I am building an iPhone app, which will function similarly to many restaurant finder applications. When launched, the application will start with a view that allows a user to specify a zip code for performing a search. Alternatively, if the user has an iPhone with a GPS, the application will automatically perform a search based on their current location, although it will be possible for the user to specify their own location.
After the search has been performed, the user will be presented with a tab bar view, which displays a list of all results, or a map view, containing all of the results within a specified range. Finally, there will be a details view, which gives the user detailed information about any one particular result from the list or map.
The application should flow as follows:
Search -> (list | map) -> details
I'm very new to iPhone development, so I'd appreciate some feedback on how to put together the interface.
What I'm thinking is I could use a navigation view controller for the opening search view. When the user clicks the "Search" button, the app will switch views to a view containing a tab bar controller (one tab for the list and another for the map). Both the list and map views will be placed inside yet another navigation view, which will allow the user to switch to the details view when the user attempts to drill down into the details view.
Does my solution to the problem sound feasible? Is there an alternative way I should consider?
I wouldn't use a tab bar for switching between the map and the list. They basically display the same data, just in a different way. This is usually done with a segmented control in the title bar.
Use one UINavigationController to switch between the 3 main views (Search > (list | map) > details).
Within the (list | map) view, use a UISegmentedControl to switch between viewing modes.
When in the details view, users can go back to the search results by using the back button.
Two mockups I came up with quickly:
alt text http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/8913/uimockup.png alt text http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/9553/uimockup2.png
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Does anyone have any idea for the following scenario?
I do have a tab sample and some tab views will integrate with the search bar view/function at the navigation bar.
Views from search results are actually live in some tabs.
How can I share the view of the search results on a certain tab where I have searched for items.
(note that view of a search result is actually live in one of the available tabs)
Here is an example:
I do have three tabs on my platform as follows:
each of the tabs will have the search bar.
Home | Map | More
I do have a profile view at the "More" tab.
If the user searches for a profile at the "Home" tab, how can I show the existing profile view at the home tab instead?
Besides that, I would like to make sure the navigation stack for any search results are always staying at the place where the user trigger search function. In this case, any search result navigation stack will
be tracked and displayed at the "Home" tab instead.
You help will be much more appreciated.
I'm creating an app and I need some help with design.
Launch Screen - I want to show 6-8 "category" buttons with labels loaded from an array ("normal" buttons from interface builder - not tab bar buttons or menu bar buttons).
Table Screen - When one of the category buttons is pushed on the launch screen, I want to show a table view with all of the items in that category.
Detail Screen - When one of the items on the table screen is selected, go to a new screen with details for the item. There will be an action button on this screen which will remove the item from the list if pressed.
My questions are as follows:
1) I don't want to show navigation buttons on the first screen. Can I still use a Navigation-Based application and hide the navigation controls on the first screen, or would it be better (easier) to create a view-based application and put a navigation controller "inside" one of the views? I'm totally open to any basic design approach suggestions you may have.
2) I've figured out how to create a sqlite3 file, add it to the project, query it, and generate the table view from the results, but I'm not sure about how to store the sqlite file in a way that will persist on the device when the user upgrades the app later. Any pointers on that?
Thanks for any help/links/documentation you can point me to. I've watched a million tutorials but none of the ones I've seen really address basic app design.
Now for Q1, both ways work fine but if you have buttons from the first screen, having a uinavigationcontroller might make it slightly easier if you plan to have back buttons on the screens after the first screen.
For Q2, to make the database persist when the user updates their app at some stage, simply keep the original database and include a new database (with a different name) with additional content, then modify your original database and import any additional content to it.
You can also do variations of that also, ie import content from old database to new database and etc. But the key is to keep the database file names different, ie add database_v1.sqlite, database_v2.sqlite and etc.
BTW don't forget to clean up any databases you won't use in future.
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.
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.
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.