This question may have been asked similarly relating to iOS, but not OS X. I've been struggling for three days to simply try and embed an NSView or NSViewController within an NSView using storyboards.
This works fine using a .xib or .nib: (when the next button is pushed it displays either customView1 or customView2 within the Container View.
Trying to use a storyboard it does not work. In fact I have no concept or clue on how to connect, embed, call, summons, or beg customView1 or customView2 to get itself inside Container View.
It seems I cannot access anything outside of it's own View Controller!?!
Example of properly working functionality (from .nib):
Here's one way to do it.
You can add two "Container View" objects to your main view controller, as top level objects, and connect them to NSView outlets in your controller. This will automatically create two new view controller scenes, with Embed segues from the container view to the child view controller.
Your view controller now has references to two inner NSViews and you can manipulate them as you wish.
If you need a reference to the child view controllers, assign a storyboard identifier to each Embed segue and implement -prepareForSegue:sender:
- (void)prepareForSegue:(NSStoryboardSegue*)segue sender:(id)sender
{
if ([segue.identifier isEqual:#"Embed1"])
{
_innerController1 = segue.destinationController;
}
else if ([segue.identifier isEqual:#"Embed2"])
{
_innerController2 = segue.destinationController;
}
}
Alternatively to segues, you can assign a storyboard identifier to each of your inner view controllers, and instantiate them in code from the storyboard:
_innerController1 = [self.storyboard instantiateControllerWithIdentifier:#"InnerController1"];
You're also free to mix Storyboards and NIBs, so you can design your inner views in a separate NIB and instantiate them in code.
Related
I'm trying to create an IOS app that has one navigation view controller with several bar buttons, where each button changes the content of the view itself. Most of my views are custom views anyway, so I won't really see any clear previews in the storyboard anyway.
I'm thinking about creating one navigation view controller, and several NIB files to represent each view. Each NIB will have its own class with all the IBOutlets and IBActions.
Then, when a button is clicked in the navigation view controller, just switch to a new view by clearing the old one (removeFromSuperview), and call loadNibNamed to load a new view.
Does this sound reasonable or will all this deserializing be expensive in terms of CPU? Would it be better to just create different viewcontrollers in the storyboard, with segues etc, and copy those nav bar buttons to each view controller?
The simplest solution:
ViewController->
View->
rootViewOne
rootViewTwo
rootViewThree
...
upon your bar button's action,set specific rootView's hidden property to true or false:
self.rootViewOne.hidden = currentIndex == 0
self.rootViewTwo.hidden = currentIndex == 1
self.rootViewThree.hidden = currentIndex == 2
You can add your other view controller/s as child view controller.
In this way, you will have code for different views in their respective view controllers and your main/parent view controller will not be messy.
To add child view controller:
// Get instance of your view controller
UIViewController *childViewController = [UIViewController new];
// Add your view controller as a child view controller
[self addChildViewController:self.loginView];
// Set frame for your childViewController's view
[childViewController.view setFrame:CGRectMake(0.0f, 0.0f, self.view.frame.size.width, self.view.frame.size.height)];
// Add childViewController's view as a subview to your viewcontroller's view
[self.view addSubview:childViewController.view];
// Notify your main/parent controller that a child view controller is being added
[childViewController didMoveToParentViewController:self];
To remove child view controller:
// Notify the childViewController that it will be removed
[childViewController willMoveToParentViewController:nil];
// Remove childViewController's view
[childViewController.view removeFromSuperview];
// Remove childViewController from your main/parent view controller
[childViewController removeFromParentViewController];
Hope this helps.
UPDATE - Embedded swapping by Sandmoose Software:
http://sandmoose.com/post/35714028270/storyboards-with-custom-container-view-controllers
Here's a snippet from the "how-it-works" section:
The segue between ViewController and ContainerViewController is an
embed segue. The segues between ContainerViewController and its two
child view controllers is a custom segue. This custom segue is named
Empty and is a subclass of UIStoryboardSegue. It contains an empty
perform method. The ContainerViewController will take care of moving
the child view controllers into and out of place. However, the fake
segues are needed to create the connections in the storyboard.
If you’re like me you cringe at the thought of having a fake/empty
class like this but the benefit is that it allows us to stay firmly in
the world of storyboard idioms without resorting to programmatically
loading isolated storyboard scenes. It’s one tiny bit of ugliness
which allows us to preserve the usefulness and elegance of
storyboards. The storyboard still visually represents the scenes and
their relationships accurately. We can still use segues to control
what happens.
---------- Old answer below (phfffft!) ------
You pose several different questions here: one regarding custom buttons in the nav bar of a nav controller, another about assigning multiple views to the nav controller, and one about placing the view in separate XIB files, while maintaining IBOutlet connections and such.
The first one calls for a tab bar controller, which you can customize to look in whatever way you deem fit, even like a nav bar (ADC has ready-to-use sample code, "UIKit Catalog (iOS): Creating and Customizing UIKit Controls", which fits your needs).
The second can be done easily in Interface Builder by following any number of instructions freely available on YouTube, at Apple, and elsewhere on the Internet; you'll find it an extremely intuitive process. If you can drag-connect a tab bar controller to a view controller, you can intuit the rest. Otherwise, Apple has sample code for customizing the navigation or transition between views in a single view controller interface. "State Restoration of Child View Controllers" provides the best structure for what you want (just pull out the restoration-related code, and use the rest).
The third is not intuitive at all; and, as far as I know, there are only a couple of sets of instructions that exist for separating views (or other view controllers and their views) from a parent or top-level view controller. Here's one I haven't tried yet, so I'll be interested to hear how it worked for you:
http://digginginswift.com/2015/08/30/making-reusable-views-in-separate-xibs
The technique I use involves creating a storyboard with a single view controller to start, followed by a new view controller embedded in a container view for each of your intended views; then, deleting the view in each of the child view controllers, which leaves place for the views you set up in separate XIBs. They are connected by setting the File's Owner to the parent view controller. I can send you sample code, if you'd like to try a different approach than the aforementioned website offers.
I am building a UIViewController with a XIB. In this XIB, I have placeholders (UIView objects in the XIB) in which I place other views, from other view controllers. (By the way, I could also add these views directly, without placeholders)
I am not buiding a container view controller: I mean it's not a UINavigationController. It's a just a "usual" view controller. Imagine for example that I have a small subview in my view for a "Facebook" logo and a counter. This "facebook view" is attached to another view controller that is called when the "Facebook view" is touched. So, the "Facebook controller" definitely needs to be a #property of my "main" view controller.
In this situation, should I really use addChildViewController: and all the mechanism? Or no?
Thanks!
You should not be using a UIViewController merely to "fish" into a .xib file for you to obtain the view. If that's all you want it for, don't do that. Just load the nib and pull out the view, directly:
NSArray* objects = [[UINib nibWithNibName: #"MyNib" bundle: nil]
instantiateWithOwner:nil options:nil];
UIView* v = (UIView*)[objects firstObject];
But if you are using a UIViewController in conjunction with this .xib file for some other reason, e.g. to keep it alive so that a button inside the .xib can send messages to this UIViewController, then absolutely you must make a proper parent-child relationship, as I describe in my book: http://www.apeth.com/iOSBook/ch19.html#_container_view_controllers
Yes, you should. By doing so, the containing view controller sends proper view controller lifecycle events to the child view controllers.
You say you aren't building a container view controller but you are. Adding the view of another view controller to another view controller is the definition of a container view controller.
See the "Implementing a Container View Controller" section of the docs for UIViewController on the proper sequence of method calls you should make. It's more than just calling addChildViewController.
You can instantiate your insider ViewController, and just add its view (myInsiderViewController.view) to your main viewController:
[mainViewController.view addSubView:myInsiderViewController.view];
I'm using a storyboard. Let's say I have a view controller that's named MYviewController.
In - (void)prepareForSegue:(UIStoryboardSegue *)segue sender:(id)sender; I would like to substitute the view controller that I'm segueing to, by one of its child, for example: MYviewControllerChild1 OR MYviewControllerChild2. The child that's segued to depends on the sender parameter.
These view controllers have the same scene (in the storyboard). Only their behaviour is slightly different.
I have a tableView that shows the user the settings of the application. When he clicks a cell, it segues to a viewController where he can modify the value of some setting. Some of theses are alphanumeric, others are numeric. Depending on which cell is clicked, I'd like the input viewController to format the value accordingly (if it's a decimal value I'll use a NSNumberFormatter for example).
Is that possible?
As mentioned in comments to your OP, I believe you should handle this kind of scenario in one viewcontroller.
However, if you insist on using separate controllers, maybe because you think the functionality will be expanded later down the line and therefore add more diversity, you need to handle this by creating multiple storyboard scenes - one for each child controller.
The destination view controller in prepareForSegue is imposed by the viewcontroller at the end of the segue in the storyboard. I don't think there is any way to override that.
As described, your problem isn't really a good candidate for a storyboard. If you use a storyboard you will have to create and sync multiple scenes. Several possible solutions::
Create multiple storyboard scenes and invoke them manually via performSegueWithIdentifier.
Use a nib file instead of a storyboard for this scene. You can use a single nib file since the view controller is created outside the storyboard with [[VCClass alloc] initWithNibFile: bundle: You can create the appropriate view controller class and pass the same nib file to all instances.
Use a single storyboard scene and view controller and pass in typing information in your prepareForSegue.
I have a master-detail controller for my app. The master controller is a UITabBarController and each tab is a UITableViewController that contains different types of data.
I plan on having a main header / image on the main detail view but then need to add different subviews to the main detail view to detail specific information depending on which tab I am using.
I am currently adding the relevant subview in my
- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
Function like so:
UIViewController *subview = [[UIViewController alloc] initWithNibName:#"ItemNotFoundViewController" bundle:nil];
subview.view.frame = CGRectMake(20, 160, subview.view.frame.size.width, subview.view.frame.size.height);
[self.detailViewController.view addSubview:subview.view];
However, I believe that this is a poor way of doing things - every time someone clicks on a table cell another subview will be thrown on top of the stack of previously added subviews, creating memory issues.
What I am wondering is, does ARC take care of this for me? Is my approach passable? and even if it is passable, is there a better way of doing this?
First of all, no. ARC does not take care of this for you. It's not it's purpose to do that and even if it was, how could it know, that you don't want the previously added subviews anymore?
You have to remove those subviews yourself and then ARC will take care of deallocating them (if there are no other references to them).
Anyway that's not the way you're supposed to use a UISplitViewController (the master-detail view controller). As you noticed the split view controller handles two other view controllers. The master- and the detailViewController. In most cases the master view controller isn't changing while the app runs (it's content changes, but usually that's handled by a container view controller like UINavigationController which is assigned as the masterViewController), but the detail view controller does.
Instead of adding subviews to your existing detailViewController you should replace it by a new one. So you should create separate XIBs (what you've apparently done already) for all the view controllers that you want to present in the detail-section. And modify your code to
self.detailViewController = newDetailViewController; //newDetailViewController would be the vc you called subview in your code
instead of
[self.detailViewController.view addSubview:subview.view];
Edit: Notice that this assumes that your detailViewController property does 'the right things' when you set it's value. By default the UISplitViewController only has a property called viewControllers which is an NSArray in which the first object is the masterVC and the second is the detailVC.
Take a look at MultipleDetailViews for an example of how to manage that.
Since you want to have a header view in all your detail view controllers you have various choice of achieving that (which may or may not be applicable in your case, depending on your design):
add the header view to every details vc's XIB
instead of creating many XIBs for all detailVCs, create a new custom UIViewController subclass that modifies it's content based on some parameters you give it, i.e. which tableViewCell was tapped by the user
create a custom container view controller that manages two child view controllers, one for the headline and one for the content above it.
For more information about UISplitViewController and custom container view controller, please refer to:
View Controller Basics
Creating Custom Container View Controllers
No, ARC will not take of this for you, because detailViewController.view will keep a reference to its subviews. It's hard to say what approach is best without knowing more about what you're doing with these views. It would probably be better to just present the new view controller -- it will be deallocated after it's dismissed if you don't have a property pointing to it.
Can you associate child view controllers to a custom container view controller in Storyboard?
I can link child view controllers to a tab view controller, and I can link one view controller to a navigation controller.
What must I do to the container VC to accept child VCs?
As something of a combo of Caleb and Matt's answers, I did:
-(void)prepareForSegue:(UIStoryboardSegue *)segue sender:(id)sender {
if ([segue.identifier isEqualToString:#"cpdc_check_embed"]) {
self.checkVC = segue.destinationViewController;
}
}
...where checkVC is a property on the container controller:
#property (weak,nonatomic) PXPCheckViewController * checkVC;
You just have to set your embed segue's Storyboard ID to whatever you want (in this case, cpdc_check_embed):
...and then check the identifier in -prepareForSegue:sender:.
Still not an outlet, but cleaner than Matt's (IMHO) and more specific than Caleb's, and you still get a nice-looking storyboard:
The storyboard deals with built-in container view controllers very nicely, displaying segues to child/root view controllers so that relationships are clearly shown. It is also nice how the children and parent view controllers are separated into different scenes.
If you want to achieve this effect in your own project, then there is a trick that is not perfect but very straightforward. In my example, suppose I have a container view controller that acts like a tab bar controller with only two tabs, 'left' and 'right'. I want to have a scene represent the parent view controller, and two separate scenes represent both the 'left' child view controller and the 'right' child view controller.
Even though it is impossible, it would be nice if I could create IBOutlets from the container view controller to its children in different scenes, and then when my container view controller is displayed set up the parent/child relationships according to the rules described the UIViewController documentation. If we had references to our 'left' and 'right' child view controllers, then we could set up the relationships no problem.
The standard solution to this referencing problem is to create references to child view controllers by dragging in Object outlets into the container view controller's scene, and then specifying their class type as being instances of the child view controller classes.
In order to keep children separated in different scenes like Apple's built-in containers, however, we will use a different trick. First, suppose we have the following properties declared in our container class, ContainerViewController:
#property (nonatomic, strong, readwrite) UIViewController *leftViewController;
#property (nonatomic, strong, readwrite) UIViewController *rightViewController;
In our storyboard, select the scene representing the 'left' view controller. In the attributes inspector, set the view controller's identifier property to "cvc_leftViewController" ("cvc_" refers to ContainerViewController, but really the identifier can be anything you want). Do the same for the right view controller's scene, setting it's identifier to "cvc_rightViewController".
Now insert the following code into ContainerViewController's viewDidLoad method:
if (self.storyboard) {
_leftViewController = [self.storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:#"cvc_leftViewController"];
_rightViewController = [self.storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:#"cvc_rightViewController"];
}
When ContainerViewController is loaded from the storyboard, it will go grab the 'left' and 'right' view controllers from their respective scenes and set references to them via its properties. Now that you have control of the child view controller instances, you can set up the parent/child relationships however you like. To learn how to do that properly refer to the UIViewController documentation.
This trick is not perfect, and has many caveats, but if you are careful you can make it work nicely for your project.
Edit: Although this is completely unnecessary and doesn't mean anything, if you really really want to have the storyboard display connections from your container to your child view controllers just like Apple's built-in containers, just use my method above and then set up segues directly between the container scene to the child scenes, and simply never perform those segues. Now everything will work correctly and look pretty too.
Can you associate child view controllers to a custom container view
controller in Storyboard?
I think what you're asking here is how to connect a view controller in one scene to an outlet of a view controller in a different scene. I don't believe that's possible, perhaps because the storyboard machinery may not have all the scenes in a storyboard loaded at the same time.
You're probably asking this because you want to pass some information from one view controller to another as you segue from one scene to the next. The way to do this when you're working with storyboards is to override -prepareForSegue:sender: in one or both view controllers affected by the segue. The UIStoryboardSegue object provided in the segue parameter has sourceViewController and destinationViewController properties, and also an identifier property. You can use these properties to identify the segue that's about to transfer data between the view controllers.
Ray Wenderlich's blog has a nice two-part tutorial on using storyboards that may help you:
Part 1 covers setting up a storyboard project, adding scenes, and creating segues.
Part 2 deals with using segues to transition between scenes, including the prepareForSeque method mentioned above.
iOS 5 allows multiple view controllers to be active in the same scene (although one should still be in charge), so a single scene in your storyboard might have several controllers. You can use outlets to connect these controllers to each other, and you can configure those connections the same way you did in IB: control-drag from one controller to another in the same scene. The usual outlet list will pop open to let you choose which outlet to connect.
The key to using multiple controllers in one scene (what I believe you are after here) is using the mysterious Object from the Objects list in IB to represent the other view controller and hooking up its outlets.
This answer How to create custom view controller container using storyboard in iOS 5 should help I hope. The answer also provides a working example app which is very helpful.
The problem with #Ben's (otherwise reasonable) answer is that it only works at one level of nesting. Beyond that, it would required that every subsequent VC is customized to save the nesting view controller in prepareForSegue.
To solve this, I spent too much time exploring an NSObject based index that that you could add to the Storyboard, bind to a scene, and which would then register it's parent VC in a global index, based on type and restorationId. That works / can work, but is too much effort in the end, and still requires the two step process of visually binding, and programmatically looking up.
For me, the simplest and most general solution is to lazily descend the view controller hierarchy
In my simple test project, I added the following lines to viewDidLoad:
self.left.data = [
"Zombie ipsum reversus ab viral inferno, nam rick grimes malum cerebro.",
"De carne lumbering animata corpora quaeritis." ]
where left is defined as:
lazy var left:CollectionViewController = { [unowned self] in
return self.childViewControllerWithId("Left") as! CollectionViewController }()
and childViewControllerWithId is defined as:
extension UIViewController {
func childViewControllerWithId(rid:String) -> UIViewController? {
// check immediate child controllers
for vc in self.childViewControllers as! [UIViewController] {
if vc.restorationIdentifier == rid { return vc }
}
// check nested controllers
for vc in self.childViewControllers as! [UIViewController] {
if let vc = vc.childViewControllerWithId(rid) {
return vc
}
}
assert(false, "check your assumptions")
return nil
}
}
Note that you could do other find variants based on type, if need be. Also note that the above requires that you define the restoration id in the Storyboard file. If you did not have repeated instances of the same view controller, then using type would be easier.
And to state what is hopefully obvious, you don't need to implement prepareForSegue, nor do you have to use the lazy loading, you just have to call find(...).