Animation is not being performed through to another view controller - objective-c

Question

I am trying to trigger an animation in one view, based on what is happening in a separate class file. It gets to the method, supported by the fact that it does spit out the two NSLog statements, but doesn't commit the UIView Animation
Here is the code:
ViewController.h
#interface ViewController : UIViewController {
}
-(void)closeMenu;
ViewController.m
-(void)closeMenu{
//close the menu
NSLog(#"Got here");
[UIView animateWithDuration:0.6 animations:^{
[UIView setAnimationBeginsFromCurrentState:YES]; // so it doesn't cut randomly, begins from where it is
[UIView setAnimationCurve:UIViewAnimationCurveEaseInOut];
[menuView setFrame:CGRectMake(menuView.frame.origin.x, -menuView.frame.size.height, menuView.frame.size.width, menuView.frame.size.height)];
}];
NSLog(#"Got here2");
}
OtherClass.m (commented code may be irrelevant to this question, of course still used in actual application. Jut thought it might make it easier for comprehension)
#import "ViewController.h"
...
//- (void) item:(SDGroupCell *)item subItemDidChange:(SDSelectableCell *)subItem
//{
ViewController *foo = [[[ViewController alloc] init] autorelease];
//SelectableCellState state = subItem.selectableCellState;
//NSIndexPath *indexPath = [item.subTable indexPathForCell:subItem];
//switch (state) {
//case Checked:
//NSLog(#"Changed Sub Item at indexPath:%# to state \"Checked\"", indexPath);
//close the menuView
[foo closeMenu];
//break;
//case Unchecked:
//NSLog(#"Changed Sub Item at indexPath:%# to state \"Unchecked\"", indexPath);
//break;
//default:
//break;
//}
}

Answer 1

You're mixing old fashioned animation, with block based animation. For example, in the documentation, it states for setAnimationBeginsFromCurrentState:
Use of this method is discouraged in iOS 4.0 and later. Instead, you
should use theanimateWithDuration:delay:options:animations:completion:
method to specify your animations and the animation options.
I'm not 100% sure if this is supported. You should change your animation code to this at least:
[UIView animateWithDuration:0.6
delay:0.0
options:UIViewAnimationOptionBeginFromCurrentState|UIViewAnimationOptionCurveEaseInOut
animations:^{
[menuView setFrame:CGRectMake(menuView.frame.origin.x, -menuView.frame.size.height, menuView.frame.size.width, menuView.frame.size.height)];
}
completion:nil];
Apart from that, it seems like it should work. It may cause issues if anything else if affecting the frame. It may be worth calculating the frame before the animation block. A'la:
CGRect newFrame = CGRectMake(menuView.frame.origin.x, -menuView.frame.size.height, menuView.frame.size.width, menuView.frame.size.height)
[UIView animateWithDuration...:^{ menuView.frame = newFrame; }...];
EDIT: Oh wait, looks like you're alloc/init'ing the object in (void) item:(SDGroupCell *)item subItemDidChange:(SDSelectableCell *)subItem, and calling the method on it, but the view is nowhere in the view hierarchy. You need to call the animation on an instance which is being displayed on screen. Hope that makes sense?
EDIT 2: To call it on an instance which is already being displayed, typically you need to store it in an instance variable. I can't say exactly how in your situation, but generally it'd be of the form:
#interface OtherClass () {
ViewController* m_viewController;
}
#end
....
- (void)viewDidLoad // Or where ever you first create your view controller
{
...
// If you're adding a ViewController within another ViewController, you probably need View Controller Containment
m_viewController = [[ViewController alloc] init];
[self addChildViewController:m_viewController];
[m_viewController didMoveToParentViewController:self];
[self.view addSubview:m_viewController.view];
...
}
// If you're using ARC code, the dealloc wouldn't typically be necessary
- (void)dealloc
{
[m_viewController release];
[super dealloc];
}
//- (void) item:(SDGroupCell *)item subItemDidChange:(SDSelectableCell *)subItem
//{
//SelectableCellState state = subItem.selectableCellState;
//NSIndexPath *indexPath = [item.subTable indexPathForCell:subItem];
//switch (state) {
//case Checked:
//NSLog(#"Changed Sub Item at indexPath:%# to state \"Checked\"", indexPath);
//close the menuView
[m_viewController closeMenu];
//break;
//case Unchecked:
//NSLog(#"Changed Sub Item at indexPath:%# to state \"Unchecked\"", indexPath);
//break;
//default:
//break;
//}
}
If you need to access it from outside the class, this won't be sufficient, use properties for that. I.e.
Header File
#property (nonatomic, strong) ViewController* myViewController
.m file
// Use it as such
[self.myViewController closeMenu];

Answer 2

That animation code is really strange. You are mixing the new and the old UIView animation code and I don't think you can do that (but I could be wrong).
Since your have begun using the block based API I would recommend going that route (Apple recommends the same thing).
There is a similar method to the one you've used that takes options called animateWithDuration:delay:options:animations:completion:. You can pass in 0 for the delay and an empty block that takes a BOOL for the completion.
The two flags you want to pass for the options are UIViewAnimationOptionBeginFromCurrentState and UIViewAnimationOptionCurveEaseInOut.
Your code would look something like this
[UIView animateWithDuration:0.6
delay:0.0
options:UIViewAnimationOptionBeginFromCurrentState | UIViewAnimationOptionCurveEaseInOut
animations:^{
// set your frame here...
[menuView setFrame:CGRectMake(menuView.frame.origin.x,
-menuView.frame.size.height,
menuView.frame.size.width,
menuView.frame.size.height)];
} completion:^(BOOL finished){}];