Would I violate the HIG by showing a tab bar on my first view only? The first view also has a tableview and navigation bar at the top. Once the user selects a row, it goes to another tableview and no tab bar. The navigation bar is still at the top and the user can go back. Clicking a row from here displays the detail view. In summary, the tab bar will only be available on the first view.
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Technically, I know how to do this. But from the HIG and user point of views, I'm not sure about it. The tab bar is only needed on the first view to reach the in app purchase store. Guess this really constitutes a redesign where I have a new button on the first view? My navigation bar has just enough room for it in the top right.
I have done this too in my application and it has been approved without any issues. Besides, it is supported by UIKit, so I don't see any reason why it should be a problem. It's even perfectly logical to hide the tab bar when drilling down into a table.
I'd say go for it!
Yes, this can be done. Just push the tab bar controller on the nav bar and it will work like you described, though it might feel awkward to some users.
The iPod app does this, so I'd say it's okay.
Related
I am working on a mobile version for my company's web app. The structure of this application requires uitableviews with a tab bar on the bottom and a navigation bar up top to return to the previous view. As you drill down in the application the tab bar items change at each level allowing selection of different views pertaining to that specific level in the app. I need a way to implement this with a navigation bar on top that navigates back to the previous screen on every tab in said tab bar when a back button is clicked on any of the tabs.
for example: let's say i start out with an items tab and a simple about tab. When i click items it drills down to a new view called subitems and the tabs for this view are subitems, favorites, details, and notes. I want the navigation bar to go back to the previous screen when i click the back button on any one of these four tabs.
Is this at all possible? I can't seem to find anything related to this type of structuring within an app. any help/examples would be greatly appreciated.
I know that a negative answer always sounds bad, but I tried to do the same a few months ago and I could not find a way of doing it using the standard UITabBarController/UITabBar. Take also a look at this question/answer.
The good news is that it is not that difficult to implement from scratch a tab bar controller that can be pushed on a navigation stack. There are also several examples around, one is BCTabBarController. GtabBar is another example.
I actually found a way to do it you just have to implement the navigation bar's leftbarbuttonitem instead of the traditional back button. Then I just created a method that is invoked when the back button is pushed this updates the navigation stacks of all four views within the tab bar and sets the tab bar items accordingly to match with the previous views we are navigating back to. . . so long story short...it is possible.
I am working on a project which involves both kind of applications ie Navigation based and Tab based. All things are working perfectly. But what I want is, when I click on a particular tab then a button must be added to the navigation bar at the top to edit the table below it. I am able to draw the button but it is not affecting the tableview below it. When I do this in navigation based application it works perfectly. But it does not work in tab based.
So please tell me the way to add button at navigation bar in UI tab based application which appear only at particular tab.
tell me the sample code or any tutorial for it.
For each tab embed a UINavigationConrtoller, and your own view controllers in them.
This way each tab will have its own navigation bar, and thus can have their own sets of bar items, titles, etc.
You generally never want to embed a UITabBarController in a UINavigationController, always the other way around.
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.
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.
I want to show more tahn four tab bar item on tab bar controller by scrolling tab bar . is it possible in iphone if it is.. please give the exact solution.??
Hoping your positive response
The iPhone SDK creates a kind of "favourites" option automatically, so the user can drop their favourite icon to the tabbar..
Maybe you can extend the UITabbar and implement a "scrolling/swiping" mechanism, but I suggest you not to do that. This because swiping on a menu (tabbar) can be really annoying for the end user and they probably drag their "most-use" icons to the tabbar so don't worry about that. My advise: Save your time, and put it into more interesting features for your app instead of spending hours figuring out how to make a scrolling tabbar...
You can also make your own UIView and "duplicate" the tabbar, so it looks like a tabbar but it actually isn't, but again that's a complete different approach...