In iPhone OS 3.0, you can set the toolbar items of a UINavigationController using the setToolbarItems:animated: method. However, this requires you pass in an array of UIToolbarItems. While I could programmatically create these toolbar items, I'd rather create them in Interface Builder if possible.
With this in mind, I have created a UIToolbar in "MyGreatViewController.xib" and have populated it with the wanted toolbar items. Then, in "MyGreatViewController.m", I get the items from the toolbar and pass them to setToolbarItems:animated::
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
[self setToolbarItems: [toolbar items]];
}
...where toolbar is an IBOutlet referring to the UIToolbar.
Is this a good approach? Is there a better way to accomplish this? Should I just create the items programmatically?
I don't know if this is documented anywhere, but I've found that in Interface Builder, if you enable the navigation controller's toolbar, you can drag bar items to your view controller, and they will automagically show up in the navigation controller's toolbar.
For example, here's what we can do (using Xcode 3.2 on Snow Leopard):
File->New Project.... Choose Navigation-based Application and create the project.
Open MainWindow.xib in Interface Builder.
Select the Navigation Controller, and in the Attributes inspector, check the "Shows Toolbar" box. This will cause a Toolbar object to appear.
Drag a Bar Button Item from the Library to the toolbar. It will appear in the toolbar. If you check the hierarchy in the NIB, you'll see that this new item is a child of the RootViewController.
It seems that any Bar Button Items added as children of the navigation item will show up in the navigation bar, and any Bar Button Items added as children of the view controller will show up in the toolbar.
(I stumbled on this by accident. If anyone can find documentation for this behavior, or any additional info, I'd like to hear about it.)
It's a perfectly acceptable way of doing it, but do bear in mind that loading xib files is quite expensive on the iPhone, and it may well be faster to create the toolbar items programatically in your viewDidLoad method.
Related
I have an XCode project for the iPhone. The UI Hierarchy looks like this:
MainWindow
UINavigationController
RootView (derives from UIView)
NestedView1 (derives from UIView)
NestedView2 (derives from UIView)
This should be a typical setup for many projects. The app starts from RootView and as a result of some user action the RootView changes to NestedView1, then back to RootView, then to NestedView2.
Is there any way to set the title displayed in the Navigation Bar from within Interface Builder, as opposed to calling [self setTitle: #"Nested View X"]; from the code of each View Controller? What I'd like to have is opening a XIB of each of the View Controllers, selecting something visually and setting the title in the Inspector. Is this possible somehow?
Or maybe there is another approach not to have strings in the code for better localization?
Apple have many resources available on how to localise your apps, there is a directory of them here.
In particular, read this bit about localising strings.
click on the RootView in the interface builder you will find a navigation item component in the RootView, click on that component and you will find in the "Attribute Inspector" window a title field, write there the title that you want.
I just finished designing a application that uses a top bar that toggles between three UIViewControllers. My first thought was to use a UITabBarController, since it works very simular.
However, the tabBar is at the bottom and in my PSD, it's at the top. Is there anyway I can change it? I see in the library I can drag in a UITabBar, but I don't know how to get it to change pages from there.
Please help!
Coulton
Hope the below code helps
UITabBarController *tabC = [[UITabBarController alloc]init];
tabC.tabBar.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, 70);
NSArray *arr = [[NSArray alloc]initWithObjects:firstObj,secObj, nil];
tabC.viewControllers = arr;
[self.window addSubview:tabC.view];
Worked fine for me
I think it can be done, but you should be aware of this:
"Important: In iPhone OS 3.0 and later, you should not attempt to use the methods and properties of this class to modify the tab bar when it is associated with a tab bar controller object. Modifying the tab bar in this way results in the throwing of an exception. Instead, any modifications to the tab bar or its items should occur through the tab bar controller interface. You may still directly modify a tab bar object that is not associated with a tab bar controller."
So, in your UI (I suppose you defined it in Interface Builder), instantiate a UITabBar object (by choosing it in the IB library and dragging it to your view in IB). Choose the default position and also define the way that this tab bar autoresizes (using the size pane of the info window). Then, add an outlet to your view controller of type UITabBar, and, finally, connect the tab bar object to the tab bar outlet.
Once you have done this, in your view controller's viewDidLoad method you can customize any property of the tab bar that you want to.
I'm currently creating an ipad application.
the idea is to have a toolbar at the top and a tabbar at the bottom.
The toolbar has to be visible on all tabs, so it won't disappear.
I was thinking about having a UIViewController as the main view and put the tool bar in there.
Then adding the uitabbarcontroller to that main view controller, but i'm not sure how to do that.
At the moment i have my tabbarcontroller as the main view and added the toolbar to every tab.
Can anyone help?
Thanks
The Tab Bar Controller should be at the root. What you can do is create a method that returns a propertly configured toolbar & add it to each of the view controller's viewDidLoad (either by using a category method, inheriting a common UIViewController subclass, or simply via a C-style factory method.
This way your hierarchy isn't flipped, and the tab bar is at the root like it should be.
I am trying to create a view with a TableView in the center, NavigationBar on top, and a TabBar with 5 items. The TabBarItems will be attached to 5 different modal views. And the tableview can select an item and "navigate" to another tableview or detail view.
Following the Apple doc, I tried to create a NavigationController in a TabBarController in IB, but failed. I read all the posting regarding to this topic, and they all described a NavigationController inside one of the TabBarItem. But that is not what I want. The TabBarController and NavigationController are separate controller doing separate thing in the same view.
So I start wondering maybe it is a design issue. I should just use a NavigationController and add the TabBar as objects and not controller in the view.
Am I going the right track or is there a better way to combine NavigationController and TabBarController in IB to do the job that I want. Am I making sense?
If the tab bar is actually being used as a tab bar, it sounds like you want 5 navigation controllers, one for each tab.
If the tab bar is being used as a toolbar to hold buttons that bring up modal view controllers, push views onto the navigation controller, or other actions besides what a tab bar is intended for, use a UIToolbar instead. UINavigationController actually has toolbar support built in, just set its toolbarHidden property to NO and set the toolbarItems property on each view controller that can go inside the navigation controller to an array of appropriate UIBarButtonItems.
I'm running into a problem with an iPad app where I would like to have UINavigationControllers in both of the views within a UISplitView. I've looked through other similar questions here, but most link to a tutorial online that doesn't completely solve the problem. Here's a 2-minute walkthrough to re-create the problem I'm having:
Create a New Project in XCode, starting from the Split View-based Application template.
Add the following NSLog statement as the first line within the DetailViewController's willHideViewController method:
NSLog(#"toolbar: %#", toolbar);
If you run the application now, the log will show that the DetailViewController's toolbar is alive and well. Now...
Open MainWindow.xib and expand the SplitViewController.
Drag a Navigation Controller from the library on top of the DetailViewController.
Expand the new Navigation Controller and change the class of the UIViewController within to a DetailViewController.
Ctrl-drag from the SplitViewController to the DetailViewController and assign it as the delegate.
Save MainWindow.xib and run the app again.
At this point, the detail view has a navigation bar and an empty toolbar. If you view the logs, you should find that the toolbar is null. Why is this? Am I missing some sort of connection in Interface Builder? Is the navigation bar the problem for some reason?
Unlike the tutorial at http://www.cimgf.com/2010/05/24/fixing-the-uisplitviewcontroller-template/, I would like to keep both the navigation bar and the toolbar (preferably with the toolbar at the top when in portrait and not visible when in landscape), so that I still have a functional "Back" button when the iPad is in portrait orientation.
Does anyone have any suggestions for fixing this problem? An example project with this sort of set-up would be ideal.
You can certainly use a navigation controller on the detail view of a split view controller. In fact, the iPad Settings app uses this approach. Probably the best way to get this setup is to create a new project in Xcode 4.x and select the "Master-Detail Application" template. It will generate a split view controller with 2 navigation controllers, one for the left view and one for the right view.
To your toolbar question, to keep things simple I would put a toolbar in the bottom. You can still put bar button items on the top navigation bar, although you can only put them in the left, middle, or right. If you need lots of items on the top bar, one way is to add a toolbar to the detail view and hide the navigation bar in the viewWillAppear event of the detail view class.
Here is an example on how to hide the navigation bar and show the toolbar:
- (void) viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated {
[super viewWillAppear:animated];
self.navigationController.toolbarHidden = NO;
self.navigationController.navigationBarHidden = YES;
}
I've found the built-in UISplitViewController to behave badly when trying to combine it with most of the other built-in view controller subclasses. Matt Gemmell's MGSplitViewController is a lot more flexible and has worked pretty well for me, despite the odd glitches (though those are at least fixable as the source code is provided).