I'm trying to create a modal status indicator display for an iPhone app, and would like one similar to this one used in Tweetie:
Specifically, this one "shades out" the entire screen, including the toolbar. I don't believe through any normal UIView manipulation, I can extend past the bounds of my window, can I? I believe I've seen a status indicator like this somewhere else on iPhone, possibly when I added an Exchange e-mail account.
I've tried subclassing UIAlertView and overriding its drawRect method. If I don't call [super drawRect:] it doesn't ever display the normal UIAlertView text box, however my drawing rectangle is in an odd size and position.
Anyone have any advice to accomplish this?
Check out MBProgressHUD.
Take a look at the source code to the WordPress application. They have code which you can basically drag and drop into your application to do this.
http://iphone.wordpress.org/development/
I haven't done this myself, but you could layer a UIView at the top of the view hierarchy, and use setHidden to dynamically show or hide it. Since it's at the top of the stack, it should be able to intercept all touch events.
Related
How does Facebook iPhone app (4.1) implement the pop-over window for notifications (see below for screenshot)? I thought this was only capable on the iPad. Is this a lookalike that they have custom built?
Check out this library which can implement pop over menus like facebook app: https://github.com/50pixels/FPPopover
I think it is far more complicated (and cleaner) than either of answers (guesses) so far. It is likely a completely separate view controller with it's own content view that is being added as a subview of the container view.
There are some libraries that so a similar thing, here is one for example:
https://github.com/KJoyner/SeaGlass/wiki/SGPopoverController-Documentation
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=107632999326583
https://github.com/chrismiles/CMPopTipView
My first guess would be that the "popover" is just a subview within the mainview.
First you create the subview, then hide it mySubView.hidden = TRUE; . When the user taps on the Globe button just "unhide" mySubView.hidden = FALSE; the subview with a nice 1 second animation (which will make it fade in).
I imagine that the edges with the rounded corners, subtle inner glow, and outer shadow are part of a resizable 9 part image. From there, it just about placing it on screen stretching it out and drawing the arrow at the appropriate location to line up with the bar button item.
I am working on an app which displays user information on the home view. Its a regular tab bar application, which brings up the home view on load. I need to display something like,
Hello Joe,
Your current points are : xxx
I would like this to be in a white curved background box. (The background for the view is blue). Is there something like a UIPanel or something like that. I would really like to avoid having another view or a webView, not sure if thats going to affect the speed of loading the page.
If there were a UIPanel control it would derive from UIView, so I'm not sure why you want to avoid another view. If I'm understanding you, it sounds like you want a custom alert window of some sort. You could just use the UIAlertView control to display your message, but if you are dead set on a custom look, then you will need to use a view.
This shouldn't affect performance noticeably if you are just displaying some text with maybe a button on a custom image. Especially if this is just a tab bar application with nothing too crazy happening in the background (animations, etc.).
I would suggest creating a View either in code (this will be slightly faster, but once again probably not noticeably so) or with Interface Builder that has a black background with an opacity of like .2-.5 and on that view adding a UIImageView set to your custom image (a png of a white curved box with transparent corners). Then put a UILabel with your text and a button to dismiss it.
On load just instantiate the above view and add it to your current view. It will show your message modally. Then capture the button tap event to have it remove itself from it's superview.
There are plenty of examples of how to do exactly this out there and there are even other ways of doing it than what I've suggested. If you need further assistance let me know.
I am trying to use a UIAlertView essentially as a label (no title or buttons, just display text) for aesthetic purposes. I want to be able to continue to use everything else in the app (touch other buttons, etc.) while the alert view is being shown. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to invoke touchesBegan or a selector using a UITapGestureRecognizer while the alert view is shown. These both work when the alert view is not shown, but it seems like the alert view disables detection of any touches (other than touching its own buttons if it had them).
Does anyone know a way I could work around this? Even if I was to create a UILabel and set its background to the alert view image that would work.
Thanks for your help.
The alert view puts a new window on top of the entire screen which intercepts touches. It's expressly designed to prevent you from doing what you're trying to do. Why are you trying to abuse alerts in this manner anyway? It's generally a bad idea to take existing UI and use them in non-standard ways, as well as a possible reason to get rejected.
Your best bet is to just draw the "alert view" yourself, either in code or as a pre-baked image. Unfortunately this means you cannot leverage the built-in code that draws UIAlertView, but it's probably best that you don't try to appear identical to a UIAlertView anyway.
In the iPad's Photos app, when you tap an album the stack of pictures expands to fill the screen - you're in the same view, it's just rearranged the grid a little. But at the top, a left-arrow-style Back button appears, as if pushViewController had been used - except it fades in neatly, rather than sliding in. When you tap that, it fades out again, rather than sliding out.
Is there a way to replicate this behaviour? I've tried a few options so far, and might just be missing something. What I've tried:
Setting self.navigationItem's leftBarButtonItem works, but gives me a square button rather than an angled Back-style one - there are a few hacks online to make this work, such as using pictures for the button, but I'd rather only use them if there's definitely no "official" way to do this.
Setting self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem - this is generally used to customise the back button when a view controller is pushed, so it has no effect.
[self.navigationController.navigationBar setItems::] - this works, although it gives me the sliding animation rather than fading. As a result, I use animated:NO to make it just appear. Downside: when tapping Back, you do get the sliding out animation, which looks weird because the rest of the UI stays still.
Has anyone managed to replicate this effect?
Thanks in advance!
Your first approach is probably the best.
It doesn't have to be super-hacky, you can use a normal UIButton and customize it to look like a back-button using backgroundImageForState: and titleForState: (etc.), then set the UIButton object as the customView of your UIBarButtonItem.
Many apps these days customize the look & feel of the buttons anyway, so using a custom background image is quite normal. If you use resizableImageWithCapInsets: (or stretchableImageWithLeftCapWidth:topCapHeight: if you need to support iOS earlier than 5.0) then the button can still stretch to fit whatever text goes inside, and as it's a normal UIButton the text is localizable, etc. I don't consider this approach to be hacky, it is a perfectly sensible way to get around the limited functionality of UIBarButtonItem objects.
Better late than never.
To show a back button without pushing a view controller, use pushNavigationItem:animated: and popNavigationItemAnimated: on UINavigationBar. These result in the standard slide animation and creation of a back button. However, there is no way to ensure your content animation runs for the same time as the bar animation other than making an educated guess at the duration.
Since iOS 7 there is a better API for achieving this effect, where you still push and pop view controllers but you provide a custom transition animation through navigationController:animationControllerForOperation:fromViewController:toViewController: from UINavigationControllerDelegate. This allows the animations between the bar and content to be perfectly coordinated.
Finally, if your content before and after is managed by UICollectionViewController, you can use useLayoutToLayoutNavigationTransitions, which is designed for use-cases like Photos.
I've got a problem thats been perplexing me for a while. I have a custom control for the iPhone sdk. When the user touches the control I want to draw a small bubble above the users touch position with some information in it. A bit like a thought bubble in a cartoon.
Initially I've done it by adding a UIView subview to the control. However if I use the control where I don't have control of the z-order, for example in a table view, then the bubble will be drawn under other controls.
I've looked around but I'm not sure how to approach this problem. Everything I've read seems to indicate that you need to know the tree structure of the controls. Ideally I'd like to apply it to some layer that sits over the window as a whole, but I'm not sure how. I've also look at core graphics but cannot see any obvious answers.
Does anyone have any ideas of perhaps something they can point me at which will help.
Thanks
If you want to add a UIView to the 'top window', you can use the application UIWindow for that.
UIWindow is a subclass of UIView, so you can just use - (void)addSubview:(UIView *)view to add the new view to the window.
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] keyWindow] addSubview:yourView];
You could try adding it as a subview of the window, though, I don't think that's the most appropriate solution.
Personally, I would add my control as a subview to whichever view (maybe a table cell) and then tell that view to bring your control to the front.
[tablecell bringSubviewToFront:myControl];
That way, when you display your bubble, it'll be on top.