Specifically, what am I supposed to do with the view that is now hidden after pushing on a new view controller?
In my situation I have a view with animations going on, that continue to execute after the view is off screen.
Is there some accepted convention?
Do I remove the View Controller and View from memory?
Does Cocoa Touch have a convenient method to "Pause" a view (and controller) and remove it from memory, and bring it back into existence when needed (after a pop)?
Do I have to archive it myself and then un-archive it?
Are there any examples you can point me to?
Thanks
Another possible solution is to implement two of the following methods:
– viewWillAppear:
– viewDidAppear:
– viewWillDisappear:
– viewDidDisappear:
You could potentially stop your animation in viewWillDisappear or viewDidDisappear and then restart it in viewWillAppear or viewDidAppear. You could also store any necessary state information about the animation before you stop it.
Under low memory conditions, your controller's 'view' property will automatically be set to nil, if it's not on screen. Then the view will automatically load again when it is needed - and viewDidLoad should get called at that time.
If your view controller is retaining any subviews of the top-level view, then you may want to override the view controller's setView: method, check if the view is being set to nil, and if so, release subviews that you were retaining. Otherwise, the top-level view may never get deallocated.
- (void)setView:(UIView *)view
{
[super setView:view];
if (view == nil)
{
// Release other views
// self.someView = nil;
}
}
Whenever you call pushViewController, the current viewcontroller is stored in an array by navigation controller (this can be accessed using the viewControllers property of navcontroller).
Think of it as a stack. As you call pushViewController, a new viewcontroller is added to the stack on top of the current viewcontroller. But your rootviewcontroller is still in memory. When you call popViewController, that viewcontroller is removed from the stack and released.
So if you want to stop your animation when the view disappears, use the viewWillDisappear method as suggested by Andy.
Related
I have a stack of UIViewController subclasses. Each modifies a NSManagedObject model. Many of them also present their own modal view controllers.
I need to save changes to the NSManagedObjectContext when a user either 'pops' the view controller or pushes the next view controller.
Currently, I'm hiding the default back button and setting my own UIBarButtonItem with a target of self and a custom action.
This works okay, but ideally, I want to use the default back button and run code before the pop. Is there a way I can run my own code before the pop?
(I'd prefer not to put code into viewWillDisappear as persisting to disk can be expensive and this method can also be triggered by modals being displayed by view controller.) Can it be done?
You can do it in viewDidDisappear, after checking that self is either 1) the second last element in self.navigationController.viewControllers (the case where the next VC just got pushed) or 2) self.navigationController is nil (the self VC just got popped).
Yes.. Navigation controller has a delegate which indicates when a view controller popped or pushed.. You can use that to do your task...
Add following method in your code:
- (void) viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated{
//your code here
}
I use viewWillDissappear to make any changes persistant.
If required i Use viewWillAppear to recoginze any changes (reload the data) that may have taken place while other puhed view controlers did their work.
For pop check isMovingFromParent in viewWillDisappear
func viewWillDisappear(_ animation:Bool){
super.viewWillDisappear(animation);
if isMovingFromParent {
// your code here
}
}
I have a general question about viewWillAppear, I pushed newly a view consider view1, now viewWillAppear is called for that method, if view1 pushed another view (view2). Now if view2 is popped view1's viewWillAppear is called again, how can I come to know in which case its called i.e (is it because of newly pushing or popping of other view).
Hope my question is understandable :)
TIA
Frankly, I do not know how to determine that condition appropriately.
You could of course set some property of view1 in view2's viewWillDisappear method and re-set that in view1's viewWillAppear. Such like:
view1.m:
- (void) viewWillAppear ... {
...
if (self.wasPopped) {...}
self.wasPopped = NO;
...
}
view2.m:
- (void) viewWillDisappear {
view1.wasPopped = YES; //you would have to have a reference to view1 or fetch it from the navigation controller stack.
}
However, I strongly believe that this is not really the way you should go. Consider moving your code to the viewDidLoad method. viewDidLoad is called only once when the view(Controller) is created well before viewWillAppear is called for the first time.
Depending on your context, you want to use...
For viewWillAppear/viewDidAppear
isBeingPresented
isMovingToParentViewController
For viewWillDisappear/viewDidDisappear
isBeingDismissed
isMovingFromParentViewController
Just simply remember that whenever your view will appear on screen(it is going to be visible ) viewWillAppear method will be called.
In your case when view2 is popped again your view1 is going to appear on the screen that's why it's viewWillAppear is called again. Same way when you push new view controller, that new view controller will be displayed on the screen. Before displaying that view, that new view controller's viewWillAppear will be called.
I hope it makes sense.
You can use BOOL value and initialize it to FALSE.In viewWillAppear make that bool value TRUE and in viewWillAppear only check whether that bool value is TRUE or FALSE if it is true means the view is appearing for second time.
If a new iOS project is created with an Empty App template in Xcode 4.3.2, and in AppDelegate.m:
self.window.rootViewController = [[FooViewController alloc] init];
and in FooViewController's viewDidLoad, the following:
NSLog(#"self.view is %p", self.view);
NSLog(#"self.view is %#", self.view);
will print out the view, so it looks like the default loadView will instantiate a view and assign it to self.view.
So if I override loadView with an all empty method, and comment out the second NSLog statement above, I expect the first NSLog statement to print out 0x0, but instead the app crashed due to bad memory access right at that NSLog line. Why would that be?
Okay, after a knee-jerk and obviously wrong answer, I tried this. The Empty App template would not have a rootViewController, so I used a single screen template. After running, I see that you are getting a stack overflow. In trying to access self.view, you are calling the view property on the superclass, which is then trying to load the view in order to return it, which is calling viewDidLoad, etc., as far as I can see. The other NSLog statement does the same.
The documentation for the view property in UIViewController states:
Because accessing this property can cause the view to be loaded automatically, you can use the isViewLoaded method to determine if the view is currently in memory.
It also has a link to The View Controller Life Cycle, which states:
The steps that occur during the load cycle are as follows:
The load cycle is triggered when the view controller's view property is accessed and the view is not currently in memory.
The view controller calls its loadView method. The default implementation of the loadView method does one of two things:
If the view controller is associated with a storyboard, it loads the views from the storyboard.
If the view controller is not associated with a storyboard, an empty UIView object is created and assigned to the view property.
The view controller calls its viewDidLoad method to allow your subclass to perform any additional load-time tasks.
So when you say:
So if I override loadView with an all empty method
You're deliberately breaking the life cycle, because when your overridden version of loadView finishes, it should have loaded a view. Because it didn't, you get a crash.
It appears that ViewDidLoad() is sent to a ViewController only after its View is physically displayed (i.e. via NavigationController pushViewController), and not immediately after initWithNibName(). Is this a behavior I can rely on? I would like to get the chance to set the member variables of my view so that all the members are valid by the time ViewDidLoad() is invoked.
You can set up member variables and other such things in initWithNibName:bundle:.
- (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibName bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundle {
if (self = [super initWithNibName:nibName bundle:nibBundle]) {
// set up ivars and other stuff here.
someIvar = someValue;
}
return self;
}
You are correct that viewDidLoad: is only sent when the view is physically displayed, i.e when it is added to some visible view (which may sometimes be never if the user does not reach that view). So it's useful to split the functionality and think about what you can do at init time and what happens at view load time.
As Marcelo Cantos notes in the comment, viewDidLoad: is generally a fine place to do all sorts of setup work, using the concept of "lazy loading," so that you defer the setup until as late time as possible.
viewDidLoad is called before a view controller is displayed for the first time, not immediately after initWithNibName. For example, if you have a tab bar controller, all of the child view controllers will be initd at launch, but viewDidLoad will only be called when you click on the appropriate tab the first time. It's generally a good idea to initialize memory-intensive items in viewDidLoad, so as to avoid using unnecessary memory.
I found that if I override initiWithNibName in the view controller, the viewDidLoad method is not called. I have to call it manually [self viewDidLoad]. But if I do not override initWithNibName: viewDidLoad is called. I am working with 4 view controllers in tab bar controller. the tab bar controller is loaded from another view.
Sorry to unearth an old thread, but this solved it for me...
-(void)viewDidLoad is only called after -(void)loadView has done its thing. In the docs for loadView:
The view controller calls this method when its view property is requested but is currently nil.
My view controller only has viewDidLoad called after its view is request by a UITabBarItem, meaning viewDidLoad is only called in the viewController once the tab bar button is pressed. I, like the OP, want viewDidLoad to be called directly after the nib is loaded, so it's contents (titles, etc) can be populated before the user clicks the tab button.
So, after calling "self = [super initWithNibName:#"nibName" bundle:nil];" in the view controller's custom initialiser, I immediately called '[self view]' afterwards. As the view is requested earlier than when it is requested by the UITabBarItem (which calls 'addSubview'), the view is initialised fully during initialisation, rather than when requested.
Hope this helps.
I need to update the parent view on an iPhone after popping a child view off the navigation stack. How can I setup the parent view to be notified or receive an automatic method call when the child is popped off the stack and the parent becomes visible again?
The user enters data on the child page that I want to display on the parent page after the user is done and pops the view.
Thanks for you help!
I just resolved this self same problem - and the answers above are almost correct, they just forgot about setting the delegate.
I have a root view controller that displays the size of a list, calls a child view controller that may alter the size of a list, and must update the size upon return.
When I create my parent view (SettingsView below), and add it as the root view of a UINavigationController, I make sure to set the UINavigationController's delegate before I display the view - that's the key part:
SettingsView *sv = [[SettingsView alloc] initWithNibName:#"SettingsView" bundle:nil];
UINavigationController *nc = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:sv];
[nc setDelegate:sv];
In the parent view, implement the UINavigationControllerDelegate protocol:
#interface SettingsView : UIViewController <UINavigationControllerDelegate>
and provide the willShowViewController method:
- (void)navigationController:(UINavigationController *)navigationController willShowViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController animated:(BOOL)animated
{
// Your code to update the parent view
}
This is called after the child view is dismissed, and before the parent view is redisplayed.
I had the need to do something like this as well. In the ViewController that owned my UINavigationController, I had to implement willShowViewController, like this:
- (void)navigationController:(UINavigationController *)navigationController willShowViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController animated:(BOOL)animated {
}
That method is called whenever the UINavigationController changes views. If I'm understanding your question correctly, I think this should do what you want.
I think there is some confusion here. UIViews are not pushed to and popped from the UINavigationController's stack. What is being pushed and popped is UIViewControllers, which in turn handle one or (more often) several views each.
Fortunately, the UIViewController has these methods:
-(void) viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated;
-(void) viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated;
-(void) viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated;
-(void) viewDidDisappear:(BOOL)animated;
These are called whenever the view is about to (dis)appear, or has just (dis)appeared. I works with tab bars, modal views and navigation controllers. (And it's a good idea to make use of these when you implement custom controllers.)
So in your case, if I understand correctly, you simply have to override the viewWillAppear: or viewDidAppear: method on what you call the "parent page" (which is presumably handled by a UIViewController) and put in code to update the appearance of the page to reflect the data just entered.
(If I remember correctly, you must make sure that the UINavigationController gets a viewWill/DidAppear: message when it is first displayed, in order for these messages to later be sent to its child controllers. If you set this up with a template or in IB you probably don't have to worry about it.)
Felixyz answer did the trick for me. Calling the view will appear method will run the code in it every time the view appears. Different from view did load, which runs its code only when the view is first loaded. So your parent view would not update itself if a child view altered the info displayed in the parent, and was then popped off the sack. But if the parents calls view will appear, the code gets ran every time the view shows back up.
Make sure to call the super method at the same time. Proper implementation would look like this:
- (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
[super viewWillAppear:animated];
NSLog(#"View Appearing");
}
If you need to notify one controller to another you may use delegation pattern as described here (see 2nd answer).
Unfortunately there is no automatic notification(AFAIK) for exact task as you described.
To meet your needs you may send message to delegate (i.e. to your parent controller) in viewWillDisappear function of your child controller.