Removing a UIViewController executing a thread crashes my app - iphone

My application has buttons in a Tab bar.
When I touch a button I load a nib, add the view and remove other view from the stack and release it.
The problem is one of my view controller is using an object which get xml data from NSURLConnection, parse them and send them to the view controller in order to display them. It works, but sometimes it crashes when I touch another button which causes the release of this view controller.
What is the best way to release it and maybe stop the thread which is getting data ?
Thanks a lot for your help.
Thierry

Rather than release it, create a Cancel function which sets some boolean flag to true in that class. In the XML parsing section, check that flag. If it's ever true:
[self release];
return;

Related

Refreshing the content of TabView

Ok I am trying to refresh the tab content of each of my tabs after a web call has been made, and I have tried soo many different methods to do this that I have lost count. Could someone please tell me how this is possible?
The web call just calls JSON from a server and uses it to update the content of the tabs. For testing purposes I have a button set up inside my settings class. Settings class is a view within the home tab which has a button called refresh. When clicked this takes JSON stored on the device which is different to the one called from the web call on application start up. This saves me having to change the JSON on the server.
I will take you through some of the techniques I have tried and would be grateful if someone could tell me what I am doing wrong.
I tried making an instance of the class and calling the refresh method like this
DashboardVC *db = [[DashboardVC alloc] init];
[db refreshMe];
The refresh method in dashboard class is this
-(void) refreshMe
{
[self loadView];
[self viewDidLoad];
}
However no luck. This method will work if I call it inside the Dashboard class, but wont work if I call it from another class. I think it is become I am instantiating a new class and calling refresh on that. So I dropped that technique and moved onto the next method
This loops through all the tabBars and changes the tabTitles without any issues, so it I know it is definitely looping through the ViewControllers properly.
I also tried every varient of the view methods like ViewDidAppear, viewWillAppear etc, no luck.
I also tried accessing the refreshMe method I made in the dashBoard class through the tabController like this
[[[self.tabBarController viewControllers] objectAtIndex:0] refreshMe];
But again no luck, this just causes my application to crash.
I read through this guide
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/WindowsViews/Conceptual/ViewControllerPGforiOSLegacy/TabBarControllers/TabBarControllers.html
on the apple website but it doesn't seem to cover how to refresh individual tab content.
All I want is to have each individual tab refresh its content after the web call is made, and have spent ages trying to figure this out, but nothing is working.
So would be very grateful if someone could show me what I am doing wrong?
Thanx in advance....
EDIT:
Expand on what I have tried
After discussion with Michael I realised you should never call loadView as against Apple guidelines. So I removed any references to LoadView. I have now placed a method in all the main ViewControllers called RefreshMe which sets up the views, images texts etc in the class. And this method is placed inside the ViewDidLoad. Now I want to be able to call these methods after a web call has taken place, so effectively refreshing the application.
My viewDidLoad now looks like this in all my the main classes.
- (void) viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
[self refreshMe];
}
And then the refreshMe method contains the code which sets up the screen.
The JSON data pulled from the web call will set up the content of each of the 5 tabs, so need them all to be refreshed after web call.
I tried looping through the viewControllers and calling viewDidLoad, which should in turn call the refreshMe method which sets up the class, however nothing happens. Code I used was this
NSArray * tabBarViewControllers = [self.tabBarController viewControllers];
for(UIViewController * viewController in tabBarViewControllers)
{
[viewController viewDidLoad];
}
For the time being I have also included
NSLog(#"Method called");
in the viewDidLoad of each class to test if it is being called. However the message is only being printed out when I first load the application or if I re-enter the application. This method should be called after I click the refresh button in the settings screen but it isn't and I have no idea why.
Anyone have any idea why this is not working?
From the question and your comments, it sounds like there are at least two problems:
You're having trouble accessing the view controllers managed by your app's tab bar controller.
You seem to be working against the normal operation of your view controllers.
The first part should be straightforward to sort out. If you have a pointer to an object, you can send messages to that object. If the corresponding method doesn't execute, then either the pointer doesn't point where you think it does or the object doesn't have the method that you think it does. Let's look at your code:
NSArray * tabBarViewControllers = [self.tabBarController viewControllers];
for(UIViewController * viewController in tabBarViewControllers)
{
[viewController viewDidLoad];
}
This code is supposed to call -viewDidLoad on each of the view controllers managed by some tab bar controller. Leaving aside the wisdom of doing that for a moment, we can say that this code should work as expected if self.tabBarController points to the object that you think it does. You don't say where this code exists in your app -- is it part of your app delegate, part of one of the view controllers managed by the tab bar controller in question, or somewhere else? Use the debugger to step through the code. After the first line, does tabBarViewControllers contain an array of view controllers? Is the number of view controllers correct, and are they of the expected types? If the -viewDidLoad methods for your view controllers aren't being called, it's a good bet that the answer is "no," so figure out why self.tabBarController isn't what you think.
Now, it's definitely worth pointing out (as Michael did) that you shouldn't be calling -viewDidLoad in the first place. The view controller will send that method to itself after it has created its view (either loaded it from a .xib/storyboard file or created it programmatically). If you call -viewDidLoad yourself, it'll either run before the view has been created or it'll run a second time, and neither of those is helpful.
Also, it doesn't make much sense to try to "refresh" each view controller's view preemptively. If your app is retrieving some data from a web service (or anywhere else), it should use the resulting data to update its model, i.e. the data objects that the app manages. When a view controller is selected, the tab bar controller will present its view and the view controller's -viewWillAppear method will be called just before the view is displayed. Use that method to grab the data you need from the model and update the view. Doing it this way, you know that:
the view controller's view will have already been created
the data displayed in the view will be up to date, even if one of the other view controllers modified the data
you'll never spend time updating views that the user may never look at
Similarly, if the user can make any changes to the displayed data, you should ensure that you update the model either when the changes are made or else in your view controller's -viewWillDisappear method so that the next view controller will have correct data to work with.
Instead of refreshing your view controllers when updating your tab bar ordering, why not simply refresh your views right before they will appear by implementing your subclassed UIViewController's viewWillAppear: method?
What this means is that each time your view is about to appear, you can update the view for new & updated content.

Xcode : Storyboard and retaining data in each controller

As you can guess i am a new programmer and i have trouble getting a simple thing!
I am making an app with multiple view controllers. Each controller have textfields and UIsegmentedControl items. When i am moving from one view controller to the other (uding modal trantition if that matters), the contents of the previous one (textfield entries and segmented control option) reset to their original state. How can i make them keep their previous state?
Thanks in advance.
-(void) prepareForSegue:(UIStoryboardSegue *)segue sender:(id)sender{
bViewController *deneme = [segue destinationViewController];
[deneme setPassedValue:label.text];
}
This piece of code will solve your problem, I hope. It saves the label of whatever is inside of it. And you need to add some more code to other classes.
If this code helps you tell me and I can give you the whole code.
To save the application state you can use a model class, following the recommended MVC (model-view-controller) paradigm.
More information here: Retain view state upon reloading
As an alternative you could use the viewWillDisappear: event to save your view state, and then restore it on the viewWillAppear: event.
The viewWillDisappear: event is fired right before the view is going to disappear, and viewWillAppear: is fired before the view is put on the foreground, being ideal to make any changes to the UI.
These events might have already been declared for you in your view controller, but in case they're not check the prototypes here: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/uikit/reference/UIViewController_Class/Reference/Reference.html
You can also use a navigation controller to move from one view to another.
This way, you will push your new view on top of the previous one, and when you go back, the previous view has kept its state.
see this tutorial for more information on storyboard and UINavigationController :
http://www.raywenderlich.com/5138/beginning-storyboards-in-ios-5-part-1

Block UITabBarController while contents of a view controller not been charged

I'm doing an app that uses a TabBarController and each Tab uses its own navigation controller.
The app has dynamic content and I use viewDidDisappear viewDidAppear methods to create or destroy the objects that I need each time I enter or exit into the ViewController.
My problem is when I start to sail very fast and I don't give time to load the Threads that I use for uploading content such as XML peta app or destroy objects when I leave the ViewController.
How I could control the tabs of the navigationbar or tabbarviewcontroller for not respond until the viewcontroller has loaded all contents?
Excuse me if I'm not well expressed. Thanks!
No matter you use synchronous request or asynchronous request, just show an UIAlertView while loading the data. This will both serve as a notification to the user that something is being loaded, and the it will block the interactions with all the other views on the screen.
As others have suggested in comments, I believe that what you want to do is rearrange the order in which things are triggered. Perhaps something like this:
On viewWillAppear:, clear (or disable or whatever is appropriate) your objects that are no longer valid and begin the load-new-content thread. Perhaps display a UIActivityIndicator or similar.
On viewWillDisappear:, tell the load-new-content thread that it can stop, its results are no longer needed. If you put up an activity indicator, take it down.
At the end of the load-new-content thread, take down any activity indicator, update the UI with the new contents and activate.
I don't really see any way around this -- if the UI is not valid until the new content is loaded, then you have to wait for it.
Another solution might be to cache the contents from the previous fetch, and always display those on viewDidLoad. Then, at the end of your new-content-thread, cache the new contents, and update the UI.

Where to put cleanup code in UIViewController?

I have a UIViewController subclass that loads a bunch of images for each cell in a tableview asynchronously which is handled by a separate download class. I keep a list of all of these download requests in a dictionary which is keyed to the index of the cell that is requesting the image.
My question is i where should i put the code that cancels the image download if the viewcontroller is popped off the navcontroller? I need to do this because if the user hits back while there are still images being downloaded (which could take a while) then when they are finished downloading the viewcontroller has already been released.
I cant put it in the viewWillDisappear method because i do not want to stop the download if the user clicks on a separate tab and only when the hit the back button. For now i put this code in the viewcontrollers dealloc method which works fine although it doesnt seem right for some reason. I thought of using the viewDidUnload method but it seems this is only called when there is a low memory warning?
Any ideas?
dealloc is the perfect place for this as the view controller gets deallocated and you are responsible to clean your stuff up.
You may want to consider putting the code in viewWillDisappear: anyway, after all if the screen you are navigating to needs anything loaded it will be slowed by the background image load...

iPhone: “Unrecognized Selector Sent to Instance” Error

I’m trying to implement a partial overlay modal in my app with the code from “Semi-Modal (Transparent) Dialogs on the iPhone” at ramin.firoozye.com. The overlay functionality works and it slides the modal into view, but calling any IBAction from the modal's controller causes an “Unrecognized Selector Sent to Instance” crash.
I recreated the basic functionality with that code isolated, and it triggers the same error. To see what I’m talking about, you can download the test project here.
I’m sure I’m just missing something simple here. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
When showing your ModalViewController in TestViewController displayModal:, you release your modalController (line 20). Don't do this - you need the ViewController to stay alive. If you release it, only the view keeps alive (as it is retained when added as a subview).
Also, in ModalViewController hideModalEnded you release modalView, which you didn't retain, so I'd remove that one as well.
So now you need to release just the instance of ModalViewController after the view got removed. You can do this by [self release]; in hideModalEnded, but this seems to be an unusual pattern and I don't feel good doing it.
Some suggestions:
Keep the show and hide methods in the
same class.
Keep an ivar around with the
controller.
Another possiblity: Remove the
ModalViewController altogether and
put everything in TestViewController - But this very much depends on how much action there will be going on in the real thing.