I am trying to call a method in my root view controller from a child view controller such that when I change my options they will automatically update the root view, which will in turn update several other view controllers. For the second part I have used notifications, but for this first I am trying to use a delegate because it (so I have been lead to believe) is a good programming practice. I am having trouble making it work and know that I can set up another notification easily to do the job. Should I continue trying to implement the delegate or just use a notification?
Delegating is a good programming practice for many situations but that doesn't mean you have to use it if you're not comfortable with it. Both delegating and notifications help decouple the view controllers from each other, which is a good thing. Notifications might be a little easier to code and offer the advantage that multiple objects can observe one notification. With delegates, such a thing cannot be done without modifying the delegating object (and is unusual).
Some advantages of delegating:
The connection between delegating object and delegate is made clearer, especially if implementing the delegate is mandatory.
If more than one type of message has to be passed from delegatee to delegate, delegating can make this clearer by specifying one delegate method per message. For notifications, you can use multiple notification names but all notifications end up in the same method on the side of the observer (possibly requiring a nasty switch statement).
Only you can decide what pattern is more appropriate for you. In any case, you should consider not having your view controller send the notification or the delegate message. In many cases, the view controller should change the model and then the model should inform its observers or its delegate that it has been changed.
Implementing a delegate pattern is simple:
In your ChildViewController.h, declare the delegate protocol that the delegate must implement later:
#protocol ChildViewControllerDelegate <NSObject>
#optional
- (void)viewControllerDidChange:(ChildViewController *)controller;
#end
At the top of the file, create an instance variable to hold the pointer to the delegate in your ChildViewController:
#protocol ChildViewControllerDelegate;
#interface ChildViewController : UIViewController {
id <ChildViewControllerDelegate> delegate;
...
}
#property (assign) id <ChildViewControllerDelegate> delegate;
...
#end
In RootViewController.h, make your class conform to the delegate protocol:
#interface RootViewController : UIViewController <ChildViewControllerDelegate> {
...
In the RootViewController implementation, implement the delegate method. Also, when you create the ChildViewController instance, you have to assign the delegate.
#implement RootViewController
...
// in some method:
ChildViewController *controller = [[ChildViewController alloc] initWithNibName:...
controller.delegate = self;
...
- (void)viewControllerDidChange:(ChildViewController *)controller {
NSLog(#"Delegate method was called.");
}
...
In the ChildViewController implementation, call the delegate method at the appropriate time:
#implementation ChildViewController
...
// in some method:
if ([self.delegate respondsToSelector:#selector(viewControllerDidChange:)]) {
[self.delegate viewControllerDidChange:self];
}
...
That's it. (Note: I have written this from memory so there are probably some typos/bugs in it.)
I would like to add:
objects receiving notifications can
react only after the event has
occurred. This is a significant
difference from delegation. The
delegate is given a chance to reject
or modify the operation proposed by
the delegating object. Observing
objects, on the other hand, cannot
directly affect an impending
operation.
Typically, if you need to update the UI based on a change to data in a model, you would have the view controllers observe the relevant model data and update their views when notified of changes.
I see delegation as a bit more formal and like the distinction that Peter Hosey shared recently:
The difference is that delegation is
for to-one (and bidirectional)
communication, whereas notifications
are for to-many, unidirectional
communication.
Also, I have found that (completely) updating the view in viewWillAppear: works fine (but this is not the best solution where performance is a concern).
Notifications can make the runtime behavior of your program significantly more complex. Think of it like a goto with multiple destinations. The order of those destinations is not defined. If you ever crash there is little stack trace information.
There are cases when it makes sense to use notifications--the typical one being to communicate a model change or a global state change to your views. Example, the network is down, the application will resign, etc!
It is worthwhile to learn the delegate pattern in iOS. Delegates give you complete stack traces when you debug. They result in significantly simpler runtime behavior while still achieving the goal of decoupling your objects.
Delegates are a little hard to get used to, but I think it's the best practice and, like Apple, they just work.
I always use the formal protocol declaration. It's a bit more logical in my mind, and it's very clear in the code. I suggest using a UIView to change your options instead of a controller. I always use one main controller and have a lot of subclassed UIViews that the one controller can control. (However, you can modify the following code for a controller, if you really need a controller instead of a normal view.) In the header file of the child view, make it look like this:
// ChildView.h
#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#protocol ChildViewDelegate; // tells the compiler that there will be a protocol definition later
#interface ChildViewController : UIView {
id <ChildViewDelegate> delegate;
// more stuff
}
// properties and class/instance methods
#end
#protocol ChildViewDelegate // this is the formal definition
- (void)childView:(ChildView *)c willDismissWithButtonIndex:(NSInteger)i; // change the part after (ChildView *)c to reflect the chosen options
#end
The method between #protocol and the second #end can be called somewhere in the implementation of the ChildView, and then your root view controller can be the delegate that receives the 'notification.'
The .m file should be like this:
// ChildView.m
#import "ChildView.h"
#implementation ChildView
- (id)initWithDelegate:(id<ChildViewDelegate>)del { // make this whatever you want
if (self = [super initWithFrame:CGRect(0, 0, 50, 50)]) { // if frame is a parameter for the init method, you can make that here, your choice
delegate = del; // this defines what class listens to the 'notification'
}
return self;
}
// other methods
// example: a method that will remove the subview
- (void)dismiss {
// tell the delegate (listener) that you're about to dismiss this view
[delegate childView:self willDismissWithButtonIndex:3];
[self removeFromSuperView];
}
#end
Then the root view controller's .h file would include the following code:
// RootViewController.h
#import "ChildView.h"
#interface RootViewController : UIViewController <ChildViewDelegate> {
// stuff
}
// stuff
#end
And the implementation file will implement the method defined in the protocol in ChildView.h, because it will run when the ChildView calls for it to be run. In that method, put the stuff that happens when you'd get the notification.
In this case, you don't need to use either delegation or notification because you don't really need to communicate directly between your views. As gerry3 said, you need to change the data model itself and then let all other views respond to that change.
Your data model should be an independent object that all your view controllers have access to . (The lazy way is to park it as an attribute of the app delegate.) When the user makes a change in View A, View A's controller writes that change to the data model. Then whenever Views B through Z open up, their controllers read the data model and configure the views appropriately.
This way, the neither the views, nor their controllers need to be aware of each other and all changes occur in one central object so they are easily tracked.
Is it really necessary for your root view controller to know about the changes, or just the subviews?
If the root controller does not have to know, having the settings send out the notifications the other views are looking for seems like a better answer to me, as it simplifies code. There is no need to introduce more complexity than you have to.
Related
I'm pretty new to iOs development and I've become a bit confused how should I separate my code to avoid a huge ViewController.m-file. Currently my main viewcontroller has quite a many delegates:
#interface ViewController : UIViewController <MKMapViewDelegate, HttpClientDelegate, CLLocationManagerDelegate, NSFetchedResultsControllerDelegate>
I would like to reduce the viewController code and I guess I should create separate classes to handle delegate tasks. The problem is that if I for example create singleton class for CLLocationManager and let it implement delegate methods, how do I then communicate with the view controller?
Let's say that my CLLocationManager receives a location update, how do I tell the viewController to make changes to the UI? Should I use NSNotificationCenter to post a notification and then add observer to the view controller? Or is the best way just to let viewController implement all delegate methods as it is now?
Move some of that functionality into your data model.
It's hard to say how you should manage this given the limited information you've provided, but one has to wonder whether a single view controller should really be managing a map view and keeping track of location and managing a HTTP connection and managing a Core Data fetch. Why not move some of that into your model, where it'll be somewhat easier to divide into modules?
Let's say that my CLLocationManager receives a location update, how do
I tell the viewController to make changes to the UI? Should I use
NSNotificationCenter to post a notification and then add observer to
the view controller?
A notification would be a good solution -- it provides a way for the part of your program that manages location (again, this probably belongs in the model) to communicate the change without having to know anything in particular about the parts of the program that care about changes to location. It also allows one-to-many communication -- if you have another view controller that also cares about location, it can observe the same notification.
Or is the best way just to let viewController implement all delegate methods as it is now?
I try to think about dividing responsibilities appropriately more than limiting the size of the code. If you have a class that does one job but needs a lot of code to do it, that's fine. If you have one class that manages many unrelated things, that's not so good. The trouble is that a lot of jobs seem to fall into the traditional "manages a screenful of content" role of a view controller. Try to separate the task of managing the presentation of the data (which is the view controller's rightful job) from managing the data itself (which is the model's job).
Implement a class responsible for delegate methods:
#interface DelegateManager : NSObject <MKMapViewDelegate, HttpClientDelegate, CLLocationManagerDelegate, NSFetchedResultsControllerDelegate>
-(id)initWithViewController:(ViewController*)vc;
#property (weak) ViewController *delegate;
#end
In your ViewController:
#interface ViewController : UIViewController
-(void)doSomething;
#end
In your ViewController, create an instance of DelegateManager with self as parameter. Set all your delegates' target to your DelegateManager. In the delegate methods of your DelegateManager, call [self.delegate doSomething]; to communicate back to your ViewController.
In my iPhone project I have a UIViewController in which I add an instance of a subclass of UIView. From this instance I need to communicate back an integer to my view controller. My current solution is to send a message from my instance to my App Delegate which sends a message to the view controller. It works, but it feels a bit messy.
Is there anyway I can send a message straight back to the view controller?
I would love to be able to do something like [super doSomething:123];
Any ideas?
Thanks
This is the kind of thing that NSNotificationCenter was provided for. Once you get handy with sending and receiving notifications, your message-passing gets a WHOLE lot simpler.
One of the classic things people confront is how to get a pointer to the object they want, in order to tell it about something. How do I, for instance, tell the ViewController two slots back up the UINavigationController stack that the user just changed this data field? So you dig into the stack, offset back by some magic number of elements in the stack, build public setters on the fields you want talk to... It's super cumbersome.
Compared to registering as a notification receiver in one place, and then firing a notification in some complete other place when the data changes. It's kind of magical, after doing all the "dig through the view hierarchy" work.
Um, I'm not sure I understand your problem correctly. You have a class derived from UIView which needs to send a message to another class derived from a UIViewController. It sounds like you are creating the UIView instance programmatically. Is there any reason my you could not have a property on the UIView which refers to the UIVIewController and just use that to send it a message directly.
You cannot use [super ...] because the super of your UIView derived class would be UIView.
Or am I miss-understanding the issue :-)
If I understand correctly, you want to send a message from your subclass of UIView to the view controller.
That means your subclass of UIView needs to have a property or ivar which is the view controller. The easiest way to do this is to add it as an outlet and connect it to the view controller in the nib file.
Generally you should not go via the app delegate. Having a typed pointer link is also less than ideal.
The optimal way of communicating - Apple does it like this as well - is to create a delegate protocol. When creating the view controller you pass a pointer to the delegate as id . Then when it gets to sending the message you ask the delegate:
if ([delegate respondsToSelector(didFinishSomething:)])
{
[delegate didFinishSomething:info_to_pass];
}
If you want to be extra-sophisticated then you can also add a pointer to the calling class instance. Like:
[delegate myViewController:self didFinishSomething:info_to_pass];
This way you always know what kind of class the message is coming from.
If there is more than one place that needs to be notified of a change, then instead of delegation you will use notifications.
In my iPhone project I have a
UIViewController in which I add an
instance of a subclass of UIView.
This implies that you have both a reference to the instance of the UIView subclass and the UIViewController in the same scope. I.e. something equivalent to:
UIViewControllerSubclass *myViewController;
UIViewSubclass *myView;
(It doesn't matter if they are actually instance variables or, even, globals)
And once those two variables are initialized, somewhere you do something like:
myViewController.view = myView;
In your UIViewSubclass, add a property that points back to your UIViewControllerSubclass:
#property(assign) UIViewControllerSubclass *myController;
Then, when you do the above assignment, add:
myView.myController = myViewController;
From there, messaging your controller from your view is easy:
[self.myController yoManHereIsAnInt: 42];
Note that I used assign instead of retain because the controller already retains the view. If the view were to also retain the controller, you would have a cycle that would eventually lead to a leak.
No super about it. super is entirely related to the inheritance hierarchy of your Objective-C classes. What you are asking has nothing to do with inheritance and everything to do with how the various instances of objects in your application are connected together.
Simply add an outlet to your UIView subclass, connect it to its view controller in Interface Builder, and call your method on that. Here’s how that might look:
MyUIView.h:
#interface MyUIView : UIView
{
UIViewController *viewController;
}
#property (assign) IBOutlet UIViewController *viewController;
#end
MyUIView.m:
- (void)touchesEnded:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event
{
[[self viewController] setTitle:#"Hello from MyUIView"];
}
Prior to asking this question here, I have googled aroung. In general, people suggest two ways to pass values/parameters between NavigationControllers:
Via properties in the root ViewController
Via Data Models
I know already that the first choice may not be the best practice. A lot of people seem to adopt this practice. However, I still don't understand how the second practice may be implemented. Does anyone happen to know any tutorial?
Moreover, is it possible to pass the value/parameter downward through constructors? I guess the only problem with that is to get back value/parameter from sub-viewcontrollers.
This file defines the delegate protocol:
#protocol VCDelegate
- (void)notifyParent:(NSString*)someString;
#end
You can include it in the .h of any view controller you define. In that view controller you declare an ivar:
id<VCDelegate> delegate;
In the view controller in which you create the child view controller you include your child view controller's .h as usual. However you add
<VCDelegate>
to indicate that it implements the protocol you have defined, just as you would if you were indicating that it implemented UITableViewDelegate - you're defining a delegate that works just the same way.
When you create your child view controller:
MyChildViewController* myCVC = [[MyChildViewController alloc] initWithString:(NSString*)someString];
myCVC.delegate = self;
So now the child view controller has a delegate which is the parent view controller, the one you are creating the child in and the one that will push it on the nav stack. You have to implement the delegate function in the parent view controller of course:
Incidentally here's where you can pass information down the stack - just set ivars after creation, same as you do the delegate ivar. You'll notice there's an initWithString that is passing a string to a custom init method, that's another way to pass information. You still do all the normal init things, just pass data additionally.
- (void)notifyParent:(NSString*)someString
{
NSLog(#"Child view controller says %#", someString);
}
And then in the child view controller you can do
[self.delegate notifyParent:#"Hello"];
presto - parent VC gets data from child VC.
This seems like the job for NSNotificationCenter. Have a look at this.
sending data to previous view in iphone
I am using a UINavigationController to switch between views. What I would like is for each view to have the ability to control when it is swapped out for another view by having buttons within the view. All of the samples I've seen thus far have placed buttons on a toolbar, which is located on the root view containing the Switch View Controller rather than the views, them self. Is it possible to do what I want? I can't figure how to wire up the connection back to the UINavigationController.
I'm having a difficult time wording this, so please feel free to let me know if you need additional clarification.
Read about delegates. Delegates are a common method to signal stuff from objects to their "parents" or any other objects.
You should have a "delegate" property (can really be called anything, this is just a convention) on your child views. You can have buttons in your child views.
You declare the delegate like this:
interface ChildView : UIViewController {
id delegate;
}
#property (assign) id delegate;
implementation ChildView
#synthesize delegate;
Then, when you set up your child views inside your UINavigationController, you do:
ChildView *childView = [[ChildView alloc] init...]
childView.delegate = self;
Inside your child view, you have a button method:
- (IBAction) didPressButton:(id)sender {
[self.delegate didPressButtonToSwapView];
}
Inside your UINavigationController, you have a method:
- (void) didPressButtonToSwapView {
[self popViewController]; // use the right names, I made these up :)
[self pushAnotherViewController];
}
You should also read about protocols which would make the above code more robust and would help you make sure you only call the right methods on delegate, but I did not want to complicate this example.
EDIT: yes, the cleanest way to get rid of the warning is to use a protocol. Just put this in a separate .h file:
#protocol SwitchingDelegate
- (void) didPressButtonToSwapView;
#end
Include this .h in the UINavController header, and say the UINavController implements the protocol:
#interface MyNav: UINavController <SwitchingDelegate> { ...
Implement the method in the implementation (you don't need anything more in the interface).
In your ChildView, say that the delegate must implement the protocol: change all the declarations to:
id<SwitchingDelegate> delegate;
The compiler then helps you by checking whether the delegate objects really implement the protocol. You should not get any warnings when you have completed all of this correctly.
I have an app with a root view controller, a primary view controller, and a secondary view controller. I would like to be able to send a message to the primary view controller from the secondary view controller. How can I get a reference to the primary so that I can send messages to it? Is there a better way to architect this?
The short answer: you can get back to your application delegate like this:
YourAppDelegate *delegate = [[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate];
You likely already have a pointer to your root view controller in your application delegate class. And you probably have pointers to your primary and secondary view controllers in the root controller object. So, you could write code like this:
SecondaryViewController *primary = delegate.rootController.primaryController;
You can then send messages to it to your heart's content. No outlets required; just properties to each view controller.
There are many longer answers and also a discussion about why this practice might be questionable since it introduces potentially unwanted linkages between objects. In a "pure" object oriented design, you'll follow a clean design pattern with clear linkages between objects in various directions allowing you to better reuse the code.
Another option is to pass in pointers to the objects the class will need at initialization time. Implement a new initWithSomethingOrOther for your view controller classes and pass objects in as parameters. Cache these pointers you need (don't forget to retain them) for later use.
The clean way to do it is to define a protocol for a delegate for the secondary controller which lists the methods it needs the primary controller to provide:
#protocol SecondaryControllerDelegate <NSObject>
- (void)secondaryController:(SecondaryController*)secondaryController
frobFooWithBar:(Bar*)myBar;
- (BOOL)secondaryController:(SecondaryController*)secondaryController
shouldTwiddleBaz:(Baz*)currentBaz;
#end
Now add a delegate property to the SecondaryController:
#interface SecondaryController : UIViewController {
id <SecondaryControllerDelegate> delegate;
...
}
// delegates are one of the few places you don't retain an object
#property (assign) id <SecondaryControllerDelegate> delegate;
...
In SecondaryController's implementation section, synthesize the delegate property. (Do not release it in the destructor.) When SecondaryController needs to communicate with the PrimaryController, it should call the appropriate method on the delegate.
Now make your PrimaryController implement the SecondaryControllerDelegate protocol:
#interface PrimaryController : UIViewController <SecondaryControllerDelegate> {
...
Implement the delegate methods in PrimaryController.
Finally, have your PrimaryController set itself as the SecondaryController's delegate. Exactly how you do this will depend on whether you create SecondaryController in a nib or not. If you do, make the connection there; if not, make it just after you allocate and init the SecondaryController.
Why do you do this song and dance? Well, when you have to introduce another controller between the Primary and Secondary, or use the Secondary elsewhere in the app, or even use the Secondary in another app (I have one controller that gets used in three of my four apps), you don't have to change SecondaryController at all; you just change whatever class should now be its delegate. This is an incredible time saver in the long run.
If the controllers are loaded from a NIB, you could define an outlet on the secondary controller and connect it to the primary controller in interface builder.
Use NSNotificationCenter for decoupled communication between objects.