I'm trying to create navigation through the use of a menu in my app, but I'm not sure how it should be done. I currently have a system set out like this:
ContainerViewController
|
+---CenterNavigationController
|
+---ViewControllerA [i.e. the root view controller which will be changed]
|
+---MenuViewController [pushed to navigation stack on btn press]
and when a item in the menu is pressed to load another view controller, MenuViewController calls a delegate method in the ContainerViewController which replaces the NavigationController with a new one with a different root
let newVC = ViewControllerB()
CenterNavigationController = UINavigationController(rootViewController: newVC)
However this looks janky, both in the code and in the aesthetics of the app.
I'm not sure how to do this properly. I'm wanting the menu to be overlayed onto the current view, and have the ability to click 'back' in the menu to go back to what was showing on screen before the menuVC was loaded. How can I do this?
You do all correct. If navigation animation isn't good, then improve it. You can show menu animated from the left side and reload CenterNavigationController without animation. As for transparence, then just change the color of the main view of the menu view controller to semitransparent. The first subview that contains all menu items should be non-transparent and have lower width and sticked to the left side. That's it.
I think you should not push menu view controller into the navigation stack. Just load it right into the UINavigationView controller.
You can check loadViewController (line 251) method here https://gitlab.com/seriyvolk83/SwiftEx/blob/master/Source/UIExtensions.swift
It loads view controller into another view controller in a given bounds. To remove it later (close menu) you can use remove() (see line 321)
Hamburger menu is antipattern on iOS, I suggest using UITabBarController. If someone is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to put a hamburger menu in your app then use something like this: https://github.com/jonkykong/SideMenu
Related
I need to create a navigation in iOS app like following screenshot.
It contains a Tab Bar and a Side menu.
The problem is the right navigation menu button, should be visible in all tabs. Even all inner screens of each tab.
When user selects an option from side menu, it should be displayed on screen.
Now each tab should be accessible from each option item, and each option menu should be accessible in each tab. Its like a many-to-many relationship in DB.
How should I design it?
I have tried following so far.
Within each tab, there is a containerViewController. Which consists of my FrontViewController and SideMenuViewController.
When an option is selected from side menu, a message is passed to containerViewController which removes the old FrontViewController from view and adds new OptionViewController.
The menu button and navigation bar is added in containerViewController, so that if should be visible every time, at any screen.
Problems
Now facing some problems using this approach.
As the navigation bar is added in containerViewController. I have access it using parent property of my FrontViewController. Suppose if I need to use PushViewController in my FrontViewController, I have to use parent property. Like this
[self.parent.navigationController pushViewController:newVC animated:YES ];
[self.parent.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:YES];
I have to use this approach within each tab. Means code is repeating 5 times.
Can anyone suggest a simple solution. Any help is appreciated.
You can try to use InteractiveSideMenu for your purpose. It supports interactive opening/closing menu and following customization:
Animation duration
Visible content width
Content scale
Using spring animation with params customization
Animation options like animation curve
You should use 3 basic ViewControllers for creating subclasses for implementing your side menu.
MenuContainerViewController is a host for menu and content views
MenuViewController is a container for menu view
MenuItemContentControlller is a container for content that corresponds menu item
Here is an example of setup Host controller.
import InteractiveSideMenu
class HostViewController: MenuContainerViewController {
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
self.menuViewController = self.storyboard!.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "NavigationMenu") as! MenuViewController
self.contentViewControllers = contentControllers()
self.selectContentViewController(contentViewControllers.first!)
}
private func contentControllers() -> [MenuItemContentViewController] {
//here is instantiation of content view controllers
}
}
I would think about subclassing UINavigationController and adding your button management logic there. When any view controller is pushed into the nav controller, set its bar button item.
The side menu shouldn't be inside each tab. Your root view controller should really control the main and side views and the main view has your tab controller which has a navigations controller as the root of each tab.
Now that the navigation bar doesn't need to be managed by a different container controller things become easier.
Bar button actions push up to the root view controller only, a reference to it can be set when the navigation controllers are created. Option selection would traverse root VC -> main (tab) VC -> selected tab nav controller -> push.
It could be easier to use a cocoapod for iOS side menus such as APMultiMenu. I've used it and it's simple to use and follow
I would like to introduce in my app a View that will contains both navigation bar and a tab bar at the bottom. View contains a Table View with multiple entries and once user tap on a cell a push segue takes him to another view with details regarding the cell he has previously tapped. If he decides, user can go back to parent view by tapping on 'Back' button of the navigation bar on top. In addition to this, I would like my view to have a tab bar at the bottom with extra tools for the user. So, if he decides to check the 'Creator' of the app, he can by simply tap on 'Creator' TabBarItem at the bottom.
I would like to ask you what is the best way to achieve the above. I have already tried to use UITabBarController combined with UINavigationController. Didn't achieve what I was looking for because I would like the view with the table on it to be independent from the TabBarController and NOT a part of it (by part I mean by accessible through tabs).
Do you believe a UINavigationController view with UITabBarView would be a better choice?
UPDATE
What I mean by, "independent from the TabBarController and NOT a part of it":
Once the app loaded, I would like to see my main view (with table) contains Navigation Bar on top and Tab Bar at the bottom. However, I don't want to see the first tab of the Tab Bar selected because my main view will not be accessible through tabs of the Tab Bar but through Navigation Bar. If, for example, I am in Main view and tap on 1st tap, I would like to move to another view that will contains some other info.
Option 1:-
Create a tab bar Controller and on that TabbarController assign your navigation Views.
say nav1 with tab1 , nav2 with tab2...
Option 2:-
Create a Navigation View Controller and than add the tabbarcontroller on that navigationView Controller by using addSubView.
So when the user clicks on a row in a table u will go to a different View which doesn't have the TabbarController and when the user comes back he will again see the TabbarController.
This is what I will do:
First I will subclass UITabbarController and create for example ParentTabBarController. This controller will contain all the tabs necessary and what they will do if they are clicked so on.
Next for each viewcontroller I create, I will subclass from this ParentTabBarController so that the tabs are already in. You can add additional functionality or override it depending on your situation.
In your appdelegate pass in a navigation controller and every time push and dismiss the viewcontrollers you created in second step.
Hope this helps..
I am a newbie to IOS programming and currently i have a tab bar application with two tabs. I have two questions.
The first tab shows a map, imagine it with some pushpins. There is a button on the navigation bar and when this is clicked i want the map view to to move out and a list view to come in. You can see the UI from the image. The button is called list.
Now when i click list I want this view to go away and the list view to come in. So here are my questions ?
1) How do i do this ? I tried the navigation model but i don't want that because I do not want a back button. I tried to make two different views and just dragged the button to that view but the app crashes. I just want the list button on the nab bar and when clicked the view changes to the list view and the button text changes to map. So now if I click the button again it should go back to the map view and the button changes to list.
2) How do i achieve the animations for this ? Ive seen some app where the page flips around and I've seen some options like reducing the opacity etc but I want to achieve the flip animation.
Thank You for any help I get. I really appreciate it.
Interface Builder can do most of this. Hold down the control key and drag from your map View Controller's UIBarButtonItem titled "List" to your list View Controller, then choose the Action Segue "modal". An arrow appears representing the segue; click on it and use the Attributes Inspector to change the Transition to "Flip Horizontal". Here's a video
Or, you could do this programmatically with presentViewController:animated:completion.
Now to get back to the map from the list, I believe that must be done programatically. Create a method that calls dismissViewControllerAnimated:completion: and make your list View Controller's UIBarButtonItem titled "Map" trigger it.
After reading your comments, I am wondering... if the structure of your app is logically a tabbed app structure (as indeed you refer to it as a 'tab bar application'), shouldn't you consider using the UITabViewController instead of a NavigationController? That is what it is designed to do, after all.
If you do use a TabViewController you should reconsider your desire for flip animation, as that doesn't really make UI-sense for tabs. If you can dispense with the flip animation, TabViewController could be a good way to go and you should at least experiment with that before dismissing the idea. It is also designed to grow... you can incorporate any number of tabs in a tab bar. Check out the apple docs (with pictures!)
You will notice that tabs are at the foot of the screen, whereas your 'tab' navController buttons are in a navbar at the top of the screen. This also helps as your app grows, as it is straightforward - from a UI design point of view and programmatically - to incorporate navControllers as navigation tools within individual tabs. For example, if your map/list flip routine does indeed make sense for this part of you app, you can keep this as a single tab (in it's own navigationController) and add other tabs for other parts of the app...
update
From your comment, you are saying that you are interested in the navController-inside-tabBarController setup. In this case here are some ways to get flip transitions AND no back button..
(1) modal presentation
The easiest way to get what you want is to set up one of your viewControllers (say the map view) to present the other one (the list view) modally.
If in the storyboard:
embed your mapViewController in a navController with a navbar button for navigation to the listView as in your picture
add your listViewController to the storyboard and embed it in it's own navContoller (not the mapViewController's navController). Drag a barButtonItem to this navController and wire it up to an IBAction in listViewController
CTRL-drag from mapViewController's 'list' button to the listViewController to create a segue. Select the segue and in the attributes inspector set the segue type to 'modal', with transition 'flips horizontal' and 'animated' checked. Give it a name in case you want to refer to it in code.
in the listViewController's IBAction add this:
[[self presentingViewController] dismissViewControllerAnimated:YES completion:nil];
That should achieve your result. You can use the completion block to send information back from the list view to the map view, and/or set the map view as the listView's delegate.
If you are not using the storyboard check this apple guide
Presenting View Controllers from Other View Controllers
especially "Presenting a View Controller and Choosing a Transition Style".
There is one catch with this approach - when the presented view flips onto the screen, the entire previous view, including the tab bar, is flipped out of the way. The idea is that this is a modal view which the user is required to dismiss before doing anything else in the app.
(2) push/pop in a single navController If this does not suit your intent, you can navigate using a single NavigationController with push and popping of views, and you can hide the back button ... but you really would need to keep the back button functionality as you do want to go back to the mapView, not on to a new map view.
To hide the back button try:
self.navigationItem.hidesBackButton = YES
in the uppermost viewControllers' viewDidLoad
Then you can add a barButtonItem in the xib/storyboard, with this kind of IBAction:
[self popViewControllerAnimated:NO]
or
[self popToRootViewControllerAnimated:NO]
You would have to construct the flip animation in code as it is not supported as a built-in with UINavigationController (best left as an exercise for the reader!)
(3) swapping views in a single viewController As ghettopia has suggested, you could use a single viewController inside a navController (or with a manually place navBar) and swap two views around using the UIView class methods
transitionFromView:toView:duration:options:animations:completion
transitionWithView:duration:options:animations:completion.
This could be a good simplifying solution as your list and map are essentially two views of the same data model.
I am very new to Xcode and have encountered an issue with my app. I am trying to create a tab bar app. On one of the tabs I have a button that brings the user to a different ViewController. I want to have it so the user can select a button that would return them to the tab that had the button. I tried to set up an action from the button to the previous view (the tabbed screen), however the tab bar disappears. I hope this is makes sense.
Here is a link to a screenshot...
Easiest way to do this is to place a UINavigationController as the root view controller of the TabBarController. You can do this in storyboard by simply ctrl+dragging from the tabbar controller to the navigation controller and adding it as a relationship.
Here's an example using storyboards:
The next step is to set the third controller (in this case the table view controller) to your player view controller class.
Then, you can use the default back button and animation that comes with the navigation controller. If you prefer to hide the navigation bar at the top of the screen, then you can use your custom back button to call
[self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:YES];
You can also choose custom animations / segues, etc. but using a navigation controller to help you navigate screens is probably the simplest approach.
I have an application with 5 UIViewControllers each inside a corresponding UINavigationController, all tucked inside a UITabBarController that displays 5 tabs at the bottom of the screen.
I want to display another UIViewController (inside a UINavigationController) when a dialog button is pressed.
This view should only be loaded and unloaded programatically; i.e. it should not appear in the tab bar. However, I want the tab bar to be visible always.
If I add the [UINavigationController view] to [self window] the UITabBar is covered. If I add it to any other layer, the UINavigationController adds on the compensation it has for the status bar so appears further down than expected.
A solution would be to have the 6th UINavigationController added to the UITabBar with the others, but with its tabBarItem hidden. Then I can show it and hide it using the tabBars selectedIndex property.
Accessing the tabBarItem through the UIViewController shows no obvious way of doing this.
#wisequark, I think you completely misunderstood and you have almost rewritten the architecture of my application. However I have a separate navigation controller for each view as they are mutually exclusive and there is no concept of "drilling down".
#Kendall, This is what I expect I will have to do - have the modal view appear with a hide button to bring back the normal interface. But it would be nice to keep the tab bar always visible, so I was just wondering if anyone knew of a way.
It sounds as though you have a mess on your hands. A UINavigationController is a distinct object that is very different from a UITabBarController. In general, your application should have a tab controller, one of who's tab's loads a UINavigationController which in turn loads it's views - not that both maintain management over the different views. It is also improper to refer to the display of a UIViewController as such an object doesn't have a visual representation. In the case of a UINavigationController, the navigation controller object is responsible for displaying a navigation bar and a table view (in the most common case) and for managing the display of all the views in the navigation hierarchy. It itself has no corresponding representation on screen. Similarly, a UITabBarController presents a tab bar and is responsible for the loading and unloading of the views and/or view controllers attached to the tab buttons. If we were to present this as an image, it would look something like this -
alt text http://img.skitch.com/20081112-2sqp7q4wafa34te1ga337u4k8.png
Well, it sounds like what you really want to do is present a modal view with the tab bar still visible. You could add your view as a subview of the tab bar controller's view. The tab bar's view is, oddly enough, not the tab bar itself but rather a view containing the tab bar and the selected item's view.
Alternatively, you could try calling presentModalViewController:animated: with the selected tab (i.e. [tabBarController.selectedViewController presentModalViewController:animated:]) as the receiver instead of the tab bar. I seem to recall doing this once (quite by accident) and the tab bar remained visible.
One more thought: since each of your five view controllers is a UINavigationController, you could always pushViewController:animated: onto the selected view controller, then hide the back button. Your view will just appear without animation. But you'll need to remember to pop your view controller off the stack whenever the user switches to another tab. That might take a bit more work.
The best idea I could think of would be to either push a modal navigation controller for your view (which would hide the tab bar which you do not want), or to get the tab bar controller current selected view controller (really your navigation controller for a tab) and push your new view controller on there - and then pop that view when another tab is selected with a tab bar delegate.
It seems wierd to me to push the view onto random tabs though, if the view is created from a dialog that is modal, I don't see why the view itself should not also be modal and hide tabs.