For a very large ios project with the huge amount of features and complex user interface, would like to have the suggestions for following -
Will it be more easy and convenient if we use different storyboards
for iPhone and iPad Screen sizes as developers used to do a couple of years back when UIStackView was not there?
What are the best practices to achieve the complex UI using storyboards, Auto Layout and also have a maintainable code? Please share your experiences.
Will it be more easy and convenient if we use different storyboards for iPhone and iPad Screen sizes as developers used to do a couple of years back when UIStackView was not there?
Using different types of storyboard / xib will increases your bundle size. So it is not a good idea. Before xcode-7, developers do not have any good choice instead of this. Now you can use auto-layout, it can easily maintain your whole screen.
If your design is something like master-detail (like device setting) then you can use different VC's.
What are the best practices to achieve the complex UI using storyboards, Auto Layout and also have a maintainable code? Please share your experiences.
You can auto-layout, size classes, even vary of traits is more helpful to maintain the designs.
I think it's better to use only storyboard for iPhone and iPad , where you can create constraints in proportional to screen size , and tweak constants with add variations plus using size classes for handling screen variations with adaptive layout
I would advise to use Adaptive Layout with Size Classes and Auto Layout.
On quite a large universal projet, it saved me a lot of time, especially, as you pointed out, since UIStackView!
https://www.raywenderlich.com/162311/adaptive-layout-tutorial-ios-11-getting-started
Using sub storyboards is also a great relief on very large projects.
Having two sets of storyboards is quite painful as you have to duplicate many things. I only use a specific storyboard, when the UI on both platforms is really really different.
Related
I'm implementing a lock-screen page in iOS.
But the design for iPhone 6 requires text on top is pretty large, which causes the bottom in the page is hidden in devices equipped with small resolution screen like iPhone 4.
Do I have to define multiple xib for each device in this situation?
Or make some views smaller programmatically?
Or make some margins smaller programmatically?
Are there any references for this? I'm new to auto-layout.
I would suggest you to use autolayouts. From my understanding your app can be implemented with stack views.
So start with this document,
http://www.appcoda.com/introduction-auto-layout/
and
http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/ios-from-scratch-with-swift-auto-layout-basics--cms-25520
Then checkout the apple documentation for further understanding
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AutolayoutPG/
If the constraints are too confusing, try stack views
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AutolayoutPG/AutoLayoutWithoutConstraints.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40010853-CH8-SW1
Creating multiple xibs is not a solution. Make use of autolayouts :)
I have a feeling about iOS development on which I would like to get feedback.
Storyboard / Interface Builder are, at first glance, awesome tools. The truth is that aside quick prototypes and really simple user interface I always feel blocked using them. This question offers probably a good example: how can I use one storyboard for 4" and 3.5" iphone screens with autolayout (ios6 + ios7)?
I am considering to code all my views. Mostly because it will let me implement some logic, like equal spacing of elements. Something that is, AFAIK, impossible to do in a cross device fashion through the GUI tools.
My questions are: Does Storyboard / IB support advanced view layout? How do you usually code your view if you do so: extending UIView / tweaking the controller?
EDIT: the accepted answer link is nice. Interested readers could also look at Apple's Auto Layout Guide relevant example: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AutolayoutPG/AutoLayoutbyExample/AutoLayoutbyExample.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40010853-CH5-SW7
http://www.raywenderlich.com/83276/beginning-adaptive-layout-tutorial
Ray gives a decent starting guide on how easy it is to create a single adaptive view now, which has caused me to switch from being completely programmatic.
Previous to iOS 8 it was much harder to build complex layouts using Interface Builder. You were essentially limited to stretching or pinning to edges. Now you can build layouts that adapt to size classes and change their layouts or constraints based on the width and height of your device.
That being said, even in really difficult scenarios that IB can't handle, I still end up building chunks of views in XIBs and then laying out those chunks manually.
TLDR; Interface Builder is going to be helpful 99.9% of the time as long as you know how to use all its features.
I am having real difficult time using auto layout as when I sometimes change the views, it becomes a real mess with the already assigned constraints. So should I really give more time to myself learning auto layout or should I just go with multiple storyboards as it takes a bit of time but ultimately makes it easier for us to change the design easily in future.
From my learning,
I felt the same because its hard to learn and understand AutoLayout for first time. Here is the lot of advantages using
AutoLayout Advantages
Future iOS Versions going to support auto layout
It will save you lot of your time when ever new version of OS get released
Using Multiple StoryBoard
You need to maintain for each screen which is clearly hassle if you want to change anything in your View.
It will eat lot of your time to fixing
and much more
Spend little time in AutoLayout. Its not that hard to learn.
Auto Layout
Size Class Explanation
I am sure above link will help for all beginners.
The practice we are using is always splitting the Storyboards into smaller chunks, because they get ridiculously big and hard to work on. But we are not splitting them for different devices, but feature-wise. For example the Onboarding process has a separate Storyboard.
But we are always using auto-layout and iOS 8 size classes to support different devices. In some cases we even code constraints in code.
So learn Auto-layout sooner rather than later, it will save you time on multiple occasions.
In new Xcode you can find Size Classes in Storyboard which helps to manage various screen sizes. On beginning it seems to be hard but after little time it will save you lots of work.
I suggest to start here: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/recipes/xcode_help-IB_adaptive_sizes/_index.html
It is important to create proper constraint. Set on view size class: Any x Any and then you can create constraints automatically, clicking Editor -> Resolve Autolayout Issues -> Reset To suggested Constraints or use shortcut: Command + Option + Shift + "=" while object in storyboard is selected. Honestly, it doesn't work properly in each case, sometimes you just have to set it manually.
Summarizing it's worth lo learn AutoLayout and make all screen sizes in one Storyboard.
I've read around that Apple is hinting to developers at a larger-screen iPhone by pushing developers to use Storyboard and auto-layout. I understand why auto-layout would be useful, to organise items according to screen size, but what do Storyboards have to do with anything?
I may be missing an obvious advantage (in relation to larger screens), so any help would be much appreciated. :)
A. You say that there are some notice from Apple about the larger screen of the iPhone6: This is impossible because Apple doesn't release any information until the date of Keynotes and WWDC.
B. You can or not use Storyboard, and you can or not use AutoLayout: the 2 things are separate because you can also use AutoLayout in nib or programmatically.
C. What developers don't know, is that Storyboard are just a market move. I spoken directly with a my friend engineer in Apple about this and the information is real. The reason is also obvious. Is not the topic to speak about this but you can search on google and you will find a lot of information about the advantages to don't use storyboard.
Yes, storyboard are easy, but are not developer friendly if you think to work in a serious project with a big team. In a team you can use GIT, you can use shared repositories, you can export a part of code with the interface...in all this thing, Storyboard are BAD!
So i encourage developers to DON'T USE storyboard and use at max NIB file, or write the UI directly by code.
There currently doesn't appear to be any advantage to using storyboards versus XIBs or programmatic layout as far as multiple screen sizes are concerned. Auto-layout is definitely advantageous as it allows you to define your interface elements in relation to each other (and the screen), as opposed to using fixed numerical values for location and size. This would allow the UI to then easily adapt to varying screen sizes and aspect ratios.
The only potential reason storyboards could become useful for multiple screen sizes in the future is if Apple adds functionality to them to allow you to define entirely separate views based on device/screen size. So for example, they might make it easy to show a view with an extra sidebar on a larger screen, but show a separate view without the sidebar on a smaller screen (they might make it possible to configure this easily in a storyboard, versus writing a bunch of code to detect the screen size and load the appropriate view programmatically). As of now, though, no such functionality exists, but that could be a potential source of the rumors regarding storyboards being useful for multiple screen sizes.
I'm working on building a universal iOS configuration application for the iPhone/iPad. But the layouts ('views') for the iPad are considerably different from that of the iPhone. Considering that only the appearance of the application ('views') change w.r.t the device, what is the most efficient design approach i could follow?
Things I've already looked at
I've looked at one strategy where different View controllers are loaded depending on the device in use. But this might be an overkill considering that the 'controls' are the same across devices and only the appearance of the application changes.
The use of functions to resize the view frames to layout views as needed automatically. This does not help me much because there is a need to not only change the size of the views but load different views altogether depending on the device.
To keep the viewController unchanged but configure the views inside the viewController differently. Right now this seems like the best way to do it, but the application is kinda heavy and it might become very messy in the long run. Or is there a very efficient way to do this?
Is there a design strategy for this?
Or is there any way i can accomplish this efficiently while optimizing effort?
The standard approach is to have different XIB files for iPhone and iPad, which the platform will select automatically if you name them right, e.g. myview~iPhone.xib and myview~iPad.xib.
You are concerned about inefficiency: I wouldn't worry about the file size as compiled XIB is quite compact.
In my apps I mostly use this approach, with some fragments of code to add or remove buttons for each platform. Simple views can just be set up to resize automatically using the standard struts-and-glue techniques.