Lets say I have a scene which includes a UIView container on the top half of the screen, and a UIView container on the bottom half of the screen and a few buttons at the very bottom of the screen.
Basically the bottom container will always display static text while the buttons across the bottom will change the content of the top container which may include an image, more buttons, or more text depending on what button is pressed on the bottom. Also each time a bottom button is pressed the top container is transitioned to the new view with a flip from bottom transition.
I have achieved this purely programmatically, but decided to convert my app to a storyboard file since it makes producing the rest of my app much faster and simpler, plus makes the code not look like a crazy mess.
My limited understanding of storyboards seems to deduce that I would need a separate story board scene for every UIView change, and Apple's coding conventions with storyboards seem to imply that we should use a new ViewController every time you create a new scene. All this adds up to an even bigger mess than I currently have.
Is there a better way of doing this? Am I misunderstanding something? If I am not confused, is there some way to make all these scene and view controller duplication cleaner?
The storyboard editor makes it difficult to do what you're describing, because it doesn't let you edit freestanding views associated with a scene.
I suggest you just create a separate nib (not storyboard) for each of the top-half views. These can exist separate from your storyboard. Your view controller (which is instantiated from the storyboard) can then load whichever nib it needs when a button is pressed, and put the view from the nib into its (the view controller's) top-level view.
There must be a way!
I accidentally opened one one day (see attached image). Although I have no idea how I did it and really really want to know, I cannot reproduce it, nor close it. The UIView opened when I was dragging my connection for the table header view from the Connections Inspector to the list of controls on the left side of the screen (not to the actual UIViewController).
I too am reworking a project with storyboards and have a similar problem with multiple views per UIViewController.
In this case it is a table header. I have other UIViewControllers in the project with the same configuration but I cannot get them to pop up either.
Related
I Have a project here. Autolayout constraints is working only when loaded from a Xib file.
When you run the project you will see a single screen with a NSPagecontroller on it that has two views (swipe left/right to get the other view).
Both views are exactly the same with the exact same auto layout constraints on it. One is loaded using Xib, while the other is loaded using Story board.
Try resizing the window when the xib loaded one is on screen. You can see every thing resizes correctly. Now swipe the screen left. Try resizing the window now. The view loaded from story board will not autosize.
Is this Apple bug?
The views are not exactly the same. If I delete the view in the storyboard, and copy-paste the view from the xib, then the storyboard version behaves as expected.
The trouble with all of this storyboard/xib constraints goodness is that they are a complete pain to debug if something goes wrong.
Try spot the difference:
(1) ViewController.xib
(2)Storyboard
For this reason, I tend to handle all of my constraints in code these days.
Top left button comparison:
(1) ViewController.xib
(2)Storyboard
The other buttons constraints differ also.
I've been working with some UIScrollView objects that are longer than the view controllers they are contained by (this is in storyboard). Right now if I want to move objects that aren't initially shown I have to resize both the view controller and the scroll view. I also have to do this to add new objects to an initially non-displayed area. I know that I can do these things with the dimension inspector, but if I do that I can't tell what the layout looks like.
Is there another way to do this? I haven't been able to find a way to make the scroll view "scroll" inside of storyboard/IB. And it's kind of a pain to do layout this way.
Just as a disclaimer, I am an iOS beginner, in a pretty unique position. I'm an intern learning on the job, with a hard deadline for a test app, with specific specs. So I unfortunately don't have the luxury of learning all that I should about xCode and objective C.
Anyways, I am trying to create a navigation menu similar to the iPad's slide out menu. I've looked at plenty of sample code given in response to questions like this in the past. It all works perfectly fine, but I can't understand all of what they're doing. I think this results from being fairly bewildered by view controllers and delegates. And, since I'm supposed to be writing this all by myself, I can't just build off of their existing code.
My plan for this working is to have one main view controller, containing the navigation menu in a table view. This is hidden behind a normal UIView, until a button is pressed, at which point the normal UIView slides offscreen enough to reveal the menu. Upon selection of a menu item, the normal UIView would slide back to its original position, and be replaced by the relevant UIView, controlled by its view controller. In other words, clicking on the menu item relating to "Home" would load the homeViewController.xib, controlled by the homeViewController. This would be loaded in that normal UIView subview, on top of the tableView.
I'm able to load a view in that normal UIView as a result of a button press.
homeViewController *_homeViewController = [[homeViewController alloc]initWithNibName:#"homeViewController"];
[self frontView] = _homeViewController.view;
There may be some syntax errors in that code, since its from memory. I'm not able to access the computer with my code on it at the moment, but that's the general gist. Basically, that places the home view nib on the frontView (that normal UIView that's over the table view), but its not connected to homeViewController. Or at least I think that's the issue, when I press a button, that's correctly connected between the nib and the homeViewController.h, and only set to NSLog in the .m file, the application crashes.
Any idea how to connect this nib to its viewController when displayed in this way? Or, to create the nib in IB, without the associated .h and .m files, and use the main view controller as the homeViewController as well? Or, if my logic is inherently flawed, what SHOULD I do? Something with NavigationControllers?
EDIT:
I also tried a new approach- changing homeViewController's file owner to viewController, and connecting the button on homeViewController's action to viewController. This too caused a crash upon pressing the button. I really think the issue is with having multiple view controllers acting on screen at once, or having multiple views from separate nibs, controlled by one view controller on screen at once.
I suspect that your immediate problem is that _homeViewController is being freed as soon as you leave whatever method that code is in. To fix this, create a strong property in this class that holds the _homeViewController for as long as its view is needed and allocate it to that property rather than a local variable. That way, buttons (or whatever) that are part of that view still have a valid controller object backing them.
In the long run, pushing or presenting view controllers when you need the screen to change is a much better strategy but, as I said, the immediate problem.... :)
I have one background I want constant to all views; it shouldn't animate out and back to itself. I have another background I want common to another handful of views that layers on top of that one. I could do this cleanly enough by:
a) just having one viewcontroller and managing all the transitions of layered objects within that
b) using separate viewcontollers and managing them programatically
But I don't grok how I can do this with a storyboard proper-like. Do I need to make a custom segue? Is there a certain type of segue it should be, if it's custom (or otherwise)? Is there a best viewcontroller that I do it all inside? (note: there's no "levels" of navigation, tab bar, navbar, etc... though if that's the way to go, with the elements hidden, and that's the "best" way to do it, I suppose that that might be me c)? )
Hope I've explained this well enough. :) I do grok layer transparency, etc, as far as views go....
Thanks!
ETA: After more research, I thought I understood c as the correct answer, (with a nod to set "default" UIViewController background image? ) ~
navigation controller with main background
navigation controller with secondary background elements
subpage 1
subpage 2
subpage 3
other controller
But I'm still hitting a wall. Not grokking the storyboard (IB) way to even add a background to a navigation controller. The number of custom classes I've made and tossed out, now....
See if this is what you need. It is not in storyboard, but should do well enough.
navViewController.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor colorWithPatternImage:[UIImage imageNamed:#"background.jpg"]];
This is what I have done (but only with 1 level of nav controller). You can put this code in AppDelegate.m, or maybe subclass UINavigationViewController and change the view's backgroundColor there (and attach it within StoryBoard)
I guess the problem is StoryBoard still has some limitations. And UINavigationViewController is not an interface element, it is a View Controller. It is simply shown as a simulated element in StoryBoard.)
I'm using Objective-C and Cocoa, whilst developing for Mac OS X - so not the iPhone/Cocoa Touch. (That said, I'd be interested if it was the same procedure for the iPhone)
I'm working on a preferences window for a simple app. I have a NSWindow with a toolbar - there are 5 different items on the toolbar, all of which need to bring up a different set of options.
So I set the NSToolbar and its items in Interface Builder, and then placed a custom view underneath the menu - taking up the rest of the window. My plan is to work out the interface too each of the NSToolbarItems options, and then draw the corresponding view on to the custom view when the specified NSToolbarItem is clicked.
I'm guessing that I simply create a NSView sub-class for each view, an empty xib in Interface Builder - set the xib to my custom NSView, code it as usual... But here's a few problems;
1 - Just how can I get the xib file to appear on the custom-view then? I have looked around and most articles don't seem to have this situation, or a situation I can relate too.
2 - When the window comes up, I want the default view to appear on the custom view. Once again, I'm guessing I just write that in the initialisation code for the NSWindow - its no big deal. It just goes back to question 1 though - how do I draw my NSView to the custom-view specified in Interface Builder?
I'd be really grateful for any help!
Cheers in advance.
So I set the NSToolbar and its items in Interface Builder, and then placed a custom view underneath the menu - taking up the rest of the window.
You can't have a menu inside of a window. You can have a pop-up button, which has a menu, but not a menu directly. Did you mean “toolbar” here?
You don't need to create a custom view for this. Make a tab view and set it to be tabless. Give it as many tab view items as you have toolbar items. In your controller, write an action method for each of the toolbar items, and in each action method, switch the active tab of the tab view.
You can activate different tabs in IB to populate them with views in IB. The active tab is saved in the nib, so make sure you set it back to the first tab before saving, so that the first tab is the one that's initially active when your app runs.
Just how can I get the xib file to appear on the custom-view then?
That question doesn't make sense.
Once again, I'm guessing I just write that in the initialisation code for the NSWindow - its no big deal.
You would only be able to do that if you have your own initialization code for the window, which you would only have if you have subclassed NSWindow. There are very few reasons to do that; unless you're making the window itself look different (not making an Aqua or HUD window), you should move that initialization code elsewhere, probably to the aforementioned controller (which should be the File's Owner of the nib).
It just goes back to question 1 though - how do I draw my NSView to the custom-view specified in Interface Builder?
A custom view in Interface Builder is a plain NSView (unless you explicitly change it to a subclass of NSView you create). However, you do not need one for anything you have described in your question.