Summary
From a conceptual point of view, should one be working with UIViewController subclasses and their Nibs, even if you're not using the UINavigationController?
Scenario
The application I'm trying to develop has no UINavigationController. I'm mostly looking at elements in one particular UIScrollView implementation, and if there's at all a 'next level of navigation', it merely alters the appearance of a small element to show more details. The detail views of the elements (different elements spawn different views) are laid out in Interface Builder, for which I opted to create new UIViewController subclasses with corresponding XIB files.
Doubt
While exploring the different ways I could have these instances animate into view, I come across a lot of solutions using the UINavigationController. The UIViewController itself already seems to be geared towards the synergy. There's a self.navigationController, and lot's of examples online of how to push and pop with and without animation.
Question
So what I'm wondering right now is "did I do the right thing?" Googling an answer to that question only brought me to more specific implementation examples, so I decided to post this.
Should I have restrained myself in using XCode's "new file" template for UIViewController subclasses with XIB? Or should I have implemented a UINavigationController in my app, even if there's no screenfulls of navigation going on?
I'd be much obliged for enlightenment.
Cheers,
Eric-Paul.
UIViewController is a useful tool. It offers memory management things, anchor points for interface rotation and lots more. If needed, they can be pushed to a navigation controller (if not now, maybe later), could be a page of a tab bar controller, or behave well in popovers on iPad.
They come cheap and I don't see a reason not to use them. And your code needs to go somewhere anyway. Don't flood the application delegate or the view.
Related
Relevant Data:
I'm making a simple game, using OpenglES. The game itself is done, however I would like to have a main menu as well as some other screens designed in IB. So far I have a death/score screen that is displayed with a simple modelviewcontroller.
I haven't done a ton with GUI building or much programming on the platform outside of C code (posix sockets) and some examples from some books. So I'm not sure how I would go about having lots of views- usually I just use a model view, and it's gotten me along just fine so far. However I don't think that would be the best route here.
Situation:
I have a view controller that shows my main menu- the main menu branches off to the main game, a settings screen, and a high score screen. The main game is made in opengl, and I haven't made the settings view yet, but it likely will be as well. How should I switch between the views? Presenting the main view from the app delegate is as simple as setting the root view controller = newly created view controller, should I do the same thing here? If I do that can I remove the resources from the menu view controller?
Sorry if this is an extremely simple question, I just don't quite get the process.
I'm not entirely sure what you want to do, but an easy way to show a new view controller is:
SecondViewController *aSecondViewController = [[SecondViewController alloc]
initWithNibName:#"SecondView" bundle:nil];
[self presentModalViewController:aSecondViewController animated:YES];
I hope that helps.
How should I switch between the views?
In the vast majority of cases, you should be using a UINavigationController. Your initial controller would be the main menu. When you want to go into a particular section of your application, you push a new view controller onto the stack. When you want to come back out, you pop it off the stack.
Besides navigation and presenting modally that others have mentioned, another option is to swap out views. May or may not fit your app's flow but wanted to point out another option for you to consider
Best practice for switching iPhone views?
If you are already limiting the game to iOS 5 for some other reason you should look into UIStoryboard. If you don't currently require iOS5 the "simplest" way is to use table views, but that isn't a very "gamey" UI.
I am trying to build a multiview app i.e. based on some gestures, new views are shown, removed etc.
I have found 3 ways to do so -
[self.view insertSubview:newViewController.view atIndex:3];
Using UINavigationController
Finally using modalViewController - [self presentModalViewController:newViewController animated:YES];
First off, in second method, can I use this controller without UINavigationTabBar? I have a set of custom UIView objects which I want to push & pop from Screen. I dont want the ugly Apple's NavigationBar at top (or bottom). I will provide custom buttons based on which [self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated] should occur. Can this be possible?
Also, Which of these techniques is best? In terms of usage & code maintenance, memory usage etc.
In terms of usage & code maintenance, memory usage etc., there's little doubt that UINavigationController is the best fit. It's been optimized for exactly the sort of thing you're doing. And because you push and pop UIViewControllers from it (not just UIViews), views that are not currently displayed on screen can be automatically released to free up memory by the OS.
Can you use a navigation view without the bar across the top? I think maybe you should RTFM. Specifically, -setNavigationBarHidden:animated:
That said, UINavigationController is not particularly flexible at doing things it wasn't designed to do. In particular, it's opinionated about the transitions it uses to animate between view controllers on its stack.
You might have some luck pushing and popping sans animation (by passing NO to the animated: parameter of those methods), and having a delegate set up to handle -navigationController:willShowViewController:animated:. You could in theory add a CATransition to the root view's animations there. But anything much more complicated than that (a view that tracks your finger while sliding on to the screen, etc.) and you'll probably have to write your own controller and manage your own views.
But you should still read Apple's View Controller Programming Guide for iOS and the NSNavigationManager specs until you grok them in their fullness. It'd be hard to find a better pattern to base your design around.
Second one UINavigationController. And yes you can use your custom navigation bar.
I'm just getting into desktop Cocoa development (I have experience with iOS development). If this question seems basic, forgive me.
That being said, I'm dealing with a large program with lots of calculations and functionality to deal with. There are almost a dozen views, organized with an NSTabView. Rather than dumping everything into one monstrosity of a class and creating a XIB file that brings my system to its knees (Xcode apparently isn't that efficient…who knew? :P). I'd like for each tab to be its own NSViewController with accompanying XIB; as such, I'd like to load each tab's view from the corresponding XIB.
I'm thinking of this in terms of UITabBarController, but this doesn't seem to work (there isn't an NSTabViewController as far as I could find). I'm not sure how to do this (or even if it's possible—but I can't be the only one with this issue?), and I'd appreciate any assistance. Thanks!
Update: I tried assigning the controller's view to the tab's view, but quickly realized that wouldn't get me anywhere. Is it worth creating an NSTabViewController from scratch, or is there a solution out there?
Cocoa development on the desktop has some major differences compared to iOS development. One of them is the use of view controllers - they aren't strictly necessary - and when you use them you can just stick to a generic NSViewController regardless of what kind of view it contains. All of the methods you need to control the tab view are in the NSTabView class - not the controller.
Having said that, putting 12 views in to a tabview sounds like a painful way to interact with a program. Have you thought about a source-detail type setup (think itunes or mail with their sidebars - each entry in the sidebar corresponds to a different view)?
I've ditched the tab bar, and as per sosborn's suggestion, I have used a split view—or rather I've put a table view on the side, and a custom view taking up most of the screen. Then, in my AppDelegate, I have individual controllers as ivars (I need individual controllers because there are a lot of calculations involved, and I don't want to have a monster class handling them all). They'll be lazily loaded, and the view will be assigned to the current controller's view as necessary.
In Apple's developer guide, they state: "A split view controller must always be the root of any interface you create" (see here). I was curious if anyone knew why they decided that. I have a tab navigator-based application and it makes sense for the content in one of the tabs to be presented in a split view. Why would Apple be opposed to that kind of design? Thanks in advance for your answers.
-Max
PS I'm not looking for ways to put a split view controller in a tab navigator controller (that much I can figure out, even if the code does look sloppy). I'm more curious if anyone has any idea why Apple frowns on it.
I don't think that this is necessarily a user experience decision as much as it is a technical restriction. UIKit makes a number of assumptions about how UIViewControllers will be used. Including the idea that only a single UIViewController instance has its view visible in given window at any given time. Now since Apple has access to the implementation they have been able to make exceptions for their own "container view controller" classes (UINavigationController, UITabBarController, and UISplitViewController). We can't tell exactly how much of a special case these controllers are or what they needed to do to support displaying nested sub view controllers correctly but one consequence seems to be that both UITabBarController and UISplitViewController are not intended to be used except as the root view controller of a window. Attempting to nest them within other container view controllers may cause unexpected or unreliable behavior.
I tried to cover these restrictions on the use of view controllers and some possible alternatives here: http://blog.carbonfive.com/2011/03/09/abusing-uiviewcontrollers/ Hopefully that's of some use to you but I'm afraid the only reliable way to get the UI you seem to be looking for it to implement your own split view style display within the view of a single UIViewController.
Please ignore my answer:
Because you can't resize UISplitViewController's subviews with touches?
Apple has always placed high value on consistent use of user interface elements. Having all applications work in the same way helps the user to immediately understand how an app works even if they've never seen it before. Establishing a conceptual hierarchy of view controller containers makes a lot of sense when you're trying to help the user predict behavior.
I want to make an iPad application (I'm actually making it now, it's just not working...) where I start out with a login screen for the users and if they authenticate I want to transition to another screen which will have a TabBar.
Right now I have my iPadAppDelegate with a MainWindow XIB file. In MainWindow I have a SignInViewController which is matching a class and XIB file of the same names. The SignInViewControlelr XIB contains all the text fields and buttons the user needs to sign in.
If the user is authorized I want to transition to the screen with a TabBar, which is why I have a UITabBarController in MainWindow XIB, but I can't seem to transition to it.
Ultimatelly, I think I'm misunderstanding how Cocoa's version of MVC works (my MVC knowledge is limited to ASP.NET MVC since it was in v1 preview 1... And as I can see it right now there's big differences, but I am most likely very wrong, hence the misunderstanding). Perhaps I'm using too many controllers and too little views or just not placing them where they should be, let alone writing the code to interact with them...
I'd appreciate an explanation on how I should properly structure the controllers and views to get what I want to achieve. An app similar to what I want to do is the AT&T myWirelss app.
Help would be appreciated!
P.S. I've litereally been learning how to make iOS apps from watching the videos of xvitcoder on YouTube and further adding the functionality I need while asking questions on how to add the functionality I need. The videos are good (I think), but I'm trying to do something that isn't really explained by them (I think).
UPDATE
The code I ended up using, which works, although I'm not sure if its the proper way of doing it:
DashboardViewController *dashboardViewController = [[DashboardViewController alloc] initWithNibName:#"DashboardViewController" bundle:nil];
[appDelegate.window insertSubview:dashboardViewController.view aboveSubview:self.view];
[dashboardViewController release];
You may find the View Controller Programming Guide informative. Ultimately you can have a derivative of UIViewController that you use to internally manage your different views/view controllers or you may also utilize a UINavigationController.
A really good simple model of flipping between big views is provided by the "Utility Application" of the iPhone templates. It shows how a view controller can call another controller. This might give you a start.