Replacing Storyboard Segue with pushViewController causes strange behaviour - objective-c

I can't seem to figure this out for the life of me. I have a custom table view cell, in that cell I have a few buttons configured. Each button connects to other view controllers via a storyboard segue. I've recently removed these segues and put a pushViewController method in place. Transition back and forth across the various views works as expected however the destination view controller is not displaying anything! I have some code below as an example.
Buttons have this method set:
[cell.spotButton1 addTarget:self action:#selector(showSpotDetails:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
// etc...
[cell.spotButton4 addTarget:self action:#selector(showSpotDetails:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
// etc...
showSpotDetails Method contains this code:
- (void)showSpotDetails:(id)sender
{
// determine which button (spot) was selected, then use its tag parameter to determine the spot.
UIButton *selectedButton = (UIButton *)sender;
Spot *spot = (Spot *)[spotsArray_ objectAtIndex:selectedButton.tag];
SpotDetails *spotDetails = [[SpotDetails alloc] init];
[spotDetails setSpotDetailsObject:spot];
[self.navigationController pushViewController:spotDetails animated:YES];
}
The details VC does receive the object data.
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];
NSLog(#"spotDetailsObject %#", spotDetailsObject_.name);
}
The NSLog method below does output the passed object. Also, everything in the details view controller is as it was. Nothing has changed on the details VC. It just does not render anything ever since I removed the segue and added the pushViewController method. Perhaps I am missing something on the pushViewController method? I never really do things this way, I try to always use segues...
Any suggestions?

Welcome to the real world. Previously, the storyboard was a crutch; you were hiding from yourself the true facts about how view controllers work. Now you are trying to throw away that crutch. Good! But now you must learn to walk. :) The key here is this line:
SpotDetails *spotDetails = [[SpotDetails alloc] init];
SpotDetails is a UIViewController subclass. You are not doing anything here that would cause this UIViewController to have a view. Thus you are ending up a with blank generic view! If you want a UIViewController to have a view, you need to give it a view somehow. For example, you could draw the view in a nib called SpotDetails.xib where the File's Owner is an SpotDetails instance. Or you could construct the view's contents in code in your override of viewDidLoad. The details are in the UIViewController documentation, or, even better, read my book which tells you all about how a view controller gets its view:
http://www.apeth.com/iOSBook/ch19.html
The reason this problem didn't arise before is that you drew the view in the same nib as the view controller (i.e. the storyboard file). But when you alloc-init a SpotDetails, that is not the same instance as the one in the storyboard file, so you don't get that view. Thus, one solution could be to load the storyboard and fetch that SpotDetails instance, the one in the storyboard (by calling instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:). I explain how to do that here:
http://www.apeth.com/iOSBook/ch19.html#SECsivc

Related

NSTextField set cursor

Okay so I feel like there's something obvious I'm missing in this question. I've used makeFirstResponder throughout my code to move from textField 1 to 2, 2 to 3, etc. That seems to work as I want it to, yet when the new view is loaded, I want the cursor to be in textField1, and yet the following code does not place the cursor in textField1 upon load.
- (void) awakeFromNib{
[[[self view] window] makeFirstResponder:textField1];
}
I also tried setInitialFirstResponder, and that didn't have any effect either (I don't even think that would be right.) So, is it because it is in the awakeFromNib method? Can anyone tell me what I'm missing? Thanks in advance.
EDIT - My solution was differed slightly from the accepted answer so I thought I'd post my implementation. Because the view I wanted to set the first responder for was a subview added later (think the second screen of an application wizard), I simply added a setCursorToFirstTextField method:
- (void) setCursorToFirstTextField {
[[[self view] window] makeFirstResponder:textField1];
}
And made sure to call it after I had added the subview to the custom view on the original window.
Yes, you're right about the problem being the location of the method in awakeFromNib. If you log [self.view window] in your awakeFromNib, you'll see that it's NULL. I don't know how exactly you have things set up, but I'm guessing (if this relates to your WizardController question) that you're doing an alloc initWithNibName:bundle: in another class to create your view controller and then adding that controller's view to the view hierarchy. If you throw some logs in there, it will show you that awakeFromNib in the controller class is called after the alloc init, but before the view is added as a subview, so there is no window at that time. The way I got around this problem was to create a setup method in the view controller class (with the makeFirstResponder code in it), and call it from the class where you create the controller after you add it as a subview.
- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(NSNotification *)aNotification {
self.wizard = [[WizardController alloc] initWithNibName:#"WizardController" bundle:nil];
[self.window.contentView addSubview:wizard.view];
[self.wizard doSetup];
}

Adding Subviews to NSView show up, but can not be removed

In my application window I have two NSViews. On the left the NSView ("Menu") contains a few buttons. When one of the buttons is clicked it should change the contents of the right NSView ("Content").
For each of the views on the right I have a separate NSViewControllers that get loaded and their views gets added as a subview. When a further button gets pressed on the left the added subviews on the right should be removed and the new view should be loaded as a subview.
To accomplish this I load my Menu in AppDelegate with the following:
MenuVC *menuSubView = [[MenuVC alloc] initWithNibName:#"MenuVC" bundle: nil];
menuSubView.contentView = (NSView*)[self contentView];
[[self menuView] addSubview:[menuSubView view]];
This works fine. As you can see I have a NSView pointer in the Menu VC which points to the contentView so that I can populate it with the subviews.
Now as a method for one of the button presses I do the following:
SomeContentVC *subView = [[SomeContentVC alloc] initWithNibName:#"SomeContentVC" bundle:nil];
[self.contentView addSubview:[subView view]];
This does not work.
If I however add a subview from the awakeFromNib method of the MenuViewController implementation (in the case of default content when the app opens) it works. However when I try to remove that subview using
[[self.contentView setSubviews:[NSArray array]];
I can't. Interesting is also that if I try to count the number of subviews (even after having added one in the awakeFromNib method) it returns 0 subviews for self.contentView. Why? How can I get it to work properly?
Thanks
The fact that messaging self.contentView achieves nothing except, for some things, returning 0 probably means that self.contentView is nil.
Do you perhaps have two instances of MenuVC by accident? Perhaps one instantiated in a NIB and one instantiated in code?
When in doubt, log everything. Log self in various methods. Log menuSubView just after you create it. Log menuSubView.contentView just after you assign it. Etc. Eventually, you'll probably see that you're interacting with different objects than you thought you were.

View Controller behaves differently when set as 'initial view controller' vs. loading with presentModalViewController

My app has a map that tracks the user's location. This map will only appear under certain circumstances, and will dominate the user's attention until a particular task is complete, which is why the map isn't part of a navigation or tab bar UI.
If my map VC is set as the initial view controller in storyboard, it works fine. But if I try to load the map VC from elsewhere like this;
MapViewController *mapVC = [[MapViewController alloc] init];
[self presentModalViewController:mapVC animated:YES];
I just get a black screen.
I can confirm with NSLog that the VC is calling viewDidLoad and viewDidAppear, but the 'map' property of the VC is (null). I don't understand why (or how) I need to create the map property manually when using this technique, but it gets done for me when it is the initial VC.
The MapViewController instance in your storyboard is configured with a view hierarchy, including an MKMapView, and whatever else you did to configure that particular instance in the storyboard.
Now in this code which you show here, you are creating a completely new instance of MapViewController. It has no relationship to the instance in the storyboard other than they happen to be of the same class. So the one you create here with [[MapViewController alloc] init] has no view hierarchy (which is why you see a black screen), and none of the outlets or other configuration you may have made to the other MapViewController in your storyboard.
So what you want is to load that MapViewController that you've already set up from the storyboard. Assuming you are doing this from within a method in another view controller loaded from the same storyboard already, you can just do this:
// within some method on another vc from a scene in the same storyboard:
// given an identifier for the map view controller we want to load:
static NSString *mapVCIdentifier = #"SomeAppropriateIdentifier";
NSLog(#"Storyboard: %#",self.storyboard); // make sure this vc(self) was loaded from a storyboard
MapViewController *mapVC = [self.storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:mapVCIdentifier];
[self presentModalViewController:mapVC animated:YES];
And then back in the storyboard, just make sure you set the identifier for this map view controller to "SomeAppropriateIdentifier".
Hope that helps.

presentModalViewController on Parent from UITableView inside UIViewController

This one is probably something simple, still learning the ins-and-outs on this but I've run out of searches for this one with no available answer.
I've got a UIViewController with several elements displayed on it, one such element is a UITableView. The UITableView has it's own class and is allocated in the UIViewControllers viewWillAppear
- (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
UITableView *insideTableView = [[UITableView alloc] init];
tableView.delegate = insideTableView;
tableView.dataSource = insideTableView;
}
Everything is working fine in regards to the tableview. Today I am experimenting with a few additions, one of which is a new view popup on cell selection within that tableview.
Inside my TableView Class, I have the following:
- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
NSLog(#"Cell Pressed, Present View");
PopupView *popupView = [[PopupView alloc] initWithNibName:#"PopupView" bundle:nil];
popupView.modalTransitionStyle = UIModalTransitionStyleCoverVertical;
[self presentModalViewController:popupView animated:YES];
}
Now it gets called fine, verified by the NSLog, however the view doesn't appear. I know the problem is related to the fact that I want PopUp to appear over the TableViews Parent rather than itself.
I'm just not sure how to properly call it in this instance.
The delegate is a UIViewController which doesn't have its view property set, which is why presentModalViewController:: doesn't work.
You need the view controller containing the table view to present the modal view controllers, but note that that view controller is not the parent of the table view delegate. This is because you have no view controller hierarchy in place.
The easiest way to fix this is to put those methods inside the view controller whose view contains the table view. Alternatively the table view delegate needs to hold a reference to the view controller so it can call presentModalViewController:: on it.
The latter approach can lead to retain cycle, so you have to use a non-retaining reference. The nicest implementation is the delegate pattern.
Also, you don't want to do the instantiation in viewWillAppear: because that can be called multiple times during the lifecycle of a view controller. Put the code in viewDidLoad and balance it in dealloc. Right now you are leaking memory every time your view appears, which when your modal view controller is working will be every time the modal view controller is presented and dismissed.

Subclassing in objective c and viewWillAppear message delegates?

I might be confused here and asking the wrong question.
If I use a class like the UISplitViewController inside the appdelete.m, will the only message i will receive is the message the UISplitViewController calls and not any VIEW message? for example:
in my myappdelegate.m
....
UISplitViewController *mySplitViewController = [[UISplitViewController alloc] init];
mySplitViewController.viewControllers = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:leftside,rightside,nil];
...
mySplitViewController.delegate = self;
....
[windows addSubView:mySplitViewController.view];
....
-(void) viewWillAppear:(BOOL) animated {
}
in myappdelegate.h I included UISplitViewControllerDelegate
I expected viewWillAppear to fire but it is not. I assume if I had subclass UISplitViewControler it would have fire. right?
BTW: I am doing this without using IB. Do I need to set the target for the mySplitViewController?
What I want to do is setup the orientation of the splitviewcontroller when it rotates.
the viewWillAppear method and other view related methods will be called on the view or view controller themselves, not on the delegate.
That means that if you make a subclass of UISplitViewController called SplitViewControllerSubClass, the view... methods will be called on the instance of SplitViewControllerSubClass, not on the delegate object.
But considering you are creating the views and displaying them programmatically, you already know exactly when the view will appear (i.e., right before you add it to the window), so I believe you could do whatever setup you want at that point.