adding a uipageviewcontroller to a uistackview - ios

Question

I'm trying to add a sliding photo gallery functionality to the top portion of a view.
To give context, a user taps on a button or row or something. Then i load a scrollview with a uistackview in it. organized vertically, i had an image, and then another stack view with some text in it. Now, i want that image to become part of a larger "gallery". My research told me to implement UIPageviewcontroller and add the other images to a childVC.
i used this as a tutorial (the first example): http://www.raywenderlich.com/76436/use-uiscrollview-scroll-zoom-content-swift
the only relevant deviation from the tutorial my app has is that it creates things programmatically.
With my proof of concept for the gallery functionality, i wanted to integrate it with the previously mentioned stack view. my plan was to first add the pageviewcontroller stuff into the overall stack view with the original image view right below it and then simply remove the original image view to leave me the final product.
i was able to add the pageviewcontroller.view to the stackview, but the gallery doesn't show. taking a look at the UI Inspector, i can see that the gallery is kinda loaded, but it's messed up.
it's as if the uiview has a frame of 0 height and so the other stack view items don't respect the images that the pageviewcontroller is trying to show.
I think it could be that stack views can only handle specific views, not stuff as complicated as pageviewcontrollers.
also note: my implementation is all programmatic, no storyboards, and so for no xibs. so maybe i missed something here.
here is some code, if it helps:
note the constrain functions you see are from the "cartography" pod
this adds the "gallery" to the stack view, it's a delegate function from my view
func addZoomStuff(sender: UIStackView) {
let zoomer = PageBaseViewController()
addChildViewController(zoomer)
zoomer.view.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
zoomer.view.tag = 5
sender.addArrangedSubview(zoomer.view)
zoomer.didMoveToParentViewController(self)
}
this is what creates the scrollview, image view, etc for the gallery items:
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
//MARK: - Zoom View Elements
// prep
scrollView = UIScrollView(frame: self.view.frame)
scrollView.delegate = self
self.view.addSubview(scrollView)
constrain(scrollView, view) { view, view2 in
view.edges == view2.edges
}
self.view.setNeedsUpdateConstraints()
// 1
let image = UIImage(named: imageName)!
imageView = UIImageView(image: image)
// 2
scrollView.addSubview(imageView)
constrain(imageView){ view in
view.edges == view.superview!.edges
}
scrollView.contentSize = image.size
i tried adding the constraints like this but there was no effect
func addZoomStuff(sender: UIStackView) {
let zoomer = PageBaseViewController()
addChildViewController(zoomer)
view.addSubview(zoomer.view)
constrain(zoomer.view, view) { view, view2 in
view.width == view2.width
view.height == view2.height * 2 / 3
view.leading == view2.leading
view.top == view2.top
}
zoomer.view.setNeedsUpdateConstraints()
zoomer.view.removeFromSuperview()
zoomer.view.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
zoomer.view.tag = 5
print("sender.subviews: \(sender.subviews)")
sender.addArrangedSubview(zoomer.view)
zoomer.didMoveToParentViewController(self)
print("sender.subviews: \(sender.subviews)")
}
if this method isn't going to work, can i do a nested horizontal stack view instead of the pageviewcontroller and somehow get that same scrolling/snap effect to see on image view at a time?

Answer 1

TLDR;
Create a subclass of UIPageViewController, make it it's own delegate.
Initialize the subclass with a plain UIViewController, only set a backgroundcolor.
In the pageviewcontroller subclass, implement the two delegate callbacks for a next and previous viewcontroller: create a plain viewcontrolller, with some random backgroundcolor.
If this works, replace the plain viewcontroller by your actual contentviewcontroller.
Long version:
Have you seen this: Maybe this link will help: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/WindowsViews/Conceptual/ViewControllerCatalog/Chapters/PageViewControllers.html
It might help, as it explains the details of UIPageViewController. Basically, you need to create a viewController (not a view!), that shows one page of the gallery. So this VC has a stackview, and manages the content of it. The pageviewcontroller is initialized with your first contentviewController. If you create a subclass of the uipageviewcontroller, you can set self of that subclass as the delegate of it. Implement the delegate callbacks that return the next or previous viewController and thats it. For this last part, it is convenient to have a property on the contentviewcontroller from which the subclasses of the pageviewcontroller can figure out what data to set on the next or previousviewcontroller.
Your title seeks to hint at some confusion: its not possible to add a viewcontroller to a view. You can only add other views to a (stack)view. A viewcontroller owns and manages a viewhierarchy. A pageviewcontroller has no content, but manages the insertion and removal of viewcontrollers. as the pageviewcontroller is a containerviewcontroller, it will als take the contentViewcontrollers' views and place them in the viewhierarchy. But this is not something your code has to do when you subclass UIPageViewControlller and implement it's delegates on itself (and don't forget to assign self to be the delegate).