I have a Table View Controller that displays information using JSON. I want to change the styling of my app, and I don't want it to have that "table" view that it has now. Whats the easiest way to change my Table View Controller to a regular View Controller, the biggest problem I have is that the code uses a tableView and I dont know how to get it to work as a regular view controller.
I using a Storyboard with a TableViewController thats linked to a controller called UpcomingReleasesViewController.
I want my app:
To look like this:
My original answer was assuming you just wanted to convert from a UITableViewController to a UIViewController. Looking at your screen snapshots, I infer you really want to switch from a UITableViewController to a UICollectionViewController (which is an iOS 6 feature than allows you to do precisely what you want).
In that case, change your base class to UICollectionViewController, and replace your UITableViewDataSource methods with UICollectionViewDataSource methods. And then redesign your scene using a Collection View Controller.
See the Collection View Programming Guide for more information. Or see WWDC 2012 sessions Introducing Collection Views or Advanced Collection Views and Building Custom Layouts.
If you need to support iOS versions prior to 6, then you have to do this collection view style coding yourself manually, putting your image views on a scroll view and using a standard UIViewController. It require more effort than using a collection view, but can be done.
Original answer:
If this view controller will have a table view on it, but you just want to add more controls to the scene? If so, just change the view controller's base class from UITableViewController to UIViewController, create the new scene, add a table view to it, and specify the table view's delegate and data source to be the view controller:
Also, make sure you define an IBOutlet for your table view (and if you call it tableView, that will minimize any coding changes needed).
If you do that, you can quickly convert a UITableViewController based controller to a UIViewController with minimal code changes.
If you're looking to make something like your new UI mockup, look into UICollectionView. You'll see many of the same concepts (i.e. dataSource, delegate method signatures are similar) that are used in UITableViews used in the collectionView API.
Related
I am quite comfortable in using UICollectionView inside a UIViewController.
I have never used UICollectionViewController before.
I was wondering, is there any situation, where using UICollectionViewController is more appropriate?
In addition to the obvious -
setting your UICollectionView up for you
automatically marking conformation for necessary protocols like UICollectionViewDataSource & UICollectionViewDelegate
A UICollectionViewController gives you a few built in nice features that you otherwise have to do a lot of extra work to get right manually.
installsStandardGestureForInteractiveMovement
The default value of this property is true. When true, the collection view controller installs a standard gesture recognizer (based on a long-press gesture) to manage the reordering of views inside the collection view. The collection view’s data source must declare its support for reordering items by implementing the appropriate methods. Setting this property to false prevents the installation of this gesture recognizer.
useLayoutToLayoutNavigationTransitions
This property helps facilitate transitions between two or more collection view controllers using a navigation controller. When configuring your navigation controller, install a collection view controller as the root object on the navigation stack and set its value for this property to false. When the user selects an item that would require pushing a new collection view controller on the stack, set the value of this property for the new view controller to true. When you do that, the navigation controller performs an animated layout change between the contents of the two collection view controllers instead of the traditional push animation. Similarly, popping the topmost collection view controller off the stack animates back to the previous layout. The navigation controller drives the transition between the view controllers, including the ability to drive the transition interactively.
You must set the value of this property before pushing the collection view controller onto a navigation stack. Do not change the value of this property after the view controller is already on the navigation stack.
It's up to you if your case is a good candidate for using these features or not and based on that you can make the call.
UICollectionView inherits from UIScrollView (just another UIView)
UICollectionViewController inherits from UIViewController. and it implements some protocols. like UICollectionViewDelegate and UICollectionViewDataSource. it means everything is already done for you. and you just have to use it.. but as everything is already done for you. you may not be able to do some stuff. like resizing your collectionView.
if you want full control I recommend you to use your own UIViewController.. and add a UICollectionView as a subview.. so you can place it wherever you want and resize it.. don't forget to implement UICollectionView protocols for delegation and datasource.
You may change some properties with your View controllers. But when you use as part of its' controllers, you can't change it.
For example you Cant change UICollectionView Size of UICollectionViewController .
I want multiple UIViewControllers holding a UICollectionView to look the same in constraints, size and cells, including textFields and UIImageView inside the cells.
This is how I want my views to look (roughly):
How can I decide of a uniform layout for all Collections ? (If one is changed - all others should be changed too)
Two options depending on what you need:
You need one base UIViewContoller class that holds a collection view and search bar - let's call it CollectionViewController - and make other view controllers inherit from it. Then a change in the CollectionViewContoller will apply to the other controllers. Unfortunately this cannot be done in storyboards. You can look here: How to use single storyboard uiviewcontroller for multiple subclass - suggestions are to use either a xib file to make a view with the needed subviews or make the whole view controller in code.
Use only one view controller and change the data you load into it depending on what you need.
I am trying to create an app for iOS using Swift but running into problems with the very basics.
To keep it simple I just want the app to initially be a single view application with a button and some sort of list view on the page. I believe a TableView is what is recommended here. When I click the button, I just want it to populate the list/table view with some entries, that's it. To start with, I don't care if these entries are hard-coded, I just want to get something working.
I have been looking at different samples but I am getting confused. Some of them seem to suggest using a TableViewController others don't. When I use a tableview controller, the UI I had created seems to get completely replaced with just an empty tableview list and the button is gone.
I previously have developed apps in Windows phone and found it a lot easier. I'd just add a listview object and in the click method of button, add the items programmatically etc. But this is my first time trying to create an iOS app and it seems a lot more confusing. There are delegates, controllers, views all seemingly needed in order to do something very simple.
Can anyone give me some basic step by step instructions about how to add a tableview to an application and load some data into it through a button click?
Make sure you are clear about the difference between a view and a view controller.
iOS uses the MVC design pattern (Model View Controller).
A view object displays contents to the user and responds to user interaction.
A model object stores state data.
A controller object drives the app logic and mediates between the model and the view.
A UITableViewController is a special subclass of a UIViewController who's job is to manage a table view. It has some extra support in it that makes it a good choice for managing a table view, BUT... there is one annoying thing about it. It is designed so the ONLY view it can manage is a table view. You can't use a UITableViewController if you want to add buttons, labels, and other UI elements to your screen outside of the table view.
What I usually do is to create a create a table view controller, create a separate regular view controller, add a container view to the regular view controller, and then use an embed segue to embed the table view controller inside the view controller. (you just control-drag from the container view to the table view controller.) That way you get the best of both worlds. You may want to create a protocol that the table view controller would use to communicate with it's parent view controller.
You should be able to find a tutorial online on setting up a table view controller as a child of another view controller using container views and embed segues. It's quite easy.
I have a UIViewController with a UITableView that is fed with data from the local database. When the user first launches the app (after installing) the table view is empty and I display a UIView in the middle of the table view that contains a UIImage, a UILabel and a UIButton (a call to action).
The first version of this view I built programmatically, which was no good to me because every time I tweaked something I had to build the app again. Then I switched to the storyboard but had to drag a UIView to the middle of my tableView. It is working now but I don't like the way it is, I can't edit my table view cells without having to move the UIView out of the table view.
I'd like to have a way to build this view entirely separated from my tableView (or even from my view controller in question) and then reference it in the viewDidLoad call of my view controller.
Unfortunately Xcode does not allow us to drag views directly to the storyboard so I'm pretty lost here.
Please tell me if I haven't been clear enough. I appreciate any help you could give me.
UPDATE: It'd be particularly awesome to me if I could also create a custom Swift class for this view of mine and reference it in the storyboard. And then in my viewDidLoad I could simply instantiate my custom view.
Thanks in advance.
Create a XIB file in which you can drag a view (without a view controller).
In your code you can load the XIB using NSBundle.mainBundle().loadNibNamed("MyXibName", owner:self, options:nil).
In the XIB file you can give the UIView a custom class (like you can do with view controllers in storyboard).
You then of course have to retrieve the view from the array returned by loadNibNamed and cast it to your custom class.
I am using ECSlidingViewController, a library that gives a side-drawer effect. My application opens to a (navigation controller holding a) table view controller of 'Nearby' results, and the cells segue to a scroll view controller.
The hidden left menu is a table view controller (of different class) with a few options, 2 of which are other table view controllers that will use the same layout, cell prototypes, and detail scroll view as the table view seen on startup.
I would like to know if it would be better design to make a more generic tableView with some sort of property like an enum'd typeOfDisplay, which lets me conditionally manage different nuances like populating cells from server/CoreData, navbar titles, sort order, toggling auto-updating, editability, etc. - OR - if I should make a NavigationController->TableViewController->ScrollViewController for each different view controller (A 'Nearby', 'Featured', and 'Saved')
I'd like to reuse my table view because the cells/display/detail will be identical, but the methods for populating the table are different, and I don't want to make something that's difficult to modify.
Edits -
If you are familiar with table views inside tab-bar contollers, the implementation details should be nearly the same.
It's better to put view configuration into view controller. But there can be ways to reuse the configuration actions.
I have ran into the same situation like yours. And I decided to use Strategy Pattern to refactor my controllers. I put all the data related stuff into a TableDataManager class which conforms to the UITableViewDataSource and UITableViewDelegate protocols and I applied polymorphism to it to configure the data in cells and the appearance of the UITableView under different circumstances at runtime.
All the identical actions are implemented in TableDataManager, and nuances are overridden by subclasses of TableDataManager. By assigning a proper subclass of TableDataManager to a view controller, there is no need for you to copy and paste the identical cells/display/detail actions here and there.
That's my experiences. Hope it will help.
I would recommend you to use different view controllers for different datasources. It sounds good initially to put them all together in one place, but as time goes by, you may need to add different functionalities to each table view, and your view controller will be a horrible mess.