I have a very specific application design that I'm trying to figure out how to create with iOS 4.
Here's how it works:
The user selects an installed data set, or triggers a data set download.
The user provides a key for decrypting the data set.
A tab bar is shown with different search options for looking at the data. There are more searches than fit on the tab bar, so there's a More item and an Edit button. (Thanks, Apple!)
The searches provide different options, some requiring an additional screen for setup.
Once a search result is tapped, the user sees details. They can usually tap deeper into the result.
The tab bar stays visible as users look at details, letting them start a different kind of search. Tapping a search takes them back to step 3.
If at any time the device goes to sleep, the data must be locked. This is a hard requirement, despite may efforts to remove it. So at the moment, I'm returning to step 2.
I've implemented this in iPhone OS 3.1 with a UINavigationController for steps 1 and 2. The app pushes a UITabBarController with each tab represented by a UINavigationController for step 3, hiding the navigation on the outer controller. The user then operates within this UITabBarController. For a lock, I just pop the tab controller off the navigation controller.
It mostly works in iPhone OS 3.1, but it's fragile and hackish. There was no good way to change the data set, but the user could just close the app. With iOS 4 this workaround is gone! The only option I see is returning to step 2 on a supsend/resume, which is going to be a terrible multitasking experience.
How should I be doing this?
The tabs don't make sense until the data set is opened and unlocked.
I (and my users) really like the single tap (no matter the depth) to start a new search.
Related
New to iOS development with a simple technical design question. The project I'm working has walks a user through a set of questions, upwards of 20. I want to use the UINavigationController to give a workflow feel in terms of usability with the back button and Next button in the navigation bar - that is a requirement. However, the design of each of the 20 views will be identical, except of course for the content which will be data driven.
From a design standpoint, would I...
Replicate the View Controller 20 times with 20 separate h and m classes, and use push segue's between each to give a workflow feel.
Replicate the View Controller 20 times but connect to same h and m class.
Redraw the View each time the user clicks Back or Next, thus keeping 1 viewcontroller
I've looked at several samples with xib files, but I'm looking to pull this off with the latest version of xcode and storyboards.
The simplest approach will be to reuse what has already been created. The View (From Modal-View-Controller) part of your application needs to be implemented only once.
All you need is a simple action to allow user to navigate between provide options (20 in this case).
The preferred option in this case will be
3)Redraw the View each time the user clicks Back or Next, thus keeping 1 viewcontroller
All you need is to update the content (equivalent to redraw the view)using proper selectors such as
- (IBAction)navigateToNextOption:(int)index;
- (IBAction)navigateToPreviousOption:(int)index;
You might also like to handle validation based on indices and prompt user to select proper navigation buttons.
A simple case say what if the options are 1000 , might also help you decide the best approach.
Cheers!!
I would suggest that use a single viewcontroller and show the animation behavior like UINavigationController on next and back button click. use this source code a Git
kASlidshow git repositry
how it looks
replace the arrow buttons and place it a top of the UIViewController.
I'd like to implement a search into my app. I'm planning to use a left swipe, like the Spotlight search. Would that violate anything with Apple?
My app is tableview based. The user can drill down a few levels before reaching a detail view. I'm considering two options for implementing the search:
1.) From the search results, I display lower level topics. Meaning, once a user clicks a search result, they will open a detail view. Should I back the user out of the search, navigate the UI down to the detail view...or just show the detail view (option #2)?
2.) If I just popup the detail view, it will be out of context. Once finished with the detail view, the user will not be able to navigate backwards to the top level. They will basically already be there (search results). Or is that how it should be - just put the user back on the search results view?
I don't know if it'd get rejected, but it sounds weird as I've never seen it in an app before. Why not just put the search bar in the first row of the table as in the iPod app?
You probably could also mimic the iPod behavior when "backing out" of Search results.
But yeah, this isn't really programming related.
When a user shuts down my app, I'd like to send them back to where they left off. The app starts on a tableview, the user drills down to another tableview and then clicks a row for a detail view. When they startup the app again, I have two choices:
1.) Display options (alertview) for returning to the previous location or cancelling and remaining on the start view.
2.) Immediately jet them over to the detail view.
I don't like either option. (1) gets to be nagging if you must go through it on every startup. (2) could be confusing and I'm not sure technically how that works.
Any suggestions on the above or something different?
But 2) is the preferred way according to Apple's HIG:
Even though your application does not run in the background when the user switches to
another application, you are encouraged to make it appear as if that is the case. When your
application quits, you should save out information about your application’s current state in
addition to any unsaved data. At launch time, you should look for this state information and
use it to restore your application to the state it was in when it was last used. Doing so
provides a more consistent user experience by putting the user right back where they were
when they last used your application. Saving the user’s place in this way also saves time by
potentially eliminating the need to navigate back through multiple screens’ worth of
information each time an application is launched.
As far as the technical implementation, it's exactly the same: push your subviews onto the navigation controller. The only thing I'd do differently is not animate the 'drilling down.'
When your app starts up, it has an initial 'look', screen, view, whatever.
When it starts back up and has a previous context, add a link or button naming the previous context that allows returning there.
I have a tabController-based iPhone application. First tab is associated with a table view controller. When I select a table cell I want to show another table controller view, but with different tabs on the bottom. What is the best way to do it? Change dynamically tab entries, or do it through IB? Please advise.
Thanks,
Nava
The Apple Human Interface Guidelines really advise against this.
For example, on iPhone, iPod uses a tab bar to allow users to choose which part of their media collection to focus on, such as Podcasts, artists, videos, or playlists. The Clock application, on the other hand, uses a tab bar to give users access to the four functions of the application, namely, World Clock, Alarm, Stopwatch, and Timer. Figure 6-10 shows how selecting a tab in a tab bar changes the view in Clock. Notice how the tab bar remains visible in the different Clock modes shown in Figure 6-10. This makes it easy for users to see which mode they’re in, and allows them to access all Clock modes regardless of the current mode.
What you're thinking of doing might be possible with toolbars.
BTW, I found the best and the cleanest way to do that thanks to Rufus - iPhone Beta Dev Forum contributor: you can change the views of root tabbarcontroller anytime you want, also you can change tabbaritems title & icons. So actually I don't need 2 tabbarcontrollers, instead i change the existing one, setting its views & tabbaritems of views accordingly.
How would one implement a wizard style interface for the iPhone?
For instance I have a form that I would like to break down into 5
different pages or views instead of putting all the information to fill out
into one page or view.
This interface must have the ability to go prev or next in case they want
to change something on page 2 when they are on page 4.
This interface must have the ability to go to page 3 directly and still be
able to go prev and next. Seems like using UINavigationController wouldn't
work here since views 1 and 2 are not on the stack so prev would not work.
Update: Check out the "gas cubby" application. It has what I'm looking for. UITableView presents the items you can fill out. Selecting a row takes you to the detail view to enter data and prev and next to fill in other information.
UINavigationController seems like the obvious solution. It gives you nice, familiar page transitions for free, and if you need to jump to a specific page you can just set up your navigation stack without using the transition animations.
I would say use a Navigation Controller. On the 1st view, show the 5 options in a Table View. The user selects a row, and then the corresponding section is pushed onto the stack as a new UIViewController. So, if they are in view #3 and want to go back to view #1 (to be honest, I would recommend rethinking whether or not somebody in the real world will actually want to do this), they hit "back" and then select view #1 from the table.
I can't think of a better way to do this because you won't have room to do something like breadcrumbing, which Apple would recommend against anyway. You could use a tab bar but that is more like options then some sort of wizard workflow.
If you really want them to be able to skip around the process, the combination of a UINavigation controller with a UISegmentedControl to jump to sections would do what you want. You can either embed the segmented control in the nav bar or place it just below the nav bar (which seems more like what you want since you have five sections).
If the Segmented control is not quite to your taste just put up any set of five buttons to change sections and make them visually appealing.
A "wizard" UI is typically used when you have a relatively small number of steps where one step depends on the previous, at least at some steps, the results or presentation depends on previous steps. This is like a navigation tree that usually results in the use of the navigation controller, but with only one potential branch at each each step. My feeling is that the navigation UI would be perfect, but with one exception; A button on the right hand side of the navigation bar that is the left to right mirror image of the "back" button that is usually found in the left part of the navigation button. That button would navigate to the the next step, and at each step the page presented would allow the user to fill in the information for that step. The only problem then is navigating to a step not the next or previous, and this could be corrected with a custom button that includes a drop-down list of the steps in the process. And this would fit nicely with the rest of the iPhone UI, which Gas Cubby's wizard UI (as good as it is) does not.