Is it possible in iOS to register on AppDelegate for notifications for all viewDidAppear which happen in this app? I want to have register for those to do some analytics processing for my app, without the need to explicitly trigger my class from every single viewDidAppear.
Any suggestions how this could be done?
Thanks!
You would have to subclass UIView and register the notification and post it from that subclass. All your views in your app would need to be instances of your subclass.
So I have a viewControllerA, and I want to add another View managed by viewControllerB to it. There is only one UISlider activating a simple action in viewControllerB. It won't crash if I don't touch this UISlider, it will once I use UISlider. I am using ARC. I am using:
[self.view addSubView: viewControllerB.view];
to add viewControllerB to viewControllerA. Am I missing something? Thanks.
OK. It looks like a really simple situation. I just added one view controller and one action. Here is the demo project code on github: https://github.com/randomor/Demo
The reason why I want this to work is because I have another app that will create a view controller on the spot and add it to anther view. And I don't want to do it modally, because I don't want the new view controller to cover the whole screen. Thanks.
SOLUTION: So I'm now just using the latest ViewController containment API:
[self addChildViewController:viewControllerB];
It works! as long as I added this line, the event will be passed to its own controller and it stopped crashing.
i recommend you, to use the following code
in ViewControllerA.h
#import "ViewControllerB.h"
in ViewControllerA.m (where you want to push the new controller)
ViewControllerB *newController = [[ViewControllerB alloc]init];
[self presentModalViewController:newController animated:YES];
in ViewControllerB.m you will need
[self.presentingViewController dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES];
to make it vanish again.
concerning multiple controllers for one open screen (Apple ViewController Programming Guide):
Each custom view controller object you create is responsible for managing exactly
one screen’s worth of content. The one-to-one correspondence between a view controller
and a screen is a very important consideration in the design of your application.
You should not use multiple custom view controllers to manage different portions
of the same screen. Similarly, you should not use a single custom view controller
object to manage multiple screens worth of content.
You should try and avoid the practice of nesting UIViewControllers. While it is technically supported in iOS5, it is ill-advised, for many reasons, including the type of problem that you're having (you have a dangling pointer to a UIViewController, which is why you are crashing).
http://blog.carbonfive.com/2011/03/09/abusing-uiviewcontrollers/
Although this question is extremely vague, I imagine that you are not keeping a reference to View Controller B, and so when view B tries to interact with it, it causes EXC_BAD_ACCESS.
What's the object that is set as the target for the slider? If it's a EXC_BAD_ADDRESS, then you may not be retaining the target, most probably the view controller for the slider.
I am putting a test app together to demonstrate how users can be notified when something happens in the app (using NSNotifications). The user should be notified by an unobtrusive banner at the top of the screen regardless of what view controller is displayed at the time. I have the code already to draw the banner, but i am having problems setting up the NSNotification observers.
I have a storyboard with two viewcontrollers. How do I reference their init methods so i can add observers in for the NSNotification posts?
View controllers in a storyboard will be init'ed using initWithCoder:. You would usually have a separate set up method that is called from this, and from initWithNibName:bundle: just to cover you for all use cases.
Or, start observing in viewDidLoad and stop in viewDidUnload.
I'm getting better and better with doing things for the iPhone in xcode, but here I have ran into a dead end.
I'm trying to build an app with two views: the main one and one for settings. I want to be able to switch between the two of them. Since I need every pixel in the main view I have built a switchView class that simply switch between the two views when I press a button (so much smaller than a tabView), which is working fine.
Now I'm a bit deeper in development and want the settings view to be a table view from where I can navigate to the next level of detail. I have done this before, but without the switch view.
My problem is that I get the table view (in settings) to work, but once I try to push my view controller nothing happens. While debugging I can see that it works through the code (eg didSelectRowAtIndexPath is working) but no new view pops up. Neither any error message.
I have the switchView added in my MainWindow.xib and then do a
[window addSubview:switchViewController.view]; in my AppDelegate to load the main view.
Where should I put the root controller for the navigation for the table view? Because I guess that's the problem I have?
Below the code that results in nothing...
ViewsAppDelegate *delegate =[[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate];
[delegate.settingsNavController pushViewController:settingsDetailViewController animated:YES];
Happy for any suggestions that could lead me to the right track. Spent way too much time to solve this.
I might be misunderstanding what you're after, but let me try...
When you created your project you should have gotten your MainViewController and an AppDelegate both spun up and created for you. From the snippet you've provided it looks to me like your instantiating a new (and possibly second) app delegate from within your MainViewController.
Rather than doing this, I would suggest that you move your NavigationController up one level to the AppDelegate supplied by the SDK. Then in your MainViewController, add the existing AppDelegate as an IBOutlet and tie them all together in IB. Once you've done that, using the navigation controller should go much more smoothly.
For example, my MainWindow.xib has several objects, and I've highlighted the two that I think you're probably concerned with...
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/f50268da03.png
*Sorry for the link - I can't post images yet.
Then, from my AppDelegate I customize my applicationDidFinishLaunchingWithOptions like so...
- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions {
navController.viewControllers = [NSArray arrayWithObject:mainMenuController];
// Override point for customization after app launch
[window addSubview:navController.view];
[window makeKeyAndVisible];
return YES;
}
That keeps the navController up at the highest level (where I think it belongs) and allows you to push and pop views throughout the entire app while keeping that history of what's on the stack.
Hope that helps - I might have completely misunderstood what you were after.
Good Luck!
Bob
UPDATE: See my answer to this question first. This appears to be a bug. A minimal test case has been created and a report has been filed with Apple. (Fixed as of iPhone OS 3.1.)
Here's a puzzler from the "I'm so close!" department.
I have a Tab Bar-based iPhone app. Each tab features a UINavigationController with the usual suspects (nav bar, table view ... which in turn can lead to another VC, etc.).
Now, one of those lower-level VCs is to be used in portait and landscape modes. But there's a problem. Our landscape-friendly VC's shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation: won't get called out-of-the-box! What to do?
Here's what we do. In my Tab Bar Controller, which I have implemented in its own file, I have this:
- (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation {
return [self.selectedViewController shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:interfaceOrientation];
}
This ends up propagating the request to my landscape-friendly VC, which also responds to this message. All my other VCs don't implement this method, so they simply go with the default portrait orientation.
Problem solved!!! Yay!
Well, not quite. :(
Seems like things don't go so well when my landscape-friendly VC is invoked from within the depths of the tab bar controller's MoreNavigationController.
I decided to compare/contrast between a VC called from within one of the first four tab bar UINavigationControllers ... and that same VC called from within the MoreNavigationController. This is going to be a bit ultra-detailed, so bear with me. Hopefully the play by play proves useful for sleuthing things out.
When the app loads, there are several initial calls to the tab bar controller's shouldAutorotate... method. In these early cases, selectedViewController is nil. However, we eventually finish loading, the initial tab item is selected, and all is well.
Right. First, let's pick one of the first four tab bar items and drill down to our VC.
We'll pick third nav bar item, so that's the third nav controller. We drill down to our VC that supports rotation. A quick inspection confirms that the parent is indeed the third nav controller from our tab bar's view controller list. Good!
Let's rotate the device. The tab bar controller is asked to autorotate (see the above code). We observe that selectedViewController is also that third nav controller, plus the nav controller's top and visible view controllers are both set to our trusty VC that supports rotation.
Thus, the tab bar controller will forward the shouldAutorotate message over to the third nav controller ... but our rotation-friendly VC ultimately gets the message. (I'm not doing anything special here. Maybe the desired VC gets the message because it's the top and/or visible VC?) In any event, we rotate to landscape, things are resized, and all is well. "Great Success!"
Now let's hit that back button and pop the VC stack, leaving landscape mode in the process. The tab bar controller is queried again.
Time for a little aside here. The topViewController for our nav controller is still that rotation-friendly VC, but visibleViewController is now set to UISnapshotModalViewController! Heh. Never saw this one before ... but Erica Sadun has. Looks like it's for "disappearing view controllers" (which in this case is certainly true - it's disappearing alright).
As I keep stepping through, the visible VC stays as Snapshot, but the top VC eventually changes to the next VC on the stack, since my special VC is eventually gone. Fair enough.
So that's the scenario where everything works well.
Now let's try the same test, only this time we're going to go to the MoreNavigationController (the More tab bar item) and drill down to the same VC class as before. In my case it happens to be the 7th one in the tab bar controller's VC list.
We enter the rotation-aware VC and ... this time it gets asked to rotate directly! The Tab Bar Controller is not asked for permission to rotate at all. Hmm.
A quick check of the parent VC shows it is a MoreNavigationController. OK, that makes sense.
Now let's try to rotate the device. NOTHING GETS CALLED. None of our breakpoints get hit. Not in our VC. Not in our tab bar controller. (Huh?!?!)
O-kaaaay. Let's pop the stack, go back into the same VC and try to rotate again. Weird. NOW we get a call in the Tab Bar Controller asking for autorotation permission. Here, the selected Controller is our trusty Nav controller (#7), but this time its visibleViewController and topViewController are SET TO NIL!
Once we continue from here, a mysterious message appears in the debugger console:
Using two-stage rotation animation. To
use the smoother single-stage
animation, this application must
remove two-stage method
implementations.
Mysterious because I'm not using two-stage rotation animation! No SecondHalf method variants are in play anywhere in my source code.
Alas, my rotation-aware VC is never told that rotation is occurring (even though rotation does occur on-screen), so of course my view is all fouled up as a result. Mayhem and sadness ensue. :(
We won't even bother popping the stack at this point.
I think the View Controller doc hints at the possible problem:
If you want to perform custom
animations during an orientation
change, you can do so in one of two
ways. Orientation changes used to
occur in two steps, with notifications
occurring at the beginning, middle,
and end points of the rotation.
However, in iPhone OS 3.0, support was
added for performing orientation
changes in one step. Using a one-step
orientation change tends to be faster
than the older two-step process and is
generally recommended for any new
code.
I wonder if MoreNavigationController is still responding to the two-step process, and is thus tripping up any attempts to use the one-step process? Note that, if you respond to the two-step messages, the one-step variant will not work (again, per the docs). I'm not responding to them, but I have a sneaking suspicion something behind-the-scenes IS.
In fact, if I comment out the single-step method, and try to respond to willAnimateSecondHalfOfRotationFromInterfaceOrientation:duration:, I do get the memo! But it still doesn't pop off the stack very cleanly (in terms of visuals). Even stranger: willAnimateFirstHalfOfRotationFromInterfaceOrientation:duration: is NOT called, even when I tried to sneak a call to self (using the FirstHalf message) in shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:. It returns immediately during a trace, as if I never even defined it. Sigh.
So that's the play-by-play.
In summary, has anyone successfully handled one-step device rotation for a VC invoked from within a Tab Bar Controller's MoreNavigationController? Inquiring minds want to know!
Apple advises against subclassing UITabBarController, so I found an easy way to handle autorotation using categories instead. It doesn't fix your bug with the More... view controllers, but I think it's a more Apple-friendly way of getting the job done (and means less subclassing for you).
To make every tab in my application autorotate properly, I've defined -shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation: in my custom view controllers, but they are all inside UINavigationControllers within a UITabBarController, so the message won't get sent down the chain to my VC until those two also respond. So I added the following lines to my app delegate files:
Added to the bottom of MyAppDelegate.h
#interface UITabBarController (MyApp)
#end
#interface UINavigationController (MyApp)
#end
Added to the bottom of MyAppDelegate.m
#implementation UITabBarController (MyApp)
- (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)toInterfaceOrientation {
return YES;
}
#end
#implementation UINavigationController (MyApp)
- (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)toInterfaceOrientation {
return YES;
}
#end
It appears we have a bug. I have created a reproducible, minimal test case, and reported it via Apple Bug Reporter (RADAR Problem 7139857).
Update: This has been fixed as of iPhone OS 3.1.
The essential problem is:
View controllers already on a
Navigation Controller stack do not
receive
willAnimateRotationToInterfaceOrientation:duration:
messages when a Tab Bar Controller's
'More Navigation Controller' is in
use.
This problem does not occur when the tab bar item view controllers are basic view controllers. Only when they are navigation controllers and only when the "More" navigation hierarchy is in use.
The console message (regarding two-stage rotation animation) suggests that something within the framework (the More Navigation Controller?) is still using a two-stage animation, even though single stage is now recommended as of iPhone OS 3.0.
That could explain why willAnimateRotationToInterfaceOrientation: is not called in that particular case. Per Apple's view controler documentation, this message will NOT be invoked when two-stage, first/second-half orientation messages are being responded to instead.
A slightly modified version of Victorb's answer which allows every single view controller to decide if it allows rotation.
Here as a gist for easier copying & forking
AppDelegate.h
#interface UITabBarController (MyApp)
#end
#interface UINavigationController (MyApp)
#end
AppDelegate.m
#implementation UITabBarController (MyApp)
- (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)toInterfaceOrientation {
UIViewController *selectedVC = [self selectedViewController];
if ([selectedVC respondsToSelector:#selector(shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:)]) {
return [selectedVC shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:toInterfaceOrientation];
}
//optimistic return - if you want no rotation, you have to specifically tell me!
return YES;
}
#end
#implementation UINavigationController (MyApp)
- (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)toInterfaceOrientation {
UIViewController *visibleVC = [self visibleViewController];
if ([visibleVC respondsToSelector:#selector(shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:)]) {
return [visibleVC shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:toInterfaceOrientation];
}
//optimistic return - if you want no rotation, you have to specifically tell me!
return YES;
}
#end