In my app I have a sort of "dashboard" with buttons, images, labels, etc.
This dashboard is common, apart from small variations, to several view controllers.
I thought that a neat solution would be to implement the dashboard as a separate view controller that is included by means of embed segues and view containers in all the view controllers that need it.
This works perfectly.
However, I have many view controllers in my storyboard, and most of them are connected to the dashboard view controller, which makes the storyboard completely unreadable (or, at least, the connections in it).
Is it possible then to create all these connections programmatically (so that the connections go away from the SB)? It seems to be possible to create segues programmatically, but what about embed segues?
If this is not a viable solution, what are the alternatives?
Related
In this app the user can do either Activity A or B. When doing A, the viewer sees embedded View A; but also during A the viewer can choose to see embedded View B. (The same goes for Activity B, only with converse views.)
My setup in IB is diagrammed below. Not knowing any better way, I created twice as many activity scenes as I would have liked: For the "Do Activity A" branch, I have two side-by-side copies of the Activity A scene. The first one has an embed segue to View A; and the second, an embed segue to View B. (The "B" setup is the converse.)
To avoid more duplication, I did make both activity branches share Views A and B. And although the activity scenes were doubled, the classes that they link to (ActivityAViewController and ActivityBViewController) were not. I haven't yet noticed any complications from that. . . .
In contrast to other workarounds I've seen, I chose the above "push–pop" layout because Views A and B are expensive. I don't want to discard the primary view just to load the secondary, and I don't want to load both unnecessarily. Also, I want to do this in IB because the real app is more complicated, and seeing all of my layout there helps me understand and develop it. With that said, my approach still seems klutzy.
My questions are
Is there a better way to set this up in IB?
What happens with the activity scenes' shared view controllers? Is a separate class instance created for each, or do the two scenes end up sharing the same instance?
Similarly, what happens with the shared views?
Apple's explanations seem clear enough, though they assume more knowledge of Cocoa Touch and related jargon than I currently have. Any clarifications and insights will be appreciated.
Is there a better way to set this up in IB?
There are other ways to set it up. They all have tradeoffs. Your method has a certain look, and if you want to hook it up differently, it will look a little different. Your method also has the advantage that all of the navigation is handled by the Storyboard; no extra code is needed.
Alternatives include imbedding views A and B in their own little navigation controller. Then switching to view the other would involve clicking on that navigationController. This avoids the duplication of the outer Activity A and B controllers, but it would change the look by adding a navigationBar to the embedded views.
You could also do that and hide the navigation bar and pass a message from the outer Activity A or B controller to tell it when to push the other viewController. This has the disadvantage of some additional nontrivial coding; the Storyboard no longer manages the navigation for you.
You could also run this in a UITabBarController. That has the disadvantage of creating both Activity A and Activity B at the same time if you only need one, but you can freely switch between them without any recreation of any of the views.
What happens with the activity scenes' shared view controllers? Is a
separate class instance created for each, or do the two scenes end up
sharing the same instance?
Every segue (including embedded segues) creates a new viewController instance. No instances are shared.
Similarly, what happens with the shared views?
A new instance of A and B will be created each time.
I'm currently building a custom view controller container for my iOS project and I nearly understand what I'm doing. The one thing I'm stuck on is how do you (properly - aka not a hack) add a view controller in PART of the Parent controller's frame. See how there are multiple view controllers/views in the email app? How does one build a custom controller container that designates the location of such sub-view controllers? How do you properly add such a controller? I'd like to know the "correct" way as designated by apple (best practice).
EDIT: After looking at this some more I was thinking a possible way would be to create views with custom sizing and then push those to the parent. Is this the correct way?
You sort of answered it yourself. The view you have as an example uses a UISplitViewController to show two separate views (left and right). Each of those views has a view controller that owns it. Note that the left side includes all of the view, like the search, nav bar, and toolbar. So just create two separate view controllers and add them to a UISplitViewController and you should be golden! The views themselves are created however you normally create views. Storyboards, NIBs, or in code works.
I'm learning how to use storyboards for iOS development and I can't seem to figure out how to manage multiple views on the same screen.
I want to be able to control multiple elements on the same screen, for example a UITableView with an UIImageView next to it.
This means I need 3 UIViewControllers, 1 for the UITableView, 1 for the UIImageView, and one for the main view. But as far as I can tell storyboards only allow for 1 controller per view hierarchy screen. Can anyone tell me what I'm missing?
View Controller Containment is the way to go. Have a look at Apple's documentation about it:
Creating Custom Container View Controllers
Container view controllers are a critical part of iOS app design. They
allow you to decompose your app into smaller and simpler parts, each
controlled by a view controller dedicated to that task. Containers
allow these view controllers to work together to present a seamless
interface.
You can use it in storyboards as well by using a container view.
Useful tutorial: Storyboards With Custom Container View Controllers
I'm interested in building a slide out sidebar for a view controller, and I've done a lot of reading on how to implement it. This tutorial, as well as virtually all the others go over creating child view controllers, which seems like a great way to go about it. However, it's always done in code for examples.
This post goes over how to create container view controllers in the Storyboard, but it left me confused how exactly container views work in the Storyboard, and there seems to be little in the way of explanations online.
Finally, this post went over how to implement a slide out menu with container view controllers and a Storyboard. Sounds perfect right? Well, in reading it I was confused how the author seems to use multiple container views. I thought there was supposed to be one that encompassed all of the subviewcontrollers. Is it implemented correctly in that post?
Basically, I'd love an explanation on how to implement multiple view controllers using container view controllers via the Storyboard. It's my understanding from the first tutorial that you have the view controller that contains everything, and then add view controllers to that container and then they all work together via delegates. Achieving this in Storyboards is leaving me scratching my head.
Adding a container basically adds a child view controller and its view to the main controller. I think you are not clear on two things here. First, each container can be linked to only 1 controller/view pair. So, if you want to have more than one child controllers, you must have more than one containers. Secondly, communication between parent and child controllers is handled by 'embed segues', not by delegates.
I've been working on an iPad application that has about 15 view controllers. Some of the view controllers are full screen, others are embedded inside the other view controllers (think split view controller).
On the iPhone navigation is very straight forward. Even if you have a ton of view controllers, you are using one of Apple's root view controllers (tab or navigation). The navigation is handled by the root view controllers and you are pretty much free to focus on your views.
On the ipad the split view and tab view controllers are not always useful, and for the app I'm working on they do not cut it. I have created separate navigation controller objects to handle hiding/show view controllers based on notifications that get posted when the user performs actions.
Anyone else have experience with solving the navigation problem on the iPad?
have you checked out MGSplitViewController by Matt Gemmell?
http://mattgemmell.com/2010/08/03/mgsplitviewcontroller-updated
I'm not claiming it'll solve all your navigation problems, but it's an interesting idea and may help you in finding more/better ways of handling view controllers.
With iOS 5 Apple has added the concept of Container View Controllers. This makes adding and removing children easy, allowing their methods for rotation/appear/disappear to be called automagically. Cool stuff!
Also, be careful using multiple view controllers for views which don't fill the full screen. Apple's documentation explicitly states that you shouldn't use view controllers for partial-screen views:
Note: You should not use view controllers to manage views that fill only a part of their window—that is, only part of the area defined by the application content rectangle. If you want to have an interface composed of several smaller views, embed them all in a single root view and manage that view with your view controller.
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/uikit/reference/UIViewController_Class/Reference/Reference.html
Although some things might work when you have multiple view controllers managing different sub-views, other things won't work. For example, only one of your view controllers will be informed when the device is rotated. Likewise, not all your view controllers will be sent 'viewWillAppear' 'viewDidUnload' etc messages that you might expect.