I built a simple app to view movie listing from rotten tomatoes(as a part of learning ios development)https://raw.githubusercontent.com/koldkoder/movie_listing/master/rotten_tomatoes.gif
I am trying to add tab control. One tab would list current box office movies, and second tab to list movies out on DVD recently. Both Views are exactly same, just they get data from different api endpoint. I want to use UITabBarController to implement this functionality. But i dont want to create two duplicate Viewcontrollers, instead use one for both the purpose. What is the right way of doing this, using storyboard, and code.
This is pretty straight forward. Create one UIViewController that takes a view type param in initializer like this:
typedef NS_ENUM (NSInteger, MediaViewType) {
MediaViewTypeBoxOffice = 0,
MediaViewTypeDVD
};
- (id)initWithViewType:(MediaViewType)iViewType;
In the implementation file, handle your view & functionality based on passed view type. Then add your view controller's instances to UITabBarController:
MyMediaViewController *vc1 = [MyMediaViewController alloc] initWithViewType: MediaViewTypeBoxOffice];
MyMediaViewController *vc2 = [MyMediaViewController alloc] initWithViewType: MediaViewTypeDVD];
self.tabBarController.viewControllers = #[vc1, vc2];
Related
I am trying to manually push a view controller within my iOS 8 app. I have designed it in the Main.storyboard and i have already attached on it an specific identifier.
The code i am using is:
CustomViewController *vc =
[self.storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:#"CustomViewController"];
vc.customField1 = self.customField1;
vc.customField2 = self.customField2;
[self.navigationController pushViewController:vc animated:YES];
but that causes the app's freeze. It does not spit out any logs or something, so I cannot understand what might be wrong.
Can you help me a bit here?
Thank in advance
Do not do these two lines:
vc.customField1 = self.customField1;
vc.customField2 = self.customField2;
The problem here is that you're assigning one text field to be another text field (actually, you're making a text field reference refer to a completely different text field). Instead, copy the contents (e.g. the text) of the fields from your parent view controller to fields that already live in your new CustomViewController:
vc.customField1.text = self.customField1.text;
vc.customField2.text = self.customField2.text;
I'm thinking what is happening here is that the app is hanging when the new CustomViewController appears because it's trying to access fields in the now hidden / pushed-away parent view controller.
I have created a custom class for my UIBarButtonItem (refreshIndicator.m). This button will be on many different view controllers, all push-segued from my MainViewController/NavigationController.
Instead of dragging an outlet onto every single ViewController.m file for iPhone storyboard THEN iPad storyboard (ugh, still targeting iOS7), I want to know if there is a way to complete my task simply within my UIBarButtonItem custom class. I've looked around everywhere but I haven't quite found an answer to this,
All I need to do is check which UIViewController is present, check the last time the page was refreshed, and then based on that time, set an image for the UIBarButtonItem. (I've got this part figured out though, unless someone has a better suggestion). How can I check for the current UIViewController within a custom button class? Is this possible?
Does it need to know which view controller its on so it can tell that vc it was pressed? If that's the case, then use your button's inherited target and action properties. On every vc that contains an instance of the button, in view did load:
self.myRefreshIndicator.target = self;
self.myRefreshIndicator.action = #selector(myRefreshIndicatorTapped:);
- (void)myRefreshIndicatorTapped:(id)sender {
// do whatever
}
More generally, its better to have knowledge about the model flow to the views from the vc, and knowledge of user actions flow from the views. Under that principal, your custom button could have a method like:
- (void)timeIntervalSinceLastRefresh:(NSTimeInterval)seconds {
// change how I look based on how many seconds are passed
}
And your vcs:
NSTimeInterval interval = [[NSDate date] timeIntervalSinceDate:self.lastRefreshDate];
[self.myRefreshIndicator timeIntervalSinceLastRefresh:interval];
If you really must go from a subview to a view controller, you could follow the responder chain as suggested in a few of the answers here (but I would go to great lengths to avoid this sort of thing).
It is possible to achieve this, but the solution is everything but elegant. It is one way of getting around the basic principles of iOS and is strongly discouraged.
One of the ways is to walk through the responder chain, posted by Phil M.
Another way is to look through all subviews of view controllers until you find the button.
Both ways are considered a bad practice and should be avoided.
For your particular case, I would rethink the structure of having a separate instance of the bar button. For example, you could rework it into a single UIButton instance that gets displayed over every view controller and it can also act as a singleton.
I am trying to build a MVC app with Objective-C. It is supposed to be a questionnaire app. I have all the questions and multiple choice answers stored into a property list, because I have different of questionnaires that I want to be able to load with this app. The idea is that the main model will keep track which item it should read of the property list, and select the corresponding view and viewController.
So schematically I have the following problem.
The RootView shows the start menu, that selects which questionnaire you will be able to take.
The RootViewController is the first controller called by the app delegate. It is supposed to instantiate the model and show the RootView. It furthermore controls the buttons of the RootView.
The model is supposed to wrap the items of the property list into a fitting datastructure, and supply it to the view controllers that need it.
The SelectedViewController is a controller that is a template specifically made for a type of question. The question could be a multiple choice, an open question, a 3, 5 or 7 choice likert scale kind of question, anything really. The template name that these view controllers will really get is ViewController.
The SelectedView is a tailor made view to the question type and will get the same name format as all the selected view controllers.
Here are my ideas.
My initial hunch is to use the delegate pattern, and set the model as a delegate to any SelectedViewController.
I could also use the delegate pattern to the RootViewController, and let him monitor if the SelectedViewController should be destroyed (via a delegate message). In that case, I can implement a prepareForSegue in the RootViewController to the SelectedViewController.
Since it is a questionnaire from a plist I could also add a prepare for segue to
every selected viewcontroller, but that will probably be a problem,
since there are at least 15 different ways of displaying the
questions.
Apparently there is also something like Key-Value Observing, according to this question. So that's also something I could use.
I think there is a definite way to deal with this, because the design patterns in iOS are pretty wel described, so there should be a few options for this really (or only just one). At the moment I am leaning towards setting the RootViewController as a delegate to the SelectedViewController and let the RootViewController handle the model. In this way I am extending the RootViewController to also hold all common functionality that every SelectedViewController should have.
But I am really not sure if this is the way to go, because my knowledge on design patterns is limited. My question is: what is the right option to choice in this specific situation (e.g. views and view controllers selected via a .plist file)?
There is no need for a specific pattern - you can deal with accessing an instance of a model object by name, i.e. in the same exact way that you deal with making a specific view and the view controller.
Let's say you are looking to connect the QuizQuestionViewController4MC and its QuizQuestionView4MC to their model. Let's assume that the model class is called QuizQuestionModel4MC, and that it needs to be configured with an object that you get from a key #"4MC" in the plist. Since your code learns the name of the model class only at runtime, you can create an instance using reflection:
NSDictionary *dataFromPlist = ... // Someone passes this to you
NSString *identifier = dataFromPlist[#"identifier"]; // Returns #"4MC"
NSString *ctrlName = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"QuestionViewController%#", identifier];
NSString *modelClassName = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"QuizQuestionModel%#", identifier];
id model = [[NSClassFromString(modelClassName) alloc] init];
// Configure the model with the data from plist
[model setPlistData:dataFromPlist];
// The model is ready to be used - give it to the view controller
MyBaseViewController *ctrl = [storyboard – instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:ctrlName];
// Give the view controller its model - now it is ready to be used
[ctrl setModel:model];
Note the class of the view controller - MyBaseViewController. This is not your root view controller, it's a base class for all your specific view controllers. It is this view controller that knows about a model, but it does not know the specific subclass in the model hierarchy. Each subclass of the view controller knows about its specific model subclass, so it can access the information from the model class directly, without going through selectors or KVP.
Of course it is up to the designer of the app to "wire up" correct view controllers to the correct models. In terms of the above example, QuizQuestionViewController4MC needs to know the structure of the QuizQuestionModel4MC in order to avoid sending unrecognized selectors to an incorrect class.
The background:
I have an app with 5 tabs. The first time a user navigates to each tab, I would like to show a one-time "tutorial". I intend to do this by creating a "TutorialViewController" that will handle displaying these "tutorial" views and will have buttons for next/back etc...
The problem:
I'm not sure the best pattern to use for implementing the logic for whether or not to show these screens and instantiating the "TutorialViewController" to display them. The goal is to have a single line of code (a single method call) that would show the tutorial if necessary. I'm trying to avoid duplication of code across the 5 view controllers. The problem is where/how to implement this single method. As a class method on TutorialViewController? As a global C function?
Things I've considered:
1) Implementing a class method on TutorialViewController called "displayTutorialIfNecessary". In this case, each view controller that has a tutorial would call this class method from their "viewDidAppear" methods. This class method would check to see if the tutorial has already been shown, and if not, it would instantiate a TutorialViewController object to handle to display it. In this option, I guess I would have to pass in "self" from each calling view controller and the class method would use that to display the TutorialViewController.
2) Implementing a class method on TutorialViewController called "tutorialShouldBeDisplayedForScreen: ". In this option, each calling view controller would call this method, and if it returns true, each vc would instantiate and present the "TutorialViewController" which would handle displaying the tutorial.
I'm sure there is a "best practice" or a pattern that fits this scenario, but I'm not sure what the best implementation is. Thanks in advance for your recommendations.
To summarize: Instead of having something like this in each view controller:
if ([TutorialViewController shouldDisplayTutorialForScreen:<someEnum>])
{
TutorialViewController *myTutorialVC = [[TutorialViewController alloc] init];
[self displayModalViewController: myTutorialVC];
}
I'd like something more like this:
[FirstUseViewController displayTutorialIfNecessaryForScreen: <someEnum> forParentViewController: self];
store the tutorial has shown state into NSUserDefaults and use factory method design pattern to let each UIViewController you'll need create and return tutorial UIViewController like:
- (UIViewController *)tutorialVC {
return [[MYHomeScreenTutorialVC alloc] init];
}
I have searched for an entire day for a simple example on this and haven't found it yet. I am working on an app and I want to make an API call on the initial load and populate some variables that will be accessible in any of the tab views.
Example: I want to make a single API call to get my data which will include data relating to alerts for the alerts tab. I want to use this data on the initial load to update the "Alerts" tab badge. However, I want to also use that information on the alerts page once the person goes to that tab without having to make another API call to get the same information again.
I have read a ton of explanations that do not fit my requirements, so I am looking for a good example to help me out.
Use your UITabBarViewController's viewControllers property to access the array of view controllers in your tab bar controller. Typecast them according to your architecture of tab bar controller.
Then get a pointer to any of view controller using that array.
For example, say your tab bar controller has 5 tabs, each tab having a UINavigationController which has particular UIViewController as root view controllers. Say you want to set badge value of 3rd tab to your web response array count. You can do that as
[[[self.tabviewController viewControllers] objectAtIndex:2]
setBadgeValue:[NSString stringWithFormat:#"%d",[myArray count]];
You can also get to particular view controller's property by typecasting the view controllers. For example
MyViewController *myVc = (MyViewController*) [[(UINavigationController*)[[self.tabviewController viewControllers] objectAtIndex:2] viewControllers] objectAtIndex:0];
[myVc setPropertyName:propertyValue];
I had this question typed up since yesterday and made sure to search before posting. There was no question similar that I found that had the answer, and it may be very straight forward or maybe this is not the way to do it but here is how I solved this issue: using NSUserDefaults and the code example on this page
Put the data in your app delegate object. You can access it from anywhere in your app by (MyAppDelegate *)[[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate], or you can give each of your view controllers an explicit link to it.
NSUserDefaults isn't really meant for sharing data globally in your app, although it would get the job done. It also has the benefit that the information sticks around if your app can't connect to the server next time. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Put all of those variables in a single class and access a shared instance of it whenever you want.
Add
+ (YourClass *)sharedObject
{
static YourClass *sharedClassObject = nil;
if (sharedClassObject == nil) {
static dispatch_once_t onceToken;
dispatch_once(&onceToken, ^{
sharedClassObject = [[YourClass alloc] init];
//Initialise it here if necessary
});
}
return sharedClassObject;
}
To access the shared instance, simply use [YourClass sharedObject].
You should use NSNotificationCenter to post the notification that new data arrived and your new data as an object.
Each of the viewControllers that need that object should just subscribe to that notification and just consume the new data.