What can I do with an CALayer delegate? - iphone

There seems to be an delegate that can be set like myView.layer.delegate = anObject
The documentation just says:
delegate
Specifies the receiver’s
delegate object.
#property(assign) id
delegate
I wonder what kind of methods that delegate would implement, and when they would be called. Could solve some big problems with the presentationLayer, that doesn't return current values as expected.
UPDATE:
Just found this in another Apple document:
Warning: Since the view is the layer’s
delegate, you should never set the
view as a delegate of another CALayer
object. Additionally, you should never
change the delegate of this layer.

The delegate is used by CALayers. In the case of UIVIew, the view itself is the delegate and like you found, should not be changed.
If you create your own CALayer, then you can use the delegate to provide contents or manually draw to the layer.
See the Core Animation guide for more info.

Related

iPhone: calling a parent/super method from a subview

hope someone can help me on this as been stuck for hours.
I am trying to make a kind of picture book.
I have a view which is my container and I add subviews to that by using addsubview.
On the subview, I have swipe gestures etc that I want to trigger off method in the parent view. I worked out how to trigger the delegate but I cant get the delegate to trigger the parent view. I have read over 10 different ways of doing it and none work.
I now very confused about what a super view is to. Just to confuse matters, the delegate has a tabcontroller and the parent view is tab button 1
I tried
[self.view.superview method]
[self.superview method]
On the delegate I tried
self.tabcontroller.parentviewcontroller, selectedview, super view.super
UPDATE :
The subview needs to be independant of the parent view as its a reusable view.
Also I have not set the parentview to superview as I just thought a superview is a view with subviews (please don't kill me). So maybe I just need to set the parentview to a superview?
The proper way of doing such things is to use protocol and delegate pattern.
Define a protocol like
#protocol subViewDelegate
-(void)somethingHappened:(id)sender;
#end
then implement that protocol in your superview :
#interface superView:UIViewController<subViewDelegate> {
...
}
...
#end
define a delegate property in your SubView like this
#interface subView : UIView {
id<subViewDelegate> delegate;
...
}
#propery (nonatomic, assign) id<subViewDelegate> delegate;
...
#end
the in your subview, call the delegate like this
[self.delegate somethingHappened :self];
It's a little hard to help you without any code given, but let's try:
Create a protocol: Name it however you like (I will call it "MyProtocol") and add to it the definition of the function you want to call in your superview, let's call it "respondToSwipe"
If your superview is a UIView, you have to create your own subclass of UIView and make your superview an instance of that class.
Let your (newly) created superview class implement the protocol of 1.) an implement the "respondToSwipe" method
Create an instance variable of the the type id in your subview, and name it however you like, e.g. "myDelegate".
Pass the superview created in 2/3.) to your "myDelegate" variable
Call [myDelegate respondToSwipe] whenever you like
For a custom view, you could subclass UIControl and use control events:
Define some control events. You're free to make up 4 control events (UIControlEventApplicationReserved = 0x0F000000)
Have whoever wants to receive events call addTarget:action:forControlEvents:
Have the control call [self sendActionsForControlEvents:events]
Alternatively, you could use a UIGestureRecognizer-style interface (addTarget:action:).
Alternatively just use UIGestureRecognizer (OS 3.2+)
Did your parent view set itself to be the superview of the subview when it added the subview? Otherwise the subview doesn't know who its superview is.
The more standard way of naming things to call the method handler the delegate instead of the superview, make it a property, and have the subview check for both the existence of the delegate being set and whether it can handle the method.
Here a very good example of how apply the delegation pattern on the iPhone. I downloaded the code an it works pretty good.
http://www.hivestudio.cat/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=57:technical-note-the-delegation-pattern-on-the-iphone&catid=35:technical-note-category&Itemid=76

Why am I crashing after MKMapView is freed if I'm no longer using it?

I have a MKMapView. Sometimes after my view controller is dismissed, I'll get a EXC_BAD_ACCESS.
I turned on NSSZombies and it looks like the MKMapView's delegate — my view controller! — is being called, despite both the MKMapView and UIViewController subclass being freed. I've checked, and my memory management is correct.
What's going on?
This is because of the way MKMapView works. There's an operation pending, so MapKit is retaining the MKMapView and it hasn't actually been deallocated yet. That isn't itself a problem. The problem is that it's still sending messages to your delegate.
The workaround is simple: As part of your view controller's cleanup set the map view's delegate to nil, which will prevent MKMapView from sending messages to it.
This is documented in MKMapViewDelegate Protocol Reference:
Before releasing an MKMapView object for which you have set a delegate, remember to set that object’s delegate property to nil. One place you can do this is in the dealloc method where you dispose of the map view.
Edit: Give Oscar an upvote as well, just below, who provided the documentation quote here.
Given ARC, I suggest this means you should set your map view's delegate to nil in your view controller's dealloc.
OK, this is the confirmation of the answer. It's from the Apple doc, but it's missing from MKMapView. It's only found under the documentation for its delegate protocol:
Before releasing an MKMapView object for which you have set a
delegate, remember to set that object’s delegate property to nil. One
place you can do this is in the dealloc method where you dispose of
the map view.
NOTE: This also applies to UIWebView.
I set the MapView's delegate pointer to nil in the delegate's dealloc method, and our crashes seem to have been eliminated.
Setting the map view's delegate to nil didn't work for me. However, setting showsUserLocation=NO on the delegate worked by making sure no location updates are received.
The problem, in my case, was that first time I launched app I don't press "allow" when prompting for location authorization (accidentally!!).
Uninstalling app and re-installing it, when prompt appear I allow the authorizations and no more crash!

How to detect when a UIView has changed size?

I have a UIViewController that is initialised with a correct frame, however somewhere in my code the frame gets mangled and I'm having difficulty finding out where.
In situations like this it is usually handy to watch a variable in the debugger, however I have no way of accessing the controller->view->frame property in my variable view, since it isn't a variable, it's a property (surprisingly enough)
Drilling into the UIView in the variables display shows a few things but nothing I can relate to the frame, I thought perhaps that would be in layer but it isn't.
Is there any way to watch for changes in a private API? I guess not, since the variables are essentially 'hidden' and so you can't specify exactly what to watch.
Alternatively, what other approach could I use? I already tried subclassing UIView, setting my UIViewController's view to point to this subclass and breaking on the setFrame method but it didn't seem to work.
EDIT: the subclassing UIView method DID work, I just had to set the view to point to my test subclass in viewDidLoad and not the init method. Leaving this question open as I'm not sure if this is the best way of approaching this kind of problem...
Subclass your the view you want to track and rewrite the setFrame method:
#implementation MyTableView
- (void)setFrame:(CGRect)frame;
{
NSLog(#"%#", frame);
[super setFrame:frame];
}
#end
Then use the debugger to add a breakpoint to it and check when it gets called. Eventually, you'll see when the frame gets changed and where does the change comes from.
I discovered this can be done using key value observers.
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/cocoa/conceptual/KeyValueObserving/KeyValueObserving.html
You could create an ivar, view2, and just assigned it to your view in your loadView method. That should enable you to watch it like a normal variable.

CALayer delegate method drawLayer not getting called

My object a sub class of NSObject has CALayer instance variable. I use it for drawing and caching content with its delegate set to my object.
But for some reason drawLayer:inContext: method NEVER gets called. Whereas actionForLayer:forKey: delegate method does get called implying the delegate is getting set properly with layer.delegate = self in the object's init method.
Any suggestions on what is preventing my layer drawing method drawLayer:inContext: from getting called ?
I am called the [layer setNeedDisplay] often. So I guess it is some fundamental error.
drawLayer:inContext: won't get called if your frame is CGRectZero or offscreen. Also, if your CALayer isn't attached to an existing onscreen layer, it will never draw, no matter how many times you call setNeedsDisplay
Implement an empty drawRect:
- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect {
}
Taken from the ZoomingPDFViewer project:-
UIView uses the existence of -drawRect: to determine if it should
allow its CALayer to be invalidated, which would then lead to the
layer creating a backing store and -drawLayer:inContext: being
called. By implementing an empty -drawRect: method, we allow UIKit
to continue to implement this logic, while doing our real drawing work
inside of -drawLayer:inContext:
The layer object's setNeedsDisplay must be called. Simply adding the layer as a sublayer does not do that for you. Got this from Ray Wenderlich's CALayer tutorial.
If you're eventually using the CALayer with a UIView then the delegate must be the view object itself:
From the iOS CALayer documentation:
"In iOS, if the layer is associated with a UIView object, this property must be set to the view that owns the layer."
If you have a multi-threaded app where background processing drives the need to update the CALayer, you must call setNeedsDisplay in the main thread

Calling setNeedsDisplay on a UIView from another class

I have a UIView subclass that I manipulate a lot of graphics on based on touches. All the [self setNeedsDisplay] calls seem to be fine.
However, I used an instance variable pointer to my same UIView subclass instance, and then tried manipulating it and then calling [UIViewSubClass setNeedsDisplay] from another UIView class, and DrawRect is never being called. Are there restrictions to where you can call setNeedsDisplay from?
(This method is called when a button is clicked on another UIView subclass. The method is being called, but not DrawRect)
-(IBAction)loadGrid2;
{
tempSoundArray = musicGridView1.soundArray;
[musicGridView1.soundArray setButtonArrayToNull];
[musicGridView1 setNeedsDisplay];
musicGridView1.soundArray = tempSoundArray;
NSLog(#"loadGrid2 was called");
}
drawRect: will only be called when it makes sense; ie, the view must be visible, onscreen, and dirty. Is your drawRect: ever called? It should be called when the view is first brought onscreen as well.
To add to Ben:
This most likely means that you have problems elsewhere. Your pointer may not be nil or otherwise invalid or the view may not be added to the hierarchy properly.
You may want to consider not handling this type behavior within the view and instead in the view controller. Control behavior and save presentation state in the view controller and don't subclass the view classes. It will simplify your code with less "pointer passing". This will also make it easier to debug this type of problem.
If you feel your view controller is getting bloated, consider splitting the responsibilities up among multiple view controllers.