmware bugs: for example if you pressed the "back" button in landscape mode and went back to a portrait-only view, it often occured that the status bar and/or the navigation bar remained in landscape mode and the layout was completely broken. As far as I know this bug is not yet fixed although it was already present in firmware 2.x.
If you still want to do this I suggest the following things:
Make sure that all overridden UIViewController methods (init, viewWillAppear, etc) calls its [super methodName]. If not, auto-rotation is silently buggy. This was mentioned in the "Getting Ready for iPhone OS 3.0 Technical Note" (https://developer.apple.com/iphone/checklist/), but currently this document is unavailable :(
You may experiment with calling the undocumented [UIDevice setOrientation:] method when leaving the landscape view. It sometimes needs to be called twice, once with the current orientation and once with the desired orientation :) You may also need to call [UIDevice setStatusBarOrientation:] if the status bar remains in landscape mode. But note that Apple is likely to reject your application if you use these methods (they introduced an automatic tool some time ago which detects the presence of undocumented symbols in your application).
I had the same problem as you, and I solved this way:
I subclassed the UITabBarController, and added the following code:
- (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation
{
if (self.selectedViewController)
return [self.selectedViewController shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:interfaceOrientation];
else
return (interfaceOrientation == UIDeviceOrientationPortrait);
}
This way, every child view controller could control its own orientation.
The problem is that you are rotating your UITabBarController (with the child view controller on top of it) rather than just the child view controller. You should be able to implement shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation: only in your child view controller and have it work properly. It would also simplify your code.
I have never had this issue, but I've also never implemented shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation: in a "container" view controller like a UITabBarController or UINavigationController.
The problem with your implementation is that you use the visibleViewController member of UINavigationController. You should use topViewController instead and everything will work as expected.