I've been working on a Cook Book App and I've been making each page individually which takes a really long time to do, I asked a question similar to this and it was brought to my attention that you can setup a way to automate the design process so all you need to do is input your data.
Can someone please explain in as much detail as possible how you setup your xcode files/code to automate such a process
So for example I would just enter the page text and it would automatically put my standard background picture in and add a scroll view and appropriate buttons etc.
Thanks
You could make one master view that contains all the controls that you need: standard background picture, scroll view, appropriate buttons, etc, and make any subsequent views that you create inherit from this view, so that they all contain those controls.
You could also use just one view and work with multiple instances of it, one instance per page. Just make sure to have a Text property on it, or a constructor that takes in your text string, so that you could set it to a different text on each page.
Xcode project templates and file templates are pretty easy to make, with a few caveats.
Check the answers to these questions:
Add new templates in Xcode
Change templates in XCode
Also take a gander at these handy tutorials:
Custom Xcode Templates
Xcode: How to customize the existing project templates
It sounds to me like your putting your data into your views (pages). That's a big design error. You need to employ the Model-View-Controller design pattern and separate your data from your views. That will make it easy to create one view (template) that you can reload with data to display each individual recipe.
The first thing to do is to separate your data from the view. You need to have the recipes stored in an array, dictionary, Core Data etc and then wrap that data in a dedicated object. The second thing to do is to create a dedicated view to display all the recipes. As the user moves from recipe to recipe the app will simply remove and add information to the same view as needed.
I would recommend Cocoa Recipes for Mac OS X: The Vermont Recipes, Second Edition because it addresses these issues and it uses a recipe type app as its example. It's for Cocoa but the basic principles apply to iPhone apps as well.
Related
I'm currently working on developing a desktop application for MacOS for downloading batches of audio files from URLs at one time I've run into a question about UI design that I can't figure out.
I have a class called SongEntry.swift that holds information regarding the URL that was entered (e.g. url, title, length, author, etc.) and I want to create a vertically growing list of custom views that updates when a new one is added.
Where is what the base view looks like:
Inside of the big white area is where I want the list to be held.
I've tried to create a separate view controller that handles each entry but that didn't work. I know UI design for MacOS is much different from iOS, however I think what I'm looking for is a way to simulate the table views and cell prototypes from iOS but can't find a suitable option.
If anyone knows of a possible solution or can point me in the right direction, I'd greatly appreciate it!
What you want is one of the collection views. For vertical list, you'll probably use NSTableView with only one column and hide everything else like headers.
Here are roughly the steps you need:
You can use your existing view controller or create a dedicate view controller for just the table (and use the 'embed' option in Interface Builder)
This view controller will adopt the NSTableViewDataSource and NSTableViewDelegate protocols to provide the data (your SongEntry objects) and the view for each row.
You set your NSTableView's source and delegate to your view controller.
You create a view which will serve as your "cell", it will be used by each row to display the data. You can design it either in IB or in code.
The entire process is described in detail in the Table View Programming Guide for Mac.
This topic can be a bit confusing. Note that there are two main approaches: the view-based and NSCell-based tables. Don't bother with the NSCell way, it's more of a legacy leftovers.
Also note that there are some overlap of methods in both NSTableViewDataSource and NSTableViewDelegate to provide data and views that can be a bit confusing at first. Just play around with the code and samples and it will be clearer which delegate method to use when.
There are many examples both on Apple's developer site and github. Also a good tutorial on raywenderlich.com.
Has anyone had any luck creating a multiple page view of document (one, NSTextStorage, one NSLayoutManager, and multiple NSTextContainers) in Swift. I'm having a lot of trouble finding example code not in objective C.
Basically, I'm trying to recreate the "Advanced Text Layouts and Effects with Text Kit" demo from WWDC 2013, but the whole thing is in Objective C and there is no sample code to be found. The post below seems to be having luck; but I'm having no luck translating...
UIPageViewController/TextKit Reflowing Text on paging
http://rshankar.com/quotes-app-simple-page-based-application-in-swift/
This uses the Page Based Application project template for a out-of-the-box working example, then customize for the model you want to use.
It use this same technique in my app by changing the root controller to what ever viewController I want it to be, coping the three files into my app, and all the magic is done for me.
Any code examples for using a UITableView to implement in-app settings?
That is where to get the iPhone settings app look and feel one custom builds the settings into a UITableView. So you you would custom set the sections and cells that get returned with switch type statements.
In particular interested in reviewing the coding approach for how to:
best configure the cellForRowAtIndexPath and didSelectRowAtIndexPath
how to handle those cells for which you want in cell editing (e.g. text)
those cells where you need to launch off into another screen to set a date/time for example
how to collect up parameters and pass back to calling rootViewController (in my case need to persist data out to Core Data persistence)
Note: using Core Data so not interested in using libraries such as InAppSettings [any feedback re whether such libraries might be ok appreciated at this SO question I created].
thanks
I am not sure if you can use the inappsettingskit for your needs. It is open source so you are free to modify the code as you wish, but it doesn't look as an out of the box solution.
If you want to make these settings available in the settings app you will have to live with some workarounds for example saving NSDate AND getting a nice UI control to modify it: Use a textfield, there is no control specified which let's you pick a date. Have a look at Apple's documentation.
So the last option will be coding. First of all, determine what kind of types you want to support. Then create custom TableViewCells which reflect those kinds. If some kinds do need some special way of editing, for example a color picker, you'll have to write those controllers as well. You set a cell into editing mode with the delegate method tableView:didSelectRowAtIndexPath and present the custom controller or get into editing directly for example a UITextField. A Slider is handled directly without any coding.
The cells will need some kind of identifier so you can identify those in your model. A TableView and Core Data can interact with each other pretty well by using the NSFetchedResultsController. Create a simple window based app with a template and check the Use Core Data for Storage. The rootViewController illustrates how a tableView works together with Core Data. For your case it will be getting a bit more complicated as inserting a row will have to determine what kind of cell it should add.
I think you should look into this and get back with some more specific questions.
Do you create a Viewcontroller per view screen? or should you share a viewcontrollers? (ie in the example below Should there be 3 controllers or just 1 controller?)
Example
Screens are related
Screen1 (input information),
Screen2 (Review and confirm Information),
Screen3 (thank you / status response).
You should code according to the MVC paradigm. Parcel out your code and separate it based on overrarching function. Here is a high level overview of MVC
(Data) Model: contains all of your app data, objects that are passed around and used to populate the views
View: everything that is some sort of visual output
Controller: Classes that make the models and views work together.
What this is saying, in iPhone development parlance, is don't just jam a bunch of code into your UIViewController subclass. If you want to change the way part of the system works, having one huge class with a ton of code in it is a lot harder to edit and fix, than several smaller classes with a specialized use.
To answer your question, you should most definitely use one controller for each view function, but going beyond that, you should create specialized classes that take the inputs and manipulate that data, create specialized classes that then use the data to send it back to the user in an output.
Don't put all of your code into one class. It might work, but if you ever need to tweak it, or, just like when the iPad came out, it has to be adapted to use on another platform, it will be easier to manage if you only have to change something small to make it work
In your case you definitely don't need separate controllers. In fact you don't even need separate views. You can create a single view to take information, process it in the same controller and show the result in a UIAlertView.
I asked a similar question and someone gave me a tutorial link. But, the link made me use a table view and it looks bad with all the lines and stuff. So how do I just make a view with a button and background and stuff (Please write steps in 1.2.3.. format and it would be nice if you attached the code needed too.)???
It's really difficult to fit that kind of project into a comment field, and, in any case, the best way to learn is to get your hands dirty.
Take a look at the Utility sample project that is built into Xcode. Create a new project in Xcode, and under the iPhone Application templates, select Utility Application. This template project uses a button to switch between two views.