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.
Related
If I call my app using a separate activity (not the normal initial route but, for instance, by overriding getInitialRoute() in a secondary FlutterActivity), or maybe even if I have no UI at all but a plugin I call into provides a platform UI of any kind, upon returning to my code, when I want to dismiss the functionality, the root route of my Flutter app is visible for a short moment. As an example, let's consider a printing scenario:
my app receives a share intent
I catch the intent with my Android code, send it to the Dart side
I act upon the intent, which involves displaying the Android printing UI
the user finishes printing or dismisses the UI
control returns to my code
before my Flutter app goes away, its initial route displays temporarily
Item 6 happens even if I call SystemNavigator.pop() in my item 5. The app exits all right, the funcionality is OK, but the momentarily visible root page is a visual nuisance.
So, what I would practically need is a way to clear the back stack when I reach item 5 to make sure I don't return to the root, not even for a moment.
I found something in the meantime that, at least for now, seems to work. It involves several steps:
make sure you use an extra route for this activity -- this ensures that it won't be the root page but this one the navigation returns to temporarily,
make sure the route shows an invisible page, practically an empty Container() -- this ensures the page will not show anything,
start this activity with a transparent background mode (including a transparent launch theme and referencing it in the manifest) -- this ensures the page will not even re-color the background temporarily,
use SystemNavigator.pop([animated: false]) when your code returns from the foreign UI -- this ensures that the extra page will disappear in the end. Animated actually does nothing, as the doc describes (which is unfortunate, actually, it would be nice to be able to suppress it).
These all combined make sure that, although the extra page is technically present for a short period of time, it isn't actually visible and distracting to the user.
I'm still very much open to suggestions that provide a real solution rather than a hacky workaround, if possible. :-)
I tried to develop a shopping cart application.
I am able to process the deal. but when the user click the fresh start after completing the deal the first page starts with the value which I have entered previously.
I am using gwtp, uibinders, I have back, cancel, next functionality in series of screens.
what to do to make sure the screen is blank for every new start of deal.
I don't know which design pattern you use, but usually a "view" keeps its state after it is hidden. When you show your view the second time, you have to reset the values of all fields (textboxes, inputs, etc.), or they will show their state from the previous time.
I'm working on adding the functionality to delete a row in a UITableView on the iPhone. It's pretty clear how to delete the row within the application, from both the model and the UI. However, the deletion requires a call to be made to the server, which can't be guaranteed to succeed given all the funkiness that can happen with mobile connectivity. I'm implementing both swipe-to-delete for single rows and switching the entire table into editing mode.
What kind of behavior can be used within the UITableView/UITableViewCell to indicate a server call in progress? I think this can be tricky with the limited real estate.
Should the user be permitted to delete other rows while a delete call is in progress?
What behavior is recommended for errors? Displaying a UIAlertView?
Change the accessory view of the cell to a UIProgressView to show that some activity is taken place and set the networkActivityIndicatorVisible.
Since all UI interaction happens on the main thread you could allow the user to delete multiple rows at the same time. Just send the request in the background and dont allow that user to swipe and delete that row until the operation is complete.
For a quick and dirty solution a UIAlertView would work. A more elegant solution would be some sort of view that drops down from the status bar with details or maybe add a button to the cell that when the user clicks on it gives them a reason why it fails. There are several solutions here.
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 have struggled and now I just need to see it in action. I have an info-button on my title page (UIViewController) and I want to bring up an About-view with a 'dismiss' button on the left and a 'detail disclosure on the right.' If one presses the 'detail disclosure', it brings up the PrivacyStatement-view with the same buttons. If one presses the 'detail disclosure', it will bring up a Credits-view. I should be able to continue this for additional Legal, etc.
According to the Apple doc's one dismiss will dismiss the entire sequence, regardless of where one is at the time.
I have been able to get the views to show, but they won't dismiss themselves. These leads me to think that I am not using the preferred approach but rather, I have developed an ad-hoc approach that leaves me with dangling structures.
Any suggestions? I have my thoughts, but I am only one two levels deep and the dismiss doesn't work! :( I have a total dead-end and have to Quit the app to get back on the real App view.
I got it! Basically, the code is cascaded along the 'workflow' of viewcontrollers. I devised a style where most of the technical class management is done by the tools and leaves me with book keeping and content. I will need some review for memory management, as I think my current code is probably leaking controllers up and down the path. Also, the fact that I can traverse back and forth leads me to think that I really just have a stack of views and not modal views. I will post the code sometime by the end of the week.