I have read a lot about creating a lite and a paid version with Xcode and in my app I am using multiple targets and preprocessor macros as described in this Stackoverflow post. However, I don't know how to handle different targets with a Storyboard.
For example, in my storyboard I have a table view controller with static cells. In the paid version it has four cells, in the lite version has one extra cell whereas the rest of the storyboard remains unchanged. Is there a way to achieve that kind of behavior?
(Creating a new storyboard for the lite version (or duplicating it) is not an option for me as I have dozens of view controllers and 98% of the views and UI elements are identical in both versions. It would make the project difficult to maintain.)
For example, in my storyboard I have a table view controller with static cells. In the paid version it has four cells, in the lite version has one extra cell whereas the rest of the storyboard remains unchanged. Is there a way to achieve that kind of behavior?
If you hadn't boxed yourself in by using a static table, this problem wouldn't have arisen in the first place; you'd be configuring the table in code, which can be conditional — end of issue.
As things stand, you'll need two different scenes in the storyboard, one for the paid version, the other for the lite version. Then:
If this scene is reached by a segue, you'll need two different segues that reach this scene, and you'll decide in code which one to trigger (and trigger it in code, not automatically).
If this scene is the initial view controller, you'll need to instantiate it initially in code rather than letting UIApplicationMain do this for you. Or, in that case, use two different storyboards for just this one scene, and then segue to another storyboard.
(And do keep in mind that multiple storyboards are a great way to organize your scenes in any case. I don't necessarily mean multiple alternative storyboards; multiple sequential storyboards can keep your storyboard from becoming overly complex. It sounds to me from your question as if all you need to do is understand how storyboards work - they are not magic, you know - and be more nimble in your use of them. Your entire deer-in-the-headlights fear of duplicating your storyboard - "I have dozens of view controllers" - suggests you've already gone way too far down the wrong road. Programming is like solving a Rubik's Cube: if you're in the middle of it and your response to someone trying to change something is "don't touch it!", you're doing it wrong.)
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So I've been working on a project for a while that has so many view controllers, but I notice that now when I try to do a single edit in any view , storyboard hangs, or become unresponsive . what would be the solution for this issue ? is it possible at my current state to split up the whole storyboard into smaller ones ? and will that resolve the problem ? I'm using Xcode 9.3
Yes. You can have more than one storyboards in one project. In fact that's the preferred way to manage very large projects. To create more storyboards go to File Menu > New > File... and then select Storyboard from the User Interface section. Doing this should resolve your issue. However, if the issue still persist you can consider taking out the specific user interface into its own .xib file.
Update:
If I were in your position I would have considered using .xib files to create my user interface instead of using storyboards. Storyboards do have their advantages but there are some cons too if you use them. Like:
If you work in a team you will run into merge conflicts more often because someone else made a change in the storyboard.
I am still not a Guru in S/W design but, to me it seems like Storyboards violate the Single Responsibility Principle of S/W design.
You won't be using Segues in complex ui flows anyways so what's the point of having every thing in one file.
You won't be able to reuse your UITableViewCells interface. Prototype Cells are a good idea but if you have a UITableViewCell which is used in more than one UITableView you will have to replicate the UI in Storyboard.
In my experience, in a more complex and large project having everything in one Storyboard makes it even hard to comprehend the UI/UX flows as Segues from every view controller seem to connect with every other view controller to the point where it just stops making sense at all.
Yes, it is best practise to distribute viewConrollers into multiple storyboards so that you can open it quickly but it can lead your time to manage each storyboard identification programatically while accessing into code.
Otherwise, you can set storyboard View as : iPhone 5C so that it can load little bit faster than bigger devices.
Refer:
I know this is a question that has been asked quite a bit, but it's iOS 9 and I still don't have a clear idea about what to do. For starters, here is what I seem to be surmising from all the data available:
Storyboards let you create segues. [I've never been a big fan of this answer because segues are often the least harrowing part of creating the UI layout for me.]
Xibs can let you create multiple top-level views. (Storyboards vs. the old XIB way) [I don't think I've ever used this much, though it seems rather helpful.]
Storyboards - Creating UITableViewCells is easier. [In my opinion, it's cleaner to create xibs for the cells and just invoke them in cellForRowAtIndexPath].
Storyboards can turn into one giant ultramassive file that is hard to edit. [I've seen this happen in practice and it is a big drawback, but at the same time...]
Storyboards let you arrange all your Views in one place with the layout shown as well. [This seems to be a big help for me. But then, over the years I've found doing this in code much easier. Which brings me to my final question.]
What is the performance aspect of both of these two things. My app is essentially the following :
A top level hierarchy of interconnected view controllers, not more than 5.
A large number of disparate, independent view controllers that range from Scroll Views to TableViews to static Imageviews.
Autolayout, size classes, the works.
For each of these view controllers, what is the performance of creating a storyboard for each of them vs. creating a xib for each of them. More importantly, what would be a good way to lay out an app like the one I've mentioned.
You definitely want to use storyboards for laying out view controllers - simply because you get access to topLayoutGuide and bottomLayoutGuide which the XIB editor won't give you.
For other views, it's a matter of preference. I tend to use XIBs for table view cells simply because I tend to reuse them on different screens and prefer to have them in their own files.
I would actually advise against manually writing view code where possible simply because it's much harder to read and work out how views are laid out, especially for developers who didn't write the code originally! For simple, dynamically sized things this can be fine, but if you're trying to lay out view controllers with different constraints depending on the size class it's going to end up a bit of a mess.
Yes, it's a pain to deal with merge conflicts of these files, but with iOS 9 you can split up view controllers into different storyboards a lot more easily using view controller references. Personally I find the inconvenience of merging storyboards/XIBs the lesser evil of having to write everything in code.
It sounds like a Storyboard is the right thing for your current project. However, my experience has been that Xibs and Storyboards are problematic in the real world, for these reasons:
extremely idiosyncratic from developer to developer, so it is tricky to build good storyboards as a team
black boxes, so they require a tremendous amount of knowledge to master (unbelievable amount of hidden behavior). Only the most superficial semantics are covered in the documentation.
internationalization is made much harder by being split up, especially if you have internationalized messages not contained in the Storyboard/Xib.
backwards compatibility breaks annually / deprecation guaranteed over time. This is especially difficult if you try to maintain compatibility with older devices.
As soon as more than two devs started touching our code we rewrote everything to avoid Storyboards and Xibs altogether, and we became much more productive.
If you have to deal with any of those real world situations, I heartily recommend programmatically creating all of your views. There is even an app that makes this easier (and is way more scalable). I have no relationship with this company or product, but it is hands down a better solution.
http://www.paintcodeapp.com/
I have to implement the layout of a single screen, which is not connected to the overall app flow, and I was wondering if it makes sense to use a Storyboard.
Storyboards make sense for flow/navigation (multiple controller), have some convenient features like, iirc prototype cells which are not available in xib. And it also makes sense if I think maybe later the screen may become a "story" (more view controllers). But none of this advantages are useful for my particular case.
I was thinking anyways in using Storyboard, as it seems to be a bit more flexible than xib generally, but is there any disadvantage? Maybe performance penalty or such? Is there a preferred way to setup single view controller?
Go ahead..take the advantages of using storyboard. There is no disadvantages or performance issues particular to storyboards when compared to xib files. Its all about your convenience. As you said the single view controller may become a story in future, then the storyboard would be a right decision. And when to use xib? thats upto you, one ideal situation where i will choose xib is, if i have an independent controller that i want to share with other project also then i would choose xib.
The performance penalty would only bother under the circumstance which too many controllers (more than 10) with segues were squeezed in one Storyboard. Everything would be totally fine before that.
And if you have more than two people are trying to edit same storyboard file than you have to resolve conflict, which will be more tedious job.
Storyboard benefits:
a. easy demo purpose and fast implementation.
b. small team like two person.
c. Storyboard is providing complete view and navigation model.
XIB benefits:
a. You can modularize your code.
b. More people can work on different-different controller without affecting your xib or code.
Is Multiple Storyboard in single project is better than single storyboard??if yes then why??
Which is better Single Storyboard or Multiple Storyboard??
Any one please clear me the above queries.
It depends on the project requirement. If you are good enough with the size classes and auto-layout and also if the requirement flow is almost similar for all the devices then go with single storyboard.
By default in Xcode 6 or later, recommending to use single storyBoard.
If you have a bigger app and/or not only one man team:
You should NOT use single story board. Like its name says, it is a "STORY" board. You should have one Story in one Board. This keeps the readability and maintainability of the storyboard.
If you have a team, it is a nightmare to "merge" one single story board if 2 made changes in it at the same time. It is more or less impossible. But if you have for each story a corresponding storyboard, even in a scrum team you can manage to work on one storyboard only one person, that you do not need merging.
There are a lot usefull documents and workshops in internet if you google "ios storyboard git merge ...."
When to Use Storyboards
Finally, while Storyboards are best used for scenarios involving multiple view controllers, it’s also defensible to use a Storyboard when working with a single table view controller for three reasons:
The ability to design table cell prototypes in-place helps keep the pieces together.
Multiple cell templates can be designed inside the parent table view controller.
It’s possible to create static table views (a long awaited addition that’s unfortunately only available in Storyboards).
When Not to Use iOS Storyboards
A few cases:
The view has a complicated or dynamic layout, best-implemented with code.
The view is already implemented with NIBs or code.
When to Use NIBs for iOS UI Design
A subset of all uses cases would be:
Modal views
Simple login and registration views
Settings
Popup windows
Reusable view templates
Reusable table cell templates
Meanwhile…
When Not to Use NIBs
You should avoid using NIBs for:
Views with dynamic content, where the layout changes significantly depending on content.
Views that by nature are not easily designable in the Interface Builder.
View controllers with complicated transitions that could be simplified with Storyboarding.
Apple's docs say that you may have multiple storyboards. Unfortunately they don't go into any real detail on how to do that. As you've found out, Interface Builder won't help you, so you'll have to do it in code. It works much like loading XIBs:
[UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:#”MyNewStoryboard” bundle:myBundle]
Having said that, if you don't "want one big/bloated storyboard" as then XIBs really are the way to go. That 'bigness' is the benefit: all the transitions between VCs are laid out in one place. Having multiple storyboards is really so that you can support multiple different and unrelated flows through your app: for example, one storyboard for a complex configuration flow and another one for the main user flow.
All of our views are in a single storyboard. After we edit the interfaces we are responsible for, we find it is a disaster when we commit the storyboard. Do any better ways exist that make it easier to manage the storyBoard? Should we write UI with code instead of storyboard or xib? While it is really efficient to use storyboard.
What's generally worked for me and my team is to separate related functionality into different storyboards. So if one person is working on x portion of the app, stick all things x related there. As long as only one person is dealing with each component at a time, there's no chance for conflicts that blow up your whole storyboard.
Another thing to keep in mind if you can only use one storyboard, is to limit who can work on each ViewController in the storyboard. It's not the best idea to have multiple people working on the same controller anyways, since you will both be interfering with each others layout. I have found that as long as we stick to our own components, merges are super easy.
Your solution of using code instead of storyboard is also a very valid way to go about it. The decision between code and xib based approaches depends on the user. Code takes longer to get going, but is super easy to reuse, whereas xibs/storyboards make prototyping a snap but are very hard to reuse.
You need to read this links:
http://blog.waynehartman.com/archive/2012/01/07/uistoryboard-on-ios-5-the-good-the-bad-and-the.aspx
http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Which-is-better-StoryBoard-NIB-162305.S.185584395
Should I use storyboard and mercurial for team work?
Storyboard is one single file, so only one person can work on the storyboard at once. It is essential factor for working with team in iOS.
The following post helped me to understand answer on this question:
http://robsprogramknowledge.blogspot.pt/2012/01/uistoryboard-best-practices.html