Programmatically Selecting a TabBarController View? - ios

In order to get my custom menu up and running, I've ended up using a UITabBarController and need to change the view displayed programmatically, vs the standard tabbed menu on screen.
Everything is working as expected except on thing. I am attempting to use:
[self setSelectedIndex:index];
This code is inside my UITabBarController subclass in a custom delegate method. (This is so I can programmatically adjust the view when interacting with my menu). However, while this code is called, it doesn't do anything?
Does it HAVE to be called from one of the tabbed views? I was hoping to run it from inside the TabBarController to avoid repeating the code in each tabbed sub controller.
UPDATE:
Just found that using [self setSelectedIndex:index]; works fine in viewDidLoad. But when it is called inside the delegate method, it doesn't change view. It is using the right index number and getting called, but not doing anything from that method.
Also, it seems the tab controller is a different object when I log self in viewDidLoad vs my delegate method. So why would I be loosing the reference to the original controller?
It's just a UITabBarController in a container in another view controller.
Delegate Code:
#Interface
#protocol SLMenuDelegate <NSObject>
#required -(void)menuDidChangeViewToIndex:(NSInteger)index;
#end
#property (nonatomic, assign) id<SLMenuDelegate>menuDelegate;
#Implementation
#synthesize menuDelegate;
self.menuDelegate = [self.storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:#"TabBarViewController"];
[menuDelegate menuDidChangeViewToIndex:[self.menuItemButtons indexOfObject:sender]];
UITabBarController
-(void)menuDidChangeViewToIndex:(NSInteger)index
{
[self setSelectedIndex:index];
}
Setting breakpoints and running NSLogs and there is no question that the method gets called and all code runs.

Try using delayed performance:
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
[self setSelectedIndex:index];
});

I didn't manage to find a solution to the exact issue, but I found an equally good way of resolving my issue simply.
I stopped using a delegate to send my button tap message and change the view. Instead I did the following:
SLTabBarViewController *tabBar = [self.childViewControllers objectAtIndex:0];
[tabBar setSelectedIndex:[self.menuItemButtons indexOfObject:sender]];
This gets the embedded tab bar controller and I simply directly change the view from the original view controller from which the button tap comes from.
It may not be an intelligent solution, but its a simple and functional one which doesn't create any problems.

Related

Add common views once in navigation controller

What I'm trying to achieve is to design my "shared" part of UI in interface builder and use child view controllers to show content to the user. This may sound as trying to reinvent UINavigationController, but it is not. In fact, the whole thing is embedded in one.
It looks like this :
Now, what I'm trying to do is change child view controllers of this BaseViewController and indicate this change in the navigation bar, so that all of its functionality remains.
I tried adding such a method :
+ (UIViewController *)baseViewControllerWithChild:(UIViewController *)child {
BaseViewController *base = [BaseViewController new];
[base addChildViewController:child];
child.view.frame = base.childViewControllerContainer.frame;
[base.view addSubview:child.view];
[child didMoveToParentViewController:base];
return base;
}
and then using it like this :
- (void)didTouch:(UIButton *)sender {
[self.parentViewController.navigationController pushViewController:[BaseViewController baseViewControllerWithChild:[DummyViewController new]] animated:YES];
}
(Note : DummyViewController is exactly that - a dummy vc, made just for testing, it only has background color set in viewDidLoad)
This method is a handler of a button in first child view controller. So far so good. Unfortunately, the result is not as expected - the pushed view controller is black. At firs I thought this was because BaseViewController was designed in storyboard and initially set as rootViewController of navigation controller. Moving it to a xib file and setting from code didn't quite work for me, as you cannot add a Container View in a xib.
To summarise, I would like to have a base design governed by BaseViewController class and content would be added as a childViewController of it. Pushing a new view controller would be a result of an action on these childViewController and should update the navigation stack accordingly.
Also, the whole thing needs to work with iOS 7.
Any help as to how to try to achieve this is greatly appreciated!
The issue was casued by base.childViewControllerContainer being nil - this was caused byt he fact that view property of view controllers is loaded lazily. Adding [base view] before accesing base.childViewControllerContainer solved the issue, though I'm not sure if this is the one, only and best way to do this.

How to find Instance of View Controller made by storyboard

I am trying to make a tabbed application in Xcode that allows the user to take a photo and edit it on the FirstViewController class and when they are done display it on the SecondViewController.
When I started the project, Xcode automatically made the two viewControllers for me in the storyboard. What I need now is to find the instance of the second viewController that was generated so I can call a method and pass an argument (the UIImage) from the first view controller to the second like this.
FirstViewContoller.m
-(void) passImageToSecondVC (UIImage *) img
{
[<instanceOf_SecondViewController> receiveImg: img];
}
SecondViewContoller.m
-(void) receiveImage (UIImage *) img
{
//Code to display the image received
}
What Im asking is how can I find the name of the instance of the SecondViewController (shown by <> in the example code) generated by Xcode so I can call this method.
Although I'm very close to just doing this programmatically which I find much easier I wanna learn how to do this through the storyboard also I'm very open to hear other solutions to this problem. Thank you!
There's no way to do this through the storyboard. You don't access the view controller by its name. Each view controller has access to the tab bar controller through self.tabBarController. You can access individual controllers from the tab bar controller's viewControllers array. So, to get a reference to the controller in the second tab, you would use self.tabBarController.viewControllers[1].
Use delegates pattern.
Make one vc be a delegate of the other vc and communicate data between them. I think It's a common scenario.
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/General/Conceptual/DevPedia-CocoaCore/Delegation.html

How to open my UINavigationController programmatically?

One of the things I don't like about WYSIWYG/visual programming, is when you get to a point where you need to step outside of the box, you're left scratching your head. I'm at such a point right now along my iOS learning curve.
I have a custom UICollectionView thing. In two places (create and edit points), I need to present a list to the user to enable/disable (select/deselect) items from a list. So I go to the storyboard and whip up something like this:
In the past, following tutorials, I would control-drag a link from some control to the NavigationController show in the middle, I would tell it was a modal segue, tune a couple of methods, and get an arrow connecting the two for my efforts.
But in this case, I don't have obvious points to start that action from. I do have a + button. But it needs to do some other things first, and if all is well, then programmatically initiate the open, and somehow get notified of the state when it returns. Same for the individual cells, they might want to configure my table controller, and then open it, and be notified when it closes.
So I'm looking for a recipe of how one does this, what the key methods I should be looking for are. Apple's docs are great for reference, but I find figuring out how to do something from scratch difficult.
After creating a segue in your storyboard, you can initiate a segue any time programmatically by calling
[self performSegueWithIdentifier:#"segueID" sender:person];
Where "segueID" is a string you set for your segue in interface builder in the Identifier field in the identity inspector (right menu panel, 4th tab).
The segue does not need to be created from a control, you can just create one directly from one view controller to another. I usually do this on the right side menu by right-clicking on one view controller object and dragging to another one. This way, it acts as a segue that you can initiate programmatically any time you want.
As for getting notified when you come back to a view controller, (unless I'm misunderstanding your question) you can use either:
(void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
(void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated
Create a UINavigationController programmatically with a desired view controller set as a root view controller. Here is an example of what you could put in a method invoked when user taps the plus button:
UIViewController *vc = [[UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:#"YourStoryboardName" bundle:nil] instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:#"YourViewControllerID"];
UINavigationController *nc = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:vc];
[self presentViewController:nc
animated:YES completion:nil];
To get a state, or information about the selected items you can use Delegation and declare a protocol. Example:
#protocol YourSampleDelegate <NSObject>
- (void)didSelectItem:(NSObject *)item;
#end
Then, your view controller (the one with the plus sign) should implement this protocol:
#interface ViewController : UIViewController<YourSampleDelegate>
...
#end
#implementation ViewController
...
#pragma mark - YourSampleDelegate conformance
- (void)didSelectItem:(NSObject *)item;
{
// Do something with the item.
}
#end
You also have to create a delegate property in a view controller with collection view and set the view controller with a plus as a delegate. There are tons of examples on the Internet. I hope this shows you the right direction.

Dangers of Unconventional UIViewController Usage

I'm going through some old code and trying to detect some hard to find bugs. I came across an unusual usage of a UIViewController where the controller is allocated, stored in a property, and its view is added as a subview instead of presenting the entire controller.
Let me start off by saying I know this is kind of hacky and abnormal. That said, what are the dangers in the following implementation? Are there any unexpected side effects that this could cause? What if MyOtherViewController unloads its view and recreates it due to receiving a memory warning at some point, could that cause any strange behavior?
#interface MyViewController()
#property (nonatomic, strong) MyOtherViewController *otherVC;
#end
#implementation MyViewController
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
self.otherVC = [[MyOtherViewController alloc] init];
[self.view addSubview:self.otherVC.view];
}
#end
What you are doing is creating custom view controller containers. This is not a bad thing, but you aren't doing it the way you're supposed to. There is a section in UIViewController's class reference that explains exactly how to accomplish what you're trying to do.
Take a look at Displaying a View Controllers Contents Programatically
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/featuredarticles/ViewControllerPGforiPhoneOS/UsingViewControllersinYourApplication/UsingViewControllersinYourApplication.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007457-CH6-SW8
Note this: Important: Never install the view controller’s view into a view hierarchy directly.
I just tracked down a nasty BAD EXEC crash in a project I moved to (see nasty bug below).
I can say that using a UIViewController is very bad because:
You have to make sure the controller is not deallocated. The view won't because it is in view hierarchy with a superview, but the controller has no object to retain it. If it was added to the window as a rootController, to a tab controller, a navigation controller or presented by another controller (normal usage) it would be ok.
It won't receive orientation changes and messages that you would expect to get called besides viewDidLoad.
Nasty bugs. For instance in iOS 5 if this controller is not deallocated before you dismiss a modal controller you'll have a BAD EXEC crash that will drive you crazy. It seems the animation methods from the SDK expect your view controller to be present during the dismiss modal animation.

viewWillAppear, viewDidAppear not called with pushViewController [duplicate]

I've read numerous posts about people having problems with viewWillAppear when you do not create your view hierarchy just right. My problem is I can't figure out what that means.
If I create a RootViewController and call addSubView on that controller, I would expect the added view(s) to be wired up for viewWillAppear events.
Does anyone have an example of a complex programmatic view hierarchy that successfully receives viewWillAppear events at every level?
Apple's Docs state:
Warning: If the view belonging to a view controller is added to a view hierarchy directly, the view controller will not receive this message. If you insert or add a view to the view hierarchy, and it has a view controller, you should send the associated view controller this message directly. Failing to send the view controller this message will prevent any associated animation from being displayed.
The problem is that they don't describe how to do this. What does "directly" mean? How do you "indirectly" add a view?
I am fairly new to Cocoa and iPhone so it would be nice if there were useful examples from Apple besides the basic Hello World crap.
If you use a navigation controller and set its delegate, then the view{Will,Did}{Appear,Disappear} methods are not invoked.
You need to use the navigation controller delegate methods instead:
navigationController:willShowViewController:animated:
navigationController:didShowViewController:animated:
I've run into this same problem. Just send a viewWillAppear message to your view controller before you add it as a subview. (There is one BOOL parameter which tells the view controller if it's being animated to appear or not.)
[myViewController viewWillAppear:NO];
Look at RootViewController.m in the Metronome example.
(I actually found Apple's example projects great. There's a LOT more than HelloWorld ;)
I finally found a solution for this THAT WORKS!
UINavigationControllerDelegate
I think the gist of it is to set your nav control's delegate to the viewcontroller it is in, and implement UINavigationControllerDelegate and it's two methods. Brilliant! I'm so excited i finally found a solution!
Thanks iOS 13.
ViewWillDisappear, ViewDidDisappear, ViewWillAppear and
ViewDidAppear won't get called on a presenting view controller on
iOS 13 which uses a new modal presentation that doesn't cover the
whole screen.
Credits are going to Arek Holko. He really saved my day.
I just had the same issue. In my application I have 2 navigation controllers and pushing the same view controller in each of them worked in one case and not in the other. I mean that when pushing the exact same view controller in the first UINavigationController, viewWillAppear was called but not when pushed in the second navigation controller.
Then I came across this post UINavigationController should call viewWillAppear/viewWillDisappear methods
And realized that my second navigation controller did redefine viewWillAppear. Screening the code showed that I was not calling
[super viewWillAppear:animated];
I added it and it worked !
The documentation says:
If you override this method, you must call super at some point in your implementation.
I've been using a navigation controller. When I want to either descend to another level of data or show my custom view I use the following:
[self.navigationController pushViewController:<view> animated:<BOOL>];
When I do this, I do get the viewWillAppear function to fire. I suppose this qualifies as "indirect" because I'm not calling the actual addSubView method myself. I don't know if this is 100% applicable to your application since I can't tell if you're using a navigation controller, but maybe it will provide a clue.
Firstly, the tab bar should be at the root level, ie, added to the window, as stated in the Apple documentation. This is key for correct behavior.
Secondly, you can use UITabBarDelegate / UINavigationBarDelegate to forward the notifications on manually, but I found that to get the whole hierarchy of view calls to work correctly, all I had to do was manually call
[tabBarController viewWillAppear:NO];
[tabBarController viewDidAppear:NO];
and
[navBarController viewWillAppear:NO];
[navBarController viewDidAppear:NO];
.. just ONCE before setting up the view controllers on the respective controller (right after allocation). From then on, it correctly called these methods on its child view controllers.
My hierarchy is like this:
window
UITabBarController (subclass of)
UIViewController (subclass of) // <-- manually calls [navController viewWill/DidAppear
UINavigationController (subclass of)
UIViewController (subclass of) // <-- still receives viewWill/Did..etc all the way down from a tab switch at the top of the chain without needing to use ANY delegate methods
Just calling the mentioned methods on the tab/nav controller the first time ensured that ALL the events were forwarded correctly. It stopped me needing to call them manually from the UINavigationBarDelegate / UITabBarControllerDelegate methods.
Sidenote:
Curiously, when it didn't work, the private method
- (void)transitionFromViewController:(UIViewController*)aFromViewController toViewController:(UIViewController*)aToViewController
.. which you can see from the callstack on a working implementation, usually calls the viewWill/Did.. methods but didn't until I performed the above (even though it was called).
I think it is VERY important that the UITabBarController is at window level though and the documents seem to back this up.
Hope that was clear(ish), happy to answer further questions.
As no answer is accepted and people (like I did) land here I give my variation. Though I am not sure that was the original problem. When the navigation controller is added as a subview to a another view you must call the viewWillAppear/Dissappear etc. methods yourself like this:
- (void) viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
[super viewWillAppear:animated];
[subNavCntlr viewWillAppear:animated];
}
- (void) viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated
{
[super viewWillDisappear:animated];
[subNavCntlr viewWillDisappear:animated];
}
Just to make the example complete. This code appears in my ViewController where I created and added the the navigation controller into a view that I placed on the view.
- (void)viewDidLoad {
// This is the root View Controller
rootTable *rootTableController = [[rootTable alloc]
initWithStyle:UITableViewStyleGrouped];
subNavCntlr = [[UINavigationController alloc]
initWithRootViewController:rootTableController];
[rootTableController release];
subNavCntlr.view.frame = subNavContainer.bounds;
[subNavContainer addSubview:subNavCntlr.view];
[super viewDidLoad];
}
the .h looks like this
#interface navTestViewController : UIViewController <UINavigationControllerDelegate> {
IBOutlet UIView *subNavContainer;
UINavigationController *subNavCntlr;
}
#end
In the nib file I have the view and below this view I have a label a image and the container (another view) where i put the controller in. Here is how it looks. I had to scramble some things as this was work for a client.
Views are added "directly" by calling [view addSubview:subview].
Views are added "indirectly" by methods such as tab bars or nav bars that swap subviews.
Any time you call [view addSubview:subviewController.view], you should then call [subviewController viewWillAppear:NO] (or YES as your case may be).
I had this problem when I implemented my own custom root-view management system for a subscreen in a game. Manually adding the call to viewWillAppear cured my problem.
Correct way to do this is using UIViewController containment api.
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
// Do any additional setup after loading the view.
UIViewController *viewController = ...;
[self addChildViewController:viewController];
[self.view addSubview:viewController.view];
[viewController didMoveToParentViewController:self];
}
I use this code for push and pop view controllers:
push:
[self.navigationController pushViewController:detaiViewController animated:YES];
[detailNewsViewController viewWillAppear:YES];
pop:
[[self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:YES] viewWillAppear:YES];
.. and it works fine for me.
A very common mistake is as follows.
You have one view, UIView* a, and another one, UIView* b.
You add b to a as a subview.
If you try to call viewWillAppear in b, it will never be fired, because it is a subview of a
iOS 13 bit my app in the butt here. If you've noticed behavior change as of iOS 13 just set the following before you push it:
yourVC.modalPresentationStyle = UIModalPresentationFullScreen;
You may also need to set it in your .storyboard in the Attributes inspector (set Presentation to Full Screen).
This will make your app behave as it did in prior versions of iOS.
I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think that adding a view to the view hierarchy directly means calling -addSubview: on the view controller's view (e.g., [viewController.view addSubview:anotherViewController.view]) instead of pushing a new view controller onto the navigation controller's stack.
I think that adding a subview doesn't necessarily mean that the view will appear, so there is not an automatic call to the class's method that it will
I think what they mean "directly" is by hooking things up just the same way as the xcode "Navigation Application" template does, which sets the UINavigationController as the sole subview of the application's UIWindow.
Using that template is the only way I've been able to get the Will/Did/Appear/Disappear methods called on the object ViewControllers upon push/pops of those controllers in the UINavigationController. None of the other solutions in the answers here worked for me, including implementing them in the RootController and passing them through to the (child) NavigationController. Those functions (will/did/appear/disappear) were only called in my RootController upon showing/hiding the top-level VCs, my "login" and navigationVCs, not the sub-VCs in the navigation controller, so I had no opportunity to "pass them through" to the Nav VC.
I ended up using the UINavigationController's delegate functionality to look for the particular transitions that required follow-up functionality in my app, and that works, but it requires a bit more work in order to get both the disappear and appear functionality "simulated".
Also it's a matter of principle to get it to work after banging my head against this problem for hours today. Any working code snippets using a custom RootController and a child navigation VC would be much appreciated.
In case this helps anyone. I had a similar problem where my ViewWillAppear is not firing on a UITableViewController. After a lot of playing around, I realized that the problem was that the UINavigationController that is controlling my UITableView is not on the root view. Once I fix that, it is now working like a champ.
I just had this problem myself and it took me 3 full hours (2 of which googling) to fix it.
What turned out to help was to simply delete the app from the device/simulator, clean and then run again.
Hope that helps
[self.navigationController setDelegate:self];
Set the delegate to the root view controller.
In my case problem was with custom transition animation.
When set modalPresentationStyle = .custom viewWillAppear not called
in custom transition animation class need call methods:
beginAppearanceTransition and endAppearanceTransition
For Swift. First create the protocol to call what you wanted to call in viewWillAppear
protocol MyViewWillAppearProtocol{func myViewWillAppear()}
Second, create the class
class ForceUpdateOnViewAppear: NSObject, UINavigationControllerDelegate {
func navigationController(_ navigationController: UINavigationController, willShow viewController: UIViewController, animated: Bool){
if let updatedCntllr: MyViewWillAppearProtocol = viewController as? MyViewWillAppearProtocol{
updatedCntllr.myViewWillAppear()
}
}
}
Third, make the instance of ForceUpdateOnViewAppear to be the member of the appropriate class that have the access to the Navigation Controller and exists as long as Navigation controller exists. It may be for example the root view controller of the navigation controller or the class that creates or present it. Then assign the instance of ForceUpdateOnViewAppear to the Navigation Controller delegate property as early as possible.
In my case that was just a weird bug on the ios 12.1 emulator. Disappeared after launching on real device.
I have created a class that solves this problem.
Just set it as a delegate of your navigation controller, and implement simple one or two methods in your view controller - that will get called when the view is about to be shown or has been shown via NavigationController
Here's the GIST showing the code
ViewWillAppear is an override method of UIViewController class so adding a subView will not call viewWillAppear, but when you present, push , pop, show , setFront Or popToRootViewController from a viewController then viewWillAppear for presented viewController will get called.
My issue was that viewWillAppear was not called when unwinding from a segue. The answer was to put a call to viewWillAppear(true) in the unwind segue in the View Controller that you segueing back to
#IBAction func unwind(for unwindSegue: UIStoryboardSegue, ViewController subsequentVC: Any) {
viewWillAppear(true)
}
I'm not sure this is the same problem that I solved.
In some occasions, method doesn't executed with normal way such as "[self methodOne]".
Try
- (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
[self performSelector:#selector(methodOne)
withObject:nil afterDelay:0];
}
You should only have 1 UIViewController active at any time. Any subviews you want to manipulate should be exactly that - subVIEWS - i.e. UIView.
I use a simlple technique for managing my view hierarchy and have yet to run into a problem since I started doing things this way. There are 2 key points:
a single UIViewController should be used to manage "a screen's worth"
of your app
use UINavigationController for changing views
What do I mean by "a screen's worth"? It's a bit vague on purpose, but generally it's a feature or section of your app. If you've got a few screens with the same background image but different overlays/popups etc., that should be 1 view controller and several child views. You should never find yourself working with 2 view controllers. Note you can still instantiate a UIView in one view controller and add it as a subview of another view controller if you want certain areas of the screen to be shown in multiple view controllers.
As for UINavigationController - this is your best friend! Turn off the navigation bar and specify NO for animated, and you have an excellent way of switching screens on demand. You can push and pop view controllers if they're in a hierarchy, or you can prepare an array of view controllers (including an array containing a single VC) and set it to be the view stack using setViewControllers. This gives you total freedom to change VC's, while gaining all the advantages of working within Apple's expected model and getting all events etc. fired properly.
Here's what I do every time when I start an app:
start from a window-based app
add a UINavigationController as the window's rootViewController
add whatever I want my first UIViewController to be as the rootViewController of the nav
controller
(note starting from window-based is just a personal preference - I like to construct things myself so I know exactly how they are built. It should work fine with view-based template)
All events fire correctly and basically life is good. You can then spend all your time writing the important bits of your app and not messing about trying to manually hack view hierarchies into shape.

Resources