Navigation Controller with TableView - ios

I have a UIView which is embedded inside of a NavigationController. When the user clicks on a cell in a TableView he is taken to the UIView. However, the UIView pops out from the bottom instead of sliding out from the right side. I have the segue set to Show, so I am not sure why it is doing this.

The slide-in from the side behavior only works when all of the child navigation controllers are children of the same UINavigationController. This requirement includes the "root", or first, child. In your case the root child is the UITableViewController.
It will look like this in Storyboard:
UINavVC ---> RootChildVC ---> SecondChildVC ---> ThirdChildVC etc.
A show segue is contextual. If it is as in the diagram above, it will be a horizontal slide.
In any other situation at all, including a hand-drawn segue between two arbitrary VCs, a show is interpreted as a modal presentation which comes in from the bottom and slides back down. You also don't get the automatic "back" button installation because there is no "navigation" relationship detected.
You're probably confused and need to re-do your Storyboard into the above simple idiom. If you're segueing between "cousins" that is VCs whose direct parents are different UINavigationControllers, they fall under "any other situation".

A Navigation controller shouldn't be embedded inside another navigation controller.
remove root view relationship between View and NavigationController, delete the NavigationController and set "show" segue directly from TableView to that view.

Related

Xcode Storyboard: Can't add View to ViewController

I'm using Xcode 10 (with Swift 5 and for iOS 12) and my app is currently set up like this:
UIViewController 1 (login screen) - segue12 to ->
NavigationController that automatically created
UIViewController 2 with a UITableView - segue23 to ->
UIViewController 3 (detailed info about an item in the UITableView with automatically created "back" button)
The NavigationBar only contains a " ".
I now want to add another UIView with a button below the UITableView but Xcode won't let me drag it below the UITableView, only either into the UITableView or directly underneath "First Responder", which puts the View outside into its own window.
If I delete "My Table View", it won't let me drag in a replacement either.
How do I fix this, so I can add the new UIView + UIButton?
NavigationController that automatically created UIViewController 2
That explains everything. When you drag a navigation controller into the storyboard, what you get is a navigation controller and its root view controller, and the root view controller is a UITableViewController.
Let's step back for a moment. A view controller can and must have exactly one main view. It occupies the whole scene. It cannot be resized. It cannot have a sibling view, because it has no superview for a sibling view to be a child of. It can only have children (subviews).
Well, in this case, ViewController2 is a UITableViewController, and MyTableView is ViewController2’s main view. (A table view controller is always configured this way, and that is what you got when you dragged the navigation controller into the storyboard.) That is why you cannot add more views to it, except as subviews, e.g. prototype cell contents. Your button has no place to go except inside the table view.
So, what to do?
If the extra interface you want to add is just a button, the usual solution is to put it into the navigation bar. It becomes part of the table view controller's navigation item.
If you don't want to do that — that is, if you really want the button and the table view to be siblings of one another in the interface — then you need to replace ViewController2 itself with an ordinary view controller. Now its main view will be an ordinary view, and you can drag anything you like into it, including a table view and a button. More likely, instead of a bare table view, you would use a container view, with an embed segue to a table view controller.

Switch focus between two visible viewControllers (swift)

I currently have a viewController(#2) on top of another viewController(#1). ViewController is displayed as a little modal like in the picture below and has functionality completely separate from viewController 1.
The current focus (intractable UI) is on controller 2 because it is on top, but I want to interact with the content on controller 1 with controller 2 open. How do I shift focus between them so that I can interact with both interfaces interchangeably and keep both in view?
ViewController 1 segues to viewController 2 by using "present modally" and viewController 2 is visible by setting presentation to "over current context".
There is no way to achieve that because your second view controller is presented modally. It covers everything of your view controller 1 so that you cannot interact with it. If you really want user to interact with both part of your screen, you need to replace your view controller 2 with a UIView
If you really want to keep the second View controller, add a Container View to your storyboard and make a segue connection to your second view controller, like this

Segue from one ViewController to another ViewController inside a Tab Bar Controller?

In the interface builder I have a UITabBarController and it is set as the initial view controller. From the tab bar controller, I have linked three independent ViewControllers; two UIViewController's and one UITableViewController. I have embedded all three of these views inside UINavigationController's as each of these views will eventually segue to a new view.
Interface Builder
Problem:
I now want to link one of the UIViewController's to the UITableViewController using a button to segue to the table view. This way I can pass information, i.e. func prepareForSegue(), to the table view. I want to maintain the tab bar controller at the bottom, however I do not want to have the ability to go back to the previous UIViewController from the current UITableViewController via a UIBarButtonItem at the the top of the view; That is what the tab bar at the bottom is for.
However every time I segue "Show" the table view (it is actually a segue to the table views navigation controller), the navigation bars at the top and the bottom of the table view disappear. Is there anyway to prevent this from happening?
I have also tried segue "Show" directly to the table view, in which case the tab bar is visible, but then it displays a "back" button at the top of the view to segue back to the sending UIViewController. I am hesitant about accepting a solution that would just hide the back button, because I feel I will run into problems down the road when I want to navigate to a detail view from the table view itself, since I would be bypassing the UITableViewController's UINavigationController.
Any solutions would be greatly appreciated. I have been trying to solve this problem for hours and I'm about to put my head through my computer screen. Also I thought about just using tabBarController?.selectedIndex on the button click to shift to the table view, and then passing the information using NSUserDefaults, but this is out of the question since I would be passing a custom object, and would have to encode and decode every custom field.
I you use a segue to get to it, as you say, you will still be using the UIViewController's UINavigationController which seems a bit messy. So I actually think selectedIndex is probably the best way to go as once you change to the UITableViewController you'll be in the correct navigation stack.
Instead of using NSUserDefaults, why not just reference the UITableView itself from the UIViewController, set the values you want, and then swap to it using self.tabBarController.selectedIndex.
So for your scenario above it, assuming the UITableViewContollrer is the third view in the UITabBarController, you would do something like the following:
Pass whatever you want into the UITabBarController by setting some pre-defined var in it. For example, if there was a String called saveMe in the UITableViewController, then do the following in the UIViewController:
let navController = self.tabBarController?.viewControllers![2] as! UINavigationController
let tableViewController = navController.viewControllers.first as! JarListTableViewController
tableViewController.saveMe = "Saved string here"
Swap to the UITableViewController using:
self.tabBarController?.selectedIndex = 2
The only issue with this is using selectedIndex won't perform a transition animation but not sure if you need this. This link could help if you do.

Segue to "self" - Transition back to initial controller

I would like to have three separate tableViews, show the middle view automatically (root view), and access the other two via a button or segmented control. That logic can come later. When I access the first I want it to slide in from the left, when I access the third I want it to slide in from the right to give it the appearance of the middle view controller always being there and only moving left and right via transitions.
Using storyboard segues is giving way to many complications - because my tableViewController is the initial root view, there is no way to segue to self from self when the button or segmented control is accessed. I feel like this must be a semi-standard implementation. Is there a best practice to implement this UI? Should I build my own custom container class and swap controllers and associated view in and out?
You should create 2 segues from you root to left and right table view. When you would like to go back, to root controller, use unwind segues.
What are Unwind segues for and how do you use them?

Swap/ Transitioning between views iOS programming

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.

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