Im working on an ios app, ios 5+ , using xcode and objective c. Ok currently messing with nsnotifications and i just need some clarifications as im a wee bit confused.
Lets say i have a view controller that i add an observer to like so
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:#selector(showContent:) name:kTPSShowContentNotification object:self];
where the object is set to self. I took this to mean that it is only looking from that notification if sent from that object. am i wrong on that?
elsewhere in code I am positing a notification like so
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:kTPSShowContentNotification object:currentVC];
where currentVC is the view controller that has the observer set up initially.
I thought this is all that was needed to catch that notification as the post is telling the notification center to send it from that view controller. but it fails to catch it and im unsure as to why. If when adding the observer i set the object as nil then it catches it but so does all the other viewcontrollers (if any ) that have observers for that notification too. Is there any way around this ? am i approaching this completely wrong?
To receive notification only from theObjectSendingNotification object you should write:
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:#selector(showContent:) name:kTPSShowContentNotification object:theObjectSendingNotification];
and the object sending notification should send it in this way
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:kTPSShowContentNotification object:self];
If I'm getting this right, you want to post and get a notification from the same controller. So you can do something like this:
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:#selector(showContent:) name:kTPSShowContentNotification object:self];
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:kTPSShowContentNotification object:self];
But it should work indeed if your currentVC ivar is pointing to the very same controller. The fact that you say it doesn't work makes me believe that it is not pointing to the same instance of your controller.
Related
I want to check orientation of app in the app delegate, is there a viewDidAppear equivalent in the app delegate?
Or where should I place the code to check where the orientation has changed (in the app delegate)
Well you have applicationDidFinishLoading:withOptions: which is your closest thing to a viewDidLoad, but it only runs once when the application first launches and that's it.
If you want to monitor the device orientation outside of a view controller, your best bet it to use the notification center, and register your class as an observer. Something like this should do the trick
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
selector:#selector(orientationChanged:)
name:UIDeviceOrientationDidChangeNotification
object:nil];
Then whenever the orientation is changed, the orientationChanged: method will be called.
Just make sure that you unsubscribe when the class is destroyed or deallocated with
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self];
Given this code in the viewDidLoad:
NSNotificationCenter *nc = [NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter];
[nc addObserver:self selector:#selector(keyboardWillShow:) name:
UIKeyboardWillShowNotification object:nil];
[nc addObserver:self selector:#selector(keyboardWillHide:) name:
UIKeyboardWillHideNotification object:nil];
I'm asking myself if I need to delete the observers when I unload the view (or something similar).
It looks a bit like this question, but that question does not discuss if dealloc is deprecated since the use of ARC (edit: see comments in accepted answer).
But since ios updates all the time and I have no clue if you still would need to call dealloc and I've never seen a piece of code how to do this (delete the observers that is), some help would be appreciated :)
Yes, you do. Override dealloc in your view controller like so:
- (void)dealloc {
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self name:UIKeyboardWillShowNotification object:nil];
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self name:UIKeyboardWillHideNotification object:nil];
}
In general, you should remove an observer from a notification center when the observer is no longer needed -- either you don't need it to continue observing, or the object itself is being deallocated. You don't need to remove an object observing UIKeyboardWillHideNotification simply because the keyboard is going away, but you do need to remove it if you're getting rid of the object itself.
Consider what would happen if you didn't remove the observer before it was deallocated: if the notification it was watching for ever occurred, the notification center would try to send a message to that object. That would cause either a crash or some behavior that you don't expect, since the pointer the notification center used to send the message no longer points to the object that's supposed to observe the notification.
It is always good to have your notification observer's unregistered while they are not required.
Since your observer deals with Keyboard which is a visual element, have it unregistered, i.e. removed from observer on viewDidDisappear and have it re-register in viewWillAppear (something which i follow.).
This is required coz, in case you are pushing a new view controller over the one you are using, the observer will still be registered and can cause erroneous behaviour, and sometimes, if your view controller get deallocated, the notification will still have the observer registered and can lead to crash. Coz notification centre defaultCenter is a singleton instance for process and will be there for its lifetime.
Post iOS 6.0 you can call it in viewDidUnload. But iOS 6.0 that is deprecated.
In my applicationWillEnterForeground, I check and send a notification if data refresh is necessary:
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:#"refreshModelNotification" object:nil];
The only observer for that particular notification is a particular view controller:
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:#selector(refreshData:) name:#"refreshModelNotification" object:nil];
That view controller is one of several inside a UITabBarController.
My question is: what happens if that view controller isn't the active tab when the notification is sent?
Thanks in advance.
If the observer is still set for the view controller the view controller will still receive the notification and behave normally except any visual changes to the view controller's view will not be seen
I have a split view based app, and would like to listen for some sort of notification for when the root menu is displayed. The reason I want to do this is because the keyboard overlaps the menu, so I would like to hide the keyboard when the menu is displayed.
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
selector:#selector(keyboardWillHide:)
name:<Some Notification Here>
object:self.view.window];
I already have the method to hide the keyboard, I'm just looking for the appropriate notification.
Thanks!
you can post the notification yourself from the root menu. Just subclass it and post the notification on viewDidAppear or viewWillAppear.
The word of warning: if you are targeting iOS 5 and up you should kep in mind the viewWillAppear and viewDidAppear are deprecated in iOS6. use
willMoveToParentViewController or didMoveToParentViewController or -(void)viewWillLayoutSubviews
-(void)willMoveToParentViewController:(UIViewController *)parent{
if (!parent)
//post notification here
}
Also, you can provide nil as a notification name and listen to any possible notification, then NSLog it out, perhaps you can find a useful notification there, just make sure it is documented to futureproof your product.
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:#selector(notificationReceived:) name:nil object:nil];
I have a class with 2 NSNotifications implemented
//Set up notifications
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
selector:#selector(getData)
name:#"Answer Submitted"
object:nil];
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
selector:#selector(reloadTable)
name:#"Comment Submitted"
object:nil];
I would just like to check if it is ok to set 2 observers in a single class? Also when I remove observer, I am only removing one observer in dealloc method. Is that an issue?
It is perfectly fine to have more than one observer in a single class. You should always unregister the observer once you're done with it.
More details on the Observer pattern in Objective-C can be found here.