Ios single xib with multiple views - ios

I've noticed that i can put in a single xib multiples UIView; the main view is associated with the file's owner, but how to reference other views in the xib?
My need: i've a xib view splitted with a fixed top part and a bottom part made by a tabbar with three tab buttons: by clicking each button i need to load a subview, so my idea is to put other sub-views in the same xib on other views and load them on demand. How to accomplish this?
Thanks

You can just create IBOutlets in your header files and associate them with the additional views, just like any other Interface Builder component (or even just ctrl-click and drag your views to your code, if you're working in XCode's automatic assistant mode).
For example, let's say you have a view controller called FooViewController, and a matching FooViewController.xib interface file:
#interface FooController : UIViewController
#property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UIView *additionalView;
#end
...and then you can just connect your additional view up to its corresponding outlet (which will appear in IB under the file owner). It's really no different to hooking up a UILabel or UIButton.
One thing to note though - you say "my idea is to put other sub-views in the same xib on other views and load them on demand". All the views inside your XIB file will actually get created at the same time, so it's not really loading on-demand. I doubt, unless you're doing something crazy, that this will be an issue for you in practice.

Related

IOS Custom UIView doesn't show

I'm sorry but i'm still a bit dumb in UIViews and creating a custom one.
I have a custom view and a xib file that are connected through the XIB IB.
I want to add this view to the storyboard.
What you see in this picture is an empty view which i've connected to the custom view class
When launching the app - i see the exact same view without my custom view being loaded.. what am i missing ?
It is not enough to just link your xib view to the storyboard through the view class name. You should copy the view from your xib (open your xib, select the root view and copy) to your storyboard view controller (select the parent view and paste). You can even open (double tap the xib file in the navigator) your xib in a new window and do a drag drop to the story board. Note that all the property wirings and constrains that you had defined in the xib will be retained when you copy paste your view from xib file.
The answer is actually pretty simple.
I had a recursive init process - meaning that although i did over initWithCoder method, in the xib file, i've set the view class to be my class.
What i should have done is to make my xib file's owner to be my class instead.
And then all the loadFromNibName worked perfectly in my initWithCoder!

Connect UIView in XIB and load it using View Controller in the Story board

I have a XYZViewController (simple UIViewController in storyboard) that is loaded up with the default view. I have a type XYZView for which I have UIView in a .xib file.
In the XYZViewController class, I have defined property for XYZView as an IBOutlet. What is tricky is I don't know how to connect this property to the UIViewController in storyboard (or UIVIew in .xib file) such that —
the IBOutlet is connected to the right UIView
the view in the xib becomes an added subview for the default view of the UIViewController.
(I under the question sounds dodgy and/or I may not have the very right way to explain it, but that's the best I could.)
EDIT: Further clarification may make it easier. I just don't want to myself say:
XYZView *xyzView = [[XYZView alloc] initWithFrame...];
or
[self.view addSubview:xyzView];
Maybe that helps.
OK, from what I tell you have the following...
XYZViewController
The code of this is in XYZViewController.h and .m files.
A .storyboard file
In the storyboard file you have a view controller that you have set the subclass to XYZViewController.
A .xib file
In the xib file you have a single view that you have defined as the subclass XYZView.
Right?
I'm guessing what you have done is the following...
In the .xib file you have laid out the XYZView and put labels, buttons, etc... on it.
The view controller is being created by the storyboard. But now you want to attach the labels and buttons to it.
Right?
If all this is correct then you have a couple of options.
The easiest option
Drop the xib file. Unless that XYZView is being used in multiple places in the app (i.e. inside different view controllers) then you should really be doing all of that layout in the storyboard. Add the buttons and labels to the XYZViewController in the storyboard.
This will then allow you to connect the IBOutlets and IBActions and it will all just work because the storyboard is creating and then setting the outlets and actions.
Next option
Because you have created the view in a xib file you have to load it from that xib file in code and then add it to you view controller.
Something like...
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];
self.xyzView = [[[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:#"XYZView" owner:self options:nil] objectAtIndex:0];
[self.view addSubview:xyzView];
}
Then you can do stuff like ...
self.xyzView.someLabel.text = #"This is the text";
You still won't be able to connect outlets and actions but that's because the view controller is not being created by the xib. It's being created by the storyboard.
This can get all messy though. I'd really only recommend creating a view in a separate xib if it's something that you reuse over and over (like a 5star rating view or something).
What you absolutely can't do
OK, I think I may have thought of what you are doing.
In the storyboard you have set the subclass of the view as XYZView and you are expecting it to pick up the labels and buttons etc... that you have defined in the xib file for XYZView.
This absolutely will not work, ever.
The storyboard and the xib are completely separate objects. If you want to use them together then code is involved in loading a view from a nib and then adding it to a view controller created in a storyboard.

Cannot create outlet connections to subviews in Interface Builder (Xcode 5)

I know this appears to be a duplicate of some other questions, but the answers are not working for me.
I have created a single view app.
In the storyboard I added a subview to my main view.
I have a label on my main view and another label on my subview.
I have created a class of type UIView and added it as the custom class for the subview.
I can ctrl-drag my label on my main view to the main view controller class. But when I try to ctrl-drag my label on my subview to my custom class, I cannot get the connection to occur.
I have even typed the property information and tried to make the connection manually to no avail.
Things have changed a bit in the latest version of Xcode's Interface Builder. Can somebody tell me what I am missing? There is literally no code here. I am just testing trying to connect outlets to a subview with a custom class.
The first image shows that I have set up the custom class and added a property but I cannot make the connection.
The second image shows the main view label is connected in the main view's controller.
The third image shows that there are no outlet connections for the subview's label.
You can manually write the IBOutlet property declaration in the #interface of the custom view subclass, and assuming you've defined the base class of your subview in IB, then you can drag from the outlet circle in the code back to the control in the scene.
Or, as you point out, Warren Burton suggested both this technique and another in his answer to this other question, Can't Wire to Subview in IB.
The issue has to do with the File Owner of the View Controller. It is probably set up as being IOViewController, thus you can only make property connections in that .h file.
What you can do, is create another .nib file for the subview and put the subview in there. Then in that .nib file, make the file owner IOSubview. Property connections will work just fine there. Then just add the subview to your IOViewController programatically. Just remember to load the nib file from bundle first.
This is what I did (in Swift):
I Created a new ViewController (e.g. class MyViewController: UIViewController {})
In StoryBoard, I expanded the 'Scenes' (i.e. the tree view of all UI components) and selected 'MyViewController'
Using the 'identity inspector' I assigned the 'MyViewController' class (as oppose to the default UIViewController)
After that I was able to assign an action.
I suspect that for Obj-C it is similar process.
You don't create outlets in the subclass, you create the outlet on the view controller it is on. You need to #import the subclass into IDViewController.h and create an outlet there.
IDViewController.h
#import "IDSubclass.h"
...
#property (strong, nonatomic) IBOutlet IDSubclass *outletName;
Zoom your storyboard to 100%. If you zoom out, to say 50%, then the outlet connection won't work.

How to connect UIView outlets to a custom subview

I'm still new to xcode / iOS and have the following problem:
in order to display some mobile debug information, I have a UIview added/connected as outlet-property to one of my Viewcontroller. This view is a custom subclass of UIview. Now I addeddd some UIlabels as sub views to this view and want to drag the outlet connections from these labels to my customUIview.h file in order to have these labels accessible as properties of my custom UIview class (no need to access them directly from the view Controller).
Problem is that the interface builder (I'm using Storyboards/ xcode4.3) does not make the trick. I can connect the outlets to the ViewControllerClass.h but not to my sub view's .h file.
Can anyone point out where the problem is?
Just solved the problem. After typing the property outlet declarations manually in the customview.h file I could ctrl-drag-connect them from there to their corresponding UIlabel objects in the interfacebuilder. Works only in this direction!
Thanks anyway
Update your custom view class from "UIView" to your "Custom View" class in interface builder.
And now you can make connections just by ctrl+drag your buttons or textfield to your appropriate custom class.
Problem solved! Due to an interesting SO post from three years ago (about connecting to subviews of UIView), I discovered that one merely drags (not Ctrl_drag!) from the action or outlet circle (in the .h file) to the control and that's it. Works perfectly even when the controls are in a different view from the subclassed UIView. Works equally well with outlets as with actions though you always drag away from the circle.

Custom UIView in Storyboard

I can't work out if I am doing this with complete retardation or not.
I would like to add a custom view to my view controller in my storyboard.
I drag a view object on to the VC and set the class to my custom view class.
I would like to then have a xib file associated with this class so that I can design a user interface for this class separately from the storyboard.
The solutions which seem to be hacks referenced on stack overflow (adding the xib as a view in initwithCoder) have not worked for me, and the prospect of programatically aligning a load of images and labels when dragging and dropping would be so much easier really frustrates me.
Is there some easier method I'm missing, what is everybody else doing?
Thanks,
Alan
With storyboard there is no xib file
hack your items to .h
press ctrl and drag a link to viewcontroller -at the bottom of ur viewcontroller in storyboard, or link it to your .h file and name it

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