Some code not executing in a method called from another ViewController - ios

My problem
I have a standard UIViewController. With the press of a button, it loads a form sheet modal view controller. When dismissing this modal view with the press of a UIBarButtonItem I call a method by doing:
ViewController *main = [[ViewController alloc] initWithNibName:nil bundle:nil];
[main updateLabel];
In the method -(void)updateLabel in the main ViewController I'm setting the text of a label, but the label won't change. But I know the function gets called, because if I do a NSLog(#"Method call test); instead of label.text = #"Test" I can see the message in console.
What am I doing wrong? It must be the way I'm calling the method in the main ViewController, because I can easily change the label anywhere else.
What I want to do:
When dismissing a modal view controller, I want a method to be called in the main view controller, and in this case change the text of a label.
Thanks for your help!

You're creating a new instance of ViewController with that code, not getting a pointer to the one you already have.
If ViewController is the controller that presented the modal view, then you can get a pointer to it with,
ViewController *main = self.presentingViewController;

A better way to do this would be to use the delegate pattern.
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/general/conceptual/DevPedia-CocoaCore/Delegation.html
The following is a design pattern suggestion
The modal view controller shouldn't know how to dismiss itself, that is the responsibility of the presenting view controller. After all, it could have been presented in many different ways (modally, popover, push navigation). Using the delegate pattern, the modal view controller would tell its delegate that it should be dismissed when the bar button item gets pressed. The delegate, which is the presenting view controller, would then dismiss the modal view and update the label mentioned in your question.

Related

Change to different VIewController on button press

I have a functioning app, and I'd like to just add a new view and have an existing button change views with an IBAction function. I've set up the following and get no response. Thanks for any help.
MainViewController.h
- (IBAction)showSettings:(UIButton *)sender;
MainViewController.m
-(void)showSettings:(UIButton*)btn{
SettingsViewController *oView = [[SettingsViewController alloc] initWithNibName:#"SettingsViewController" bundle:nil];
[self.navigationController pushViewController:oView animated:YES];
}
SettingsViewController.h (the new view) is relatively empty.
SettingsViewController.m
boilerplate
Three things to make sure:
showSettings: gets called when the button is tapped (if not then perhaps you didn't connect the button tap event to the action at all)
SettingsViewController instance gets alloc and initialised
self.navigationController is not nil (if it's nil perhaps the current view controller is not embed in a navigation controller in the first place?).
Update:
Now we see the issue is #3. To embed your first view controller to a UINavigationController so you could push the second view controller:
Select your first view controller in storyboard
Select (menu) Editor -> Embed In -> Navigation Controller
Have you wired up your button's TouchUpInside event to your showSettings: method? This is normally done in Interface Builder with a control-drag. If you set a breakpoint on the first line of showSettings:, do you hit the breakpoint when you press the button? If not this is likely your issue.

Programmatically dismiss popover from view embedded in navigation controller

I have a view controller. When I press a button in it, a popover controller with a uitableview shows up. I select a row, which shows another view with some controls in it. When I press a button that says "Save Item", I want it to dismiss the popover. How do I do this?
Here's what I've tried:
Using the delegate and protocol pattern. This hasn't worked since in order to push another view inside my tableview, the whole thing must be embedded in a navigation view controller, so when I segue, it segues to a nav controller, not the tableview which I could set the popover delegate for.
Adding my main view as a member of the view I want to dismiss from. I don't know why this doesn't work.
The Hard Clean Way
There are four view controllers in the story, plus a popover controller. I will call the three view controllers "main view controller", "nav", "vcA", and "vcB". As I understand it, "nav" is the initial content view controller of the popover and has "vcA" as its root view controller.
main view controller -> popover controller -> nav -> vcA -> (later) vcB
When you present the popover from your main view controller, you keep a reference to the popover controller. This is what makes dismissing possible, as you know.
When you create the Save button, you make its target the main view controller and its action a method in the main view controller. You will have to set this up in code; it cannot be configured from a storyboard because you cannot form an action from one scene to another. (You are able to do this because you started out with a reference to nav and vcA when you configured the popover controller initially. Thus you can hand vcA a reference to self, the main view controller. If necessary, you can then pass this reference down the chain from vcA to vcB as vcB is summoned and pushed onto the navigation stack.)
Now the user taps Save, your main view controller's method runs, and it uses its reference to the popover controller to tell it to dismiss.
The Easy Dirty Way
The heck with all that. The main view controller registers for an NSNotification. The Save button posts that NSNotification. Done. :)
The Middle Way
You could set the whole chain up in your storyboard using a popover segue, and do the dismissal through an Unwind segue matched by an unwind method back in the main view controller. I never think of this initially, because I don't like popover segues very much. But it does work.
This is how I solved my problem (sorry for the bad english):
First, Create a property of UIStoryboardPopoverSegue in the VcA and set it from the main view controller.
Nav -> VcA_ViewController
#property (strong, nonatomic) UIStoryboardPopoverSegue *popupSegue;
Then, in the Main View Controller prepareForSegue set the property:
- (void) prepareForSegue:(UIStoryboardSegue *)segue sender:(id)sender{
if([segue.identifier isEqualToString:#"your segue from the mainview to the navigation"]) {
UINavigationController *navigationController = (UINavigationController *)c;
VcA_ViewController *vcA = (VRPointOfInterestsFiltersViewController *) navigationController.topViewController;
vcA.popupSegue = (UIStoryboardPopoverSegue*)segue;
} }
Now, from the VcA controller you can have the dismiss button
- (IBAction)dismissPopoup:(id)sender {
[self.popupSegue.popoverController dismissPopoverAnimated:YES]; }
Don't forget to link the popOverSegue from the MainViewController to the NavController.
Hope it helps!

How can I present a 'standalone' View Controller ('forgetting' the previous one)

I have a regular UINavigationController with a couple of views attached, which are working perfectly fine. Its RootViewController has a custom Menu-button on the top left, at the same place as the "Back"-button is on the attached views. When clicking this menu-button, the menu appears and presents five options.
Obviously, by clicking one of these option, you would be presented with the ViewController for that option.
I want to completely 'forget' the current ViewController, and move on to this new controller. Usually, I would do something like [self presentViewController....]; or [self.navigationController push..];, but in these methods the current ViewController will, I think, always exists 'below' the new presenting viewController (as you would return to this instantiation if using [self dismissViewController..];, I don't want this).
In the presenting ViewController there will be a menu-option to return back to the original controller, but I still want this to be a clean instantiation of it, and not just popping. By thinking ahead in time, I figured I would potentially create an infinite number of ViewControllers on top of each other by using the methods I know of this way.
I entered the world of iOS after the era of ARC began, so I have no clue how to release or deallocate such views, which I assume has relevance here.
The second View Controller is also supposed to be a root in a UINavigationController, and I'm not sure if it's best to use the same UINavigationController, or if I should present a new one, and dismiss the old. Essentially, I would like to replace the Navigation Controller's rootViewController from the rootViewController, but I don't see how that would be possible. Or possibly push to ViewController2, and then popping the rootViewController out of the hierarchy, leaving the new ViewController as the root, but then I assume I'd have problems with the navigational back-button(if it's even possible).
I figured it's just as easy to let ViewController2 be root at its own NavigationController, and presenting this NavigationController from ViewController1. The problem is, I want to completely remove everything that has to do with ViewController1 and its NavigationController from memory after presenting ViewController2, but I have no idea how.
I'm open to other solutions to my situation, but I'd also like an answer to how I can completely 'forget' a view after presenting another on general basis.
If you want to "forget" controllers, you can just replace the window's root view controller with a new one. The original one will be deallocated if you don't have any other strong pointers to it. I'm not sure I understand all of what you're trying to do, but for example, if you want controller 1 and controller 2 to both be root view controllers of a navigation controller, and you don't want controller 1 around when you switch to 2, then do something like this from controller one:
SecondViewController *second = [[SecondViewController alloc] initWithNibName:#"SecondViewController" bundle:nil];
UINavigationController *nav = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:second];
self.view.window.rootViewController = nav;
This will switch out the controllers, and controller 1 and its navigation controller will be deallocated (assuming that the only thing with a strong pointer to the navigation controller was the window, through its rootViewController property).
Create a menu UIViewController and add it as a root to the UINavigationController on launch. Add 1st UIViewController as a child controller to menu UIViewController when viewDidLoad of menu controller is called. When you click menu to show 2nd UIViewController, remove the 1st UIViewController from menu view controller and add 2nd UIViewController to child of the menu view controller. You can put NSLog in both, 1st and 2nd view controller's dealloc method to check if its released or not. Logic is like this
//inside menuvc class
#interface MenuVC{
UIViewController * currentVC; // current child controller to menuVC
}
-(void)viewDidLoad{
[self addChildController:firstVC]; //to add view controller 1 intially
currentVC = firstVC;
}
-(void)add2ndChildController{
[currentVC removeFromParentViewController];
[self addChildController:secondVC]; //to add view controller 2 when needed
currentVC = secondVC;
}
// dealloc of 1st vc
-(void)dealloc{
NSLog(#"first vc released");
}
I just wrote some sample logic of what I explained before, you have to generalize this logic if you feel its right for you. Hope it helps :)

Unable to display view when I call it from a separate ViewController in iOS

I have a view controller in my application where on my screen I have a UIView that the user is required to tap on. When they do that, I want to call another viewController's view, and display it on the screen for the user. Unfortunately, I am having trouble displaying the view.
The name of my viewController that I am making the call from is called "MainViewController", and the ViewController whose view I wish to display is called, "NextViewController"
Here is my code from where I make the call:
- (void) touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event {
NSLog(#"I was touched.");
_nextView = [[NextViewController alloc] init]; //this code is not being called
[self.view addSubview:_nextView.view]; //neither is this being called
}
Where _nextView is a property that I declare in the .h file of MainViewController.
This method is being called, but for some reason because I am able to see the log statements print to the output, but for some reason I am unable to call the lines after that. What am I doing wrong?
You shouldn't add the view of another view controller to your view without making that view controller a child view controller. If you just want a view, then set one up in a xib file and add it to your view as a subview. If you want to use a view controller, then you should present it modally, and dismiss it when you're done. This kind of situation where you want to gather some info from the user to use in your app, is an appropriate place to use a modal view controller. MainViewController should set itself as the delegate of NextViewController, and NextViewController should define a delegate protocol to send the data back to MainViewController.
To present it modally, do this:
_nextView = [[NextViewController alloc] initWithNibName:#"your nib name here" bundle:nil];
[self presentViewController:_nextView animated:YES completion:nil];
Are you using a Navigation Controller? Or Storyboards? One way of displaying another view controller would be like this:
[self presentViewController:_nextView animated:YES completion:^{
}];
A couple of things:
- If your NSLog gets called, then so do the other two lines you say do not.
- I assume you mean you want to display the other view controller on screen, not display the other view controller's view on the first view controller. These are two very different things, the second of which you wouldn't want to do.

ViewDidAppear not called in main view when modal view is presented over a popover

I'm trying to use a popover as an intermediary menu between my main view and a modal view controller. I can successfully present the Modal view controller from the popover by using the following code:
UIStoryboard *storyboardiPad = [UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:#"MainStoryboard_iPad" bundle:nil];
cbwEditControlPanel *editCP = [storyboardiPad instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:#"EditCP"];
UINavigationController *nav = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:editCP];
[nav setToolbarHidden:NO];
[nav setModalPresentationStyle:UIModalPresentationFullScreen];
[nav setModalTransitionStyle:UIModalTransitionStyleCoverVertical];
[self presentViewController:nav animated:YES completion:nil];
self.modalInPopover = NO;
The problem I'm running into is that when the EditCP modal view controller is dismissed, the main view controller never updates. I have a pagecontroller on the main view that should be updated to reflect the number of pages as set in the EditCP modal view controller, but for some reason the modal view controller being called from the popover prevents the main view controller from updating the pagecontroller. I've even tried calling the main view's "View Will Appear" method from the popover or modal view when they are dismissed, but even if the 'viewWillAppear' method is called the pageController will not update!
Any ideas what is preventing the pageController from updating? I even passed a reference to the pagecontroller to the modal view and tried to update it there, but it seems that from the time the popover is presented until it is dismissed, I cannot update the number of pages on the PageController.
Thank you!
So this is an old question but I also came across a similar problem recently when using a popover. My solution was to use an unwind segue to trigger my parent view to perform some action. In my case my parent view contains contact information and the popover contains a list of cites. All I wanted to do was to have the parent view update with the new city once the user selected it from the popover. So in my parent view I create my unwind function as follows:
In the .h:
- (IBAction)unwindToContactTVC:(UIStoryboardSegue *)unwindSegue;
In the .m:
- (IBAction)unwindToContactTVC:(UIStoryboardSegue *)unwindSegue
{
[self updateTableForOffice];
}
In the above .m file is where you would have the logic to do whatever it is you want to in the parent view. To connect this unwind segue go to the child view in the storyboard and control drag from the view icon to the exit icon. You should see a pop up with the name of your unwind segue.
Finally, give that unwind segue a name and then in the child controller in the viewWillDisappear() function call the segue as follows:
- (void)viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated
{
[self performSegueWithIdentifier:#"unwind-to-contact-tvc" sender:self];
}
I hope that helps. If someone has a better solution let me know.
Well, I half solved the problem. The only way to get an update function when the popover disappeared was to stop using Storyboards and programmatically present the popover, using the main view as the delegate. I then was able to update correctly inside the popoverControllerDidDismissPopover method.
However, I am still interested in finding a way to update the pageControl when the modal is dismissed, before the popover is dismissed.

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