storyboards, InterfaceBuilders, 3.5 Vs 4 inch screen - ios

I am working on a UI that will live on different sizes of iPhone retina ( 3.5 and 4).
I am using storyboards, now in every viewcontroller I add in Interface builder, I can select the size under simulated metrics, and one option says retina iphone 3.5 screen. which is what I chose.
I then setup constraints for the view controller to maintain top and bottom space to superview. Thinking that with this setup it will work fine on iPhone 3.5, and then resize properly to iphone 4 inch screen.
its not working, do I have to resort to code and do this in viewdidload?

Switching from 3.5" to 4" screens is only made for you to take a look what changes with your layout, how is it resizing. Same goes for Portrait and Lanscape orientations in each viewController.
In order to use autoresizing behavior you have to use strurs and springs on ios5.
If your project's deployment target is ios6 it is recomended to use autolayout.Though it is a little bit more complex and hard to understand, especially using autolayout constraints in code, autolayout saves much time that you would spend to make dynamic things resize properly.

I use this same approach. It works well so lobg as you use autolayout correctly. Play around with the constraints and you'll learn quickly how yo do the layouts efficiently.

Related

Supporting all iphone sizes

I'm trying to create a iOS app, but I'm stuck on the layout.
I created the home view, but now I see that it's not shown in the right way in the 4S simulator.
I tried with size classes, but it looks like 4S and 6, for example, are in the same size class, and so I can't set a different dimension for views.
My goal is to support all devices, also iPads. Can someone please tell me how to do it?
Size classes mostly used for separation between ipad, apple watch and landscape modes.In potrait mode iphone 4 to iphone 6 all phone device sizes are in same class(regular height and compact width).Autolayout has many different constraints to help you to fit interfaces in same class.You should consider horizontaly/verticaly align, equal width and aspect ratio constraints.They are so flexible for smaller size changes and help you to design adaptive layout.
You should use "Reset to Suggested Constraints" for all views in your View controller. You can also check the simulated metrics for all devices without compiling the the code.
For 4s and 6 by default the size is Inferred. You should try resetting the constraints to check this for iPad as well.
I am just sharing an idea
Option1:
I think You can try adaptive Layouts and in file inspector->simulated Metrics->size-> Inferred. It works in all devices it supports both landscape and Portrait.
Option2: Go for Visual layouts they are easy to understand and they work perfect in all modes of Portrait.
I am think that you use code Instead design in main.storyboard !
for ex: create button with code
(and use Ratio in your code)
by this way i create small app for iPhone & iPad
!

Autolayout(xcode 6,swift)

In I phone 5s simulator its working fine! I have one label,one image view and one button.As you can click on the link and see the picture now so i tell you that I used my image view as a background and the label is in the middle and the button is in the lower middle so i want that to look same in all the devices. i don't know anything about constraints.I am using Xcode 6
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2z_d4wEKPEFLV9RNFVlR3A5SFppa0tJT2tiQkQwVVVVTDVz/view?usp=sharing
I suggest you to take a look at this youtube tutorial. I learned how to make the constrains by watching it. The tutorial teaches how to make the similar layout as you required.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpMzEmF-xZM
Hope this is helpful~
Autolayout is the tool used to make UI look similar across all devices, you should try to learn it if you want to continue to develop IOS apps. The concepts are pretty basic and are used throughout other languages.
This tutorial is useful if you want to create the auto layout using storyboards.
This tutorial is useful if you are making the view programmatically. I tend to use code for auto layout but it is just a preference, storyboards is fairly simple so I would suggest that. If you are going to do it in code a is to forget setting the autoresizing mask into constraints to false. You have to set this property on all the views you want to use auto layout for.
view2.setTranslatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints(false)
Background ImageView
Select Image ->Pin->Uncheck Constraints to margin-> select top,bottom,left,right.
Button
Select Button-> Pin->Uncheck Constraints to margin->select bottom,left,right,Height.
label
Select label->Align->Center horizontally and Center Vertically in Container.
Pin->Width,Height.
If it is working for iPhone 5 but not another layout then this is probably happening.
There are demensions in the centre of the lower tab bar of story boards
There are screen size settings in the story board and regular*regular is the only one that is universal to all orientations and sizes of the ios device. if you set constraints while viewing in regular by compact (landscape for 5.5 inch iPhone) then those constraints will only be apply to 5.5 inch iPhones in landscape and if you tried running on a smaller iPod it would be as if you never set the constraints. the constraints for the 5.5 inch iPhone would not apply to the small iPod
if constraints were made in compact by compact and you were viewing the story board in say regular by compact then you would get an error saying that things are misplace and will not appear in the same at runtime. view the storyboard in the same dimensions that you set the constraints and you should not have an issue.
There is an option to simulate the device you want to run on specifically in storyboard and it can be say only 5.5 inch iPhones or something, whatever device.
go to paul hegarty developing iOS apps with swift on iTunes you if you want to learn more. He is a good source.

UIViewController Size doesn´t work

Hi im currently developing an Universal app for iPhone, iPod and iPad. I have all view controllers in both storyboards set to Inferred. It works fine on iPhone Retina and on all iPads but when you put it in landscape mode it gets all messed upp and on the iphone 3,5 inch simulator the bottom gets cut off. How can i fix this? Do i have do create seperate view controllers for landscape mode and iphone 3,5? And the write some code that recognizes if its in landscape mode and iphone 4? I thought this worked automatically. Or have i done something wrong?
There is no quick fix/answer to your question.
Since the screen size is different while using horizontal and vertical orientations - it is simply not the same canvas and thus you will need to do some manual work to set it right.
Strategy 1.
Assuming your layout is simple - there are not too many elements and all elements can theoretically fit both horizontal and vertical screen size:
You should use auto layout from the Interface builder - Look at an excellent video from WWDC
https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/videos/
(video 406 - Taking Control of Auto Layout in Xcode 5)
In few words - you set spacers to your elements, aligning them to the end of your view (dynamically), therefore you can make your element shrink and move automatically respecting the current screen orientation.
Strategy 2.
Assuming your UI is complex and will not fit both orientations:
have a different xib file for horizontal and vertical views, this can take some time, but it is a solid solution that always looks good.
You simply need to track changes in orientation and load the appropriate xib.
Your problem will only be solved if you use Autolayouting and for that you need to go through some tutorials
Ray's Tutorial
Another Very well explained tutorial
Going through the above articles will definately help you in solving your problem

Fit an iOS application developed for 4 inch screen to 3.5 inch screen

I am writing my first iOS app and just realized a serious problem. I was using storyboard for a 4 inch iphone screen and forgot to take 3.5 inch screens into consideration. :( It seems that this could be relatively fixed easily if I have done everything in code. But unfortunately, I have used storyboard for some parts of my app. It seems that the table views are fit perfectly but the views with some fixed subviews fail. Could anyone please give me some suggestions on how to fix this? Any help is appreciated. Thank you very much!
This is exactly what auto layout exists for. You can create a UI, using storyboards, that works perfectly for both screen sizes. You can toggle a setting in the storyboard to have it display the two different screen sizes, so you can easily see how your views will move and resize. There is also a preview mode for the storyboard that lets you see how it will look. It also lets you see how it will look on both iOS 6 and iOS 7, so that you can make sure that your UI looks good on both assuming you still support iOS 6.
If you had done this in code, it would probably have been a whole lot more complicated, especially since you have to run it each time to see what changes when you adjust your code. Graphical layout tools such as Interface Builder (what allows you to view and edit storyboards and XIB files) make supporting multiple screen sizes very easy. Plus, generally it's not too hard to make a screen designed for a 4" screen work with a 3.5" screen, in some cases you just have to make things fit a little closer together, or perhaps have the content in a scroll view.

iOS storyboard layout

I am working on an app and have come into some graphical problems when designing my app.
First off, my app is only support by iPhone. My current storyboard is using the iPhone 5 as the screen size, so everything screws up when I try to run in iPhone 4 and 4S. Is there a way to make multiple storyboards for each different screen size? Or do you all have another solution?
Thanks!
- Brad
There is a way to make different storyboards for separate screen sizes, but another way to do it is like this:
Whenever you add objects to your views, be sure to have them aligned to something (using constraints). If all items are relative to other items, then most likely the layout will be fine on all devices. Also, if you find that your controls start overlapping, then perhaps you ran out of room. In that case simply add a scroll view to your layout, and then put the controls on top of it. Then, it won't scroll on the larger screens because all controls are shown, but on smaller devices it will allow you to scroll down to see the rest of the objects.
Good luck.
There is a small button in the lower right hand corner that lets you toggle between 3.5" and 4" screen sizes so you can see how it will look on different devices. By using Auto Layout introduced in iOS 6 you can make sure to set up your constraints so that your UI looks good on both older and newer iPhones.

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