I would like to customize the UICollectionView, but all the tutorials on the web and in books use UICollectionViewController which I do not want to use. I'm combining different kinds of UICollectionViews in the same UIViewController, so I don't want to limit myself by subclassing UICollectionViewController, which doesn't allow me to place several UICollectionViews in the same viewController along with other objects and labels.
How do I subclass UICollectionView? Specifically, what kinds of methods need to be overwritten? How do I layout what goes into it (i.e. where to put a text label, image, etc.)? I'm familiar with the data source / delegate protocols, but not quite sure how to customize the cell's look, placement of sub items within the cell, what classes need to be overwritten/sub classed, etc.
A list of things I need to do would be much appreciated!
Thanks!
You can do it like this link
Here are some good Examples to customize your collectionview.
Use WaterfallCollectionView from this. It may help you.
I believe that you don't need to sub-class UICollectionView but you need to sub-class UICollectionViewFlowLayout.
UICollectionViewFlowLayout is the object which manages the display of the collection view items and it is highly customizable.
I suggest you follow WWDC 2012:Advanced Collection Views and Building Custom Layouts
The best tutorial which worked for me was by Apple called Using the Flow Layout.
I think you wont have to subclass a collection view. What you would need instead is subclassing UICollectionViewLayout to customize the positioning of cells within the collection view. And if you are looking for a customized look of a cell, you would also have to subclass UICollectionViewCell and assign the sub classed cells to the Collection View.
The below links might help you,
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/WindowsViews/Conceptual/CollectionViewPGforIOS/CreatingCustomLayouts/CreatingCustomLayouts.html
http://adoptioncurve.net/archives/2012/09/a-simple-uicollectionview-tutorial/
Related
When should I use which, and what are the disadvantages or disadvantages of each? I'm mainly confused with scrollview vs collectionview, I know tableview is limited to one column (I heard it gets messy when more than one column), but scrollview difference with collectionview seem the same to me.
Both CollectionView & TableView are basically subclasses of UIScrollView.But as compared to UIScrollView here you are provided with proper methods to provide your dataSource & delegates to handle operations user performs on data. Along with this you are provided predefined layout classes.
Now to choose between them completely depends on your UI Requirements. Suppose you want to display just a list of items with a simple UI go with TableView.If you want a custom Layout like a grid or like the one you see in Apple's photo's app CollectionView is the choice.
if you have a complex UI & you have no idea about Custom CollectionView layout classes go with scrollView.
Consider UITableView and UICollectionView first and if you cannot achieve the effect you want with them, try UIScrollView then. UIScrollView is more basic class. UITableView and UICollectionView have more delegate method for us.
If you want a list,UITableView would be better. And if you want a multicolumn,use UICollectionView.
I have this task that I need to create a custom scrollable view with 3 different types of cells from scratch.(no UICollectionView nor UITableView)
I have no idea what is the best way to start. Wether I should subclass UIScrollview or ...
Any guidance or direction would be highly appreciated.
Create object of UIView, keep adding in UIScrollView depends on your array count.
Keep dynamic calculation for next UIView add subview in UIScrollView
Put transparent UIButton on UIView or use touch gesture to implement like didSelectedRowAtindex.
Another solution we can adapt when there is no UITableView.
Both TableView and Collection View inherits from UIScrollView. So using the parent class could be efficient. But inheritence also serves independent extensions it would also be ok to use the sub classes.
So, Decision depends on what you do. Here in your case.
If one of the cells include a text field for user entry, then scrollview could do better as it offers convienience to scroll/shrink/retain the current UI while showing all the content of UI even when keyboard is present.
If the cells only involve fields like labels,switches,indicators etc then tableview is the choice.
If the cells has non-consistent or non free flow sections then collection view could be better.
I'm looking for a method to page or slide through up to 6 different views in one table view cell. What's the best approach to do that?
I already experiment with a Collection View and a Page View Control. But the diagrams are represented by different classes, so that the standard tutorials setting up a label, are not working for me.
Thank for any feedback on this topic.
Based on what you are doing, I would use a UICollectionView with different UICollectionViewCells for your different diagrams. That should allow you to use different classes for the content of each cell.
So first go and create a UICollectionViewCell for each diagram.
Then you are going to want to go into your UICollectionViewController (or wherever you are implementing your collection view) and in the cellForItemAtIndexPath method tell it which cell to display for each indexPath.
Is there some "best-practice" way to add subviews to a UIScrollView?
For Example:
I have a UIViewController which loads images with corresponding description from a server.
Those images+descriptions should be added in a horizontal scrollView.
When the data is loaded, should I create a method in my UIView to handle this stuff,
or is it more convenient to do this in my UIViewController?
Your view controller would be an most appropriate place to handle this, as controllers should connect your view (the scroll view) to the data (the images).
If the scroll view's layout is simple, it could be done entirely with the controller. But, if the layout is complex, you may want to consider subclassing UIScrollView and handling some of the layout there (similar to how UITableView works).
For more info on standard application architecture, read Concepts in Objective-C Programming on Apple's developer site.
By my way of looking at it, the separation of concerns would break down like this:
the UIViewController is responsible for getting the images and handing them to the UIView
UIView is responsible for displaying them.
So the -addSubview: is a view implementation detail, should go in the view, and be opaque to the controller.
There is plenty of opinion that both UIViewController and UIView are confused and intertwined in such a way to make them both part of the conceptual "view" (in a MVC sense), but I think it's still cleaner this way.
As you can see, opinions differ. :) Personally, I despair of MVC, and think Model-View-ViewModel to be a much clearer, cleaner, and more sensible way of approaching all this.
UICollectionView is same as that of UITableView except it is meant to display Images and its description.
Here is what you can do.
Create a UICollectionView, it is the subclass of UIScrollView. SO there is no need of UIScrollview.
Since you need image and description both for each item, I will recommend delete the UICollectionViewItem from UICollectionView.
Create a seperate custom UICollectinViewItem class, define UICollectionItem in .xib file (UIImageVIew and UILabel).
When you define the datasource method "– collectionView:cellForItemAtIndexPath:" define the UICollectionVIewItem class here. Exactly we defines custom UITableVIewCell.
Can i have two images and a few text labels in a cell of a tableView ? All dynamically assigned ?
Yes, read the documentation for the UITableViewCell class, specifically the UITableViewCellStyle constants which allow for various types of standard table cells to be created. If the built in styles do not meet your requirements, you can subclass UITableViewCell and create anything you want, since it's just another type of UIView.
Of course you can! There are several ways of achieving that, the most popular being subclass the UITableViewCell class, and creating your own custom cell, and you can have whatever you want in it. But just to get an idea of how to go about doing that, I suggest you go through the following links:
Table View Programming Guide for iOS - Apple
Crafting Custom
UITableViewCells - MobileTuts+