iPhone + navigate to back screen programmatically - iphone

I am developing a application in which I need to provide navigate to backward screen programmatically, in which there are two scenarios:
There will one MainWindow.xib and few buttons on it, click of any one button will load another appropriate screen. On this screen, I need to put back button, click of which will load MainWindow.xib again and user can choose some other option.
Except the above scenario, also all the screens will contain back button, click of which will load the previous again and user can choose some other option.
Regards,
Pratik

You want to use the UINavigationController for this. See the link for the documentation and example projects. I can't really give a full example here, but you can get started with the "Navigation-Based Application" template in XCode.
The general idea is that you push and pop views to/from a UINavigationController, and it will handle the back button and navigation toolbar for you. It's pretty straight forward.

Related

UIDocumentBrowserViewController handling back navigation

Apple states that the UIDocumentBrowserViewController should be the rootviewcontroller of your app.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/view_controllers/adding_a_document_browser_to_your_app
I have done it this way but I have some UX problem that I cant tackle.
I cant find a good UX solution for navigating back into my App (switching back the app windows rootviewcontroller again to whatever I want).
However I have found that there are some properties where I can manipulate the appearance of the control, "Use the additionalLeadingNavigationBarButtonItems and additionalTrailingNavigationBarButtonItems methods to add buttons to the navigation bar.", but these wont add items to the "main" menu (where I can select other FileProviders, drive dropbox etc.) and where the possibility of going back would be the most clear.
Does anyone implemented, knows a good solution for adding a back button, FAB, back swipe gesture, or something for UIDocumentBrowserViewcontroller which is presented in a as the apps rootviewcontroller?
Im looking for a solution when the user ended the browsing of documents in the UIDocumentBrowserViewcontroller(copy,import etc) and wants to go back to another Viewcontroller.

Best iPhone app approach for project

I'm building an iPhone app and I'm sort of confused about which approach should I choose for views and controllers.
I would like to have a tabbar at the bottom with three options. I would also like to have a main view displayed when the app shows (along with the tabbar) but I don't want this view to be part of the tabbar options.
So, when the app begins, the tabbar has no option selected but the main view displayed. When a tabbar options is selected, in its top bar it should display a back button to the main view. When the back button is pressed, the main view display again with no tabbar option selected.
Which approach should I choose?
Hope it makes sense.
Thanks.
I understand what you're trying to do, but you shouldn't do that. I don't like that design at all. You should have one navigation controller for each tab.
You should probably read Apple's Human Interface Guidelines as it's possible they would reject your App if they thought such an implementation with a TabBarController was confusing.
As an alternative, you could possibly have the "main view" as you call it accessible with a button in the Navigation bar at the top and then add that to all three tabs. Not necessarily a better design but you probably wouldn't be breaking the guidelines.
A better alternative might be to use a UIToolBar at the bottom instead of the Tab bar which has the three buttons spawning your views modally which can then be dismissed as you suggest.
Remember though, your App's users have built up a knowledge of how App's are generally supposed to navigate, feel and control so you should think carefully before deciding to go against that.
Firstly, I think you should reconsider giving your Main View it's own tab. That way it's a no-brainer for the user to return to that screen. BUT, if you STILL don't like that idea, read on...
The UITabBarController has the unfortunate side effect of not being able to be removed once created (even if you delay it's creation by instantiating it programmatically).
SO...
Option 1: Make your MainView a modalPresentation sub-view, displaying it ON TOP of one of the views in your tab bar (hiding the tabs until you're ready to show them again).
Option 2: Give a subview of your first tab a...
mySubViewController.hidesBottomBarWhenPushed=YES;
This will make the UITabBarController disappear temporarily (just on that view, until you're ready to show the tabs again).
Both options seem kinda messy to me, but they are possible. Depends on how well you execute them, I suppose.
Hope this helps!
You could add the main view as another tab.
OR
You present the main view modally when the app starts over the tab bar views.
The first option would be used more if the view holds the same kind of content as the tabs, for example if the app was an online store, the tabs would be Categories, Search and Recently Added, with what you call the "main view" being the Home page (showing offers or something). (So all the views/tabs would be showing products on the store)
The second option would be more if the content of the main view is different to the tabs.
Keeping with the online store example, if the tabs were Categories, Search and Recently added and what you call the "main view" being a login/logout screen. (so the tabs would be showing products, but the modal view ("main view") being more admin related, and it's main purpose not being to display products.

View-Based Application? - Please explain

XCode: "This template provides a starting point for an application that uses a single view. It provides a view controller to manage the view, and a nib file that contains the view."
What does that even mean? (ie what does Single view actually mean)
1) This means that your application will only have a single view screen that is active
2) This means that your application will be able to have as many screens as you like using a single view controller.
Ok now what if your application has multiple screens? not a single view screen, is still suitable under a view based application template?
Example
Screen1(main): on this screen you have 3 buttons, "Open Form1", "Open Form2", "Open Form3"
When the button is clicked it opens up the associated screen,
Press the "Open Form1" button opens up "Form1" screen2
Press the "Open Form2" button opens up "Form2" screen3
Press the "Open Form3" button opens up "Form3" screen4
When the user completes the form and submits it, a thank you screen is displayed
therefore in this example there would be a total of 5 screens.
Each form screen contains is different, textfield inputs, and information, is this considered as a view based application?
View-based app is just a template to say that your app will be view-based. That means that you can have any number of views you want, as this template comes with a view controller (that, as the name says, can be used to control the views... show/hide them with animation, for example).
The template starts with ONE VIEW that is added to the app view controller. You can add any number of views to that controller.
So, yes to your questions. You can use this to create the app you mention, where any of the "screens" you mention would be a view, for example and you can show each one using, for instance, the app view controller to animate each view showing or hiding.
That means the template will create one view and corresponding view controller along with app delegate, main window. That will also do the necessary things to add this view to main windows, and load when app runs. This is just a template. Then you can crate any number of views and view controllers as you want.
This means that the template you are starting the project with provides a single ViewController, and associated XIB for the View. As the first answer says you could use this template to build the application mentioned.
HOWEVER you may wish to think about how the user is going to interact with your app. Will you allow stepping back and forwards through the screens, in which case you may want to consider the Navigation Based app where you push/pop screens onto a stack to allow easy movement between then.
You might also have a concept of allowing the user to jump at will between each of the screen pages in which case you might want to implement a TabBar application.
Or you could just implement it all yourself. At the end of the day it will be your application design, and the template is only a starting point to get you going. I would suggest that if you are starting out with iOS development however to go with 1 ViewController matched a XIB for each screen you wish to implement to keep things simple.

UITabBarController Initial View?

I'm wondering if it is possible to start my app with all my tabs in the "up" state and show a "landing" view to the user. Kind of like a welcome/quick start. When they select one of the tabs, it switches views as normal.
Will you point me in the right direction?
Kind of like this:
If you're using a UITabBar/UITabBarController, I think you must have the selectedIndex set to some legal value. I don't think this is possible, nor can I find an app on my iPhone or iPod that mimics the behaviour you're looking for.
(The App Store app is as close as it gets, where it looks like it has an empty tab bar before it loads data from the Internet, but it could very well be that they are just re-using the Default.png and superimposing an activity indicator during loading.)
Note that if you tried to submit your app to Apple, they could easily reject it for using non-standard UI.
The way I would probably do this is to create a new ViewController that's just for this screen, but make sure it's last in the viewControllers array managed by the UITabBarController. That way, when you show the tab bar on the screen, you get the 4 tabs and the more button, but the currently selected view controller is not in the bar, meaning that all of the other tabs are unselected.
Once the user has satisfied the condition for showing the screen, you can discretely remove the view controller from the tab bar, and the user will never be the wiser.

UITabbarController problem

I Have two xib files named firstView and SecondView ........
I implemented these into tabbarcontroller items...Now its work fine..
When i select firsttabbaritem firstView was loaded also select second tabbaritem its loaded secondview...
i have back button in the SecondView ...If some one clicked these back button means how can i load firstView?....
Can anyone help me?
Thanks in advance........
I think that Apple's usability guidelines might encourag you not to use a back button to change tabs.
If you must - look at UITabController.selectedTabIndex
This is definitely not how your users are going to expect the interface to work. Back buttons are for navigating back up a NavigationController stack. A Tab Bar is for navigating between completely independent NavigationController stacks.
Think about it in terms of a browser. If I go from Site A to Site B, then switch tabs... I don't want my NEW tab to go back to Site A.
You really ought to seriously consider what it is that you are trying to do, and whether or not it makes any sense to an end user.