Why is my ViewController being removed from NavigationController.ViewControllers collection - ios

I am navigating between screens in my iOS application.
BaseView.NavigationController.ViewControllers
As I switch screens, I keep a reference to the previous screen in a static variable.
At some point, one of my items gets removed from BaseView.NavigationController.ViewControllers even though it's still a valid viewcontroller and IsLoaded is still set to True/YES.
When I use (pardon my C#/MonoTouch)
BaseView.NavigationController.PopToViewController(CurrentViewController,false);
to show it again, I get NSInternalInconsistencyException Reason: Tried to pop to a view controller that doesn't exist. This is understandable because it's no longer in the ViewController collection.
The way I am switching screens is I am keeping a reference to he various screens and calling a common method to show the screen. In that method I use this logic to determine if I should push or pop.
if (CurrentViewController.IsViewLoaded)
{
BaseView.NavigationController.PopToViewController(CurrentViewController,false);
}
else
{
BaseView.NavigationController.PushViewController(CurrentViewController,true);
}
My question is where did it go and why would it have been removed from ViewControllers collection and when it's StillLoaded=true/YES?

If I understand correctly, you're using NavigationController.PopToViewController(controller); to navigate back to a certain view controller but keep a reference of the View Controllers that are popped from the navigation stack.
What I think is happening is because you're keeping a reference to these View Controllers, they're still in memory and thus the IsViewLoaded property is still true despite the View Controller not actually existing on the navigation stack.
Rather than using the IsViewLoaded property, you should check whether the View Controller exists in the NavigationController.ViewControllers array, if it does then Pop to it, if it doesn't then push it.
E.g.
if (BaseView.NavigationController.ViewControllers.Contains(CurrentViewController))
{
BaseView.NavigationController.PopToViewController(CurrentViewController,false);
}
else
{
BaseView.NavigationController.PushViewController(CurrentViewController,true);
}
Edit
So you mention you'd like a view to persist on the navigation stack. Well, using PopToViewController will remove ALL View Controllers between the TopViewController and the specified Controller.
In order to achieve what you're wanting, you could directly manipulate the NavigationControllers.ViewControllers array. Only problem with this is you'll lose the nice animations that the Push/Pop methods provide.
// Changes order of View Controllers currently in the stack. You can also add/remove
// controllers using this method.
NavigationController.ViewControllers = new UIViewController[]{
NavigationController.ViewControllers[1],
NavigationController.ViewControllers[0],
NavigationController.ViewControllers[3],
NavigationController.ViewControllers[2]};

Related

How to access previous view controller from a dismiss command

Throughout my app I use a navigation controller to push and pop my view controllers. When I pop from one ViewController, I check to see if I can reload the data in the previous one with this:
_ = self.navigationController?.popViewController(animated: true)
if let previousViewController = self.navigationController?.viewControllers.last as? AnimalsVC {
previousViewController.tableView.reloadData()
}
This works every time, but now I need to do the same with another view, but it's not apart of the navigation controller because I modally present (instead of pushing it to the navigation controller). Now there's no way I can access the previous ViewController like before and I can not figure out how to access the previous ViewController.
How can I access the previous ViewController to reload the tableview like the example code without accessing the navigation controller?
I know this is possible with notifications, but I prefer not to use that method if possible!
First of all, It's not necessary to access the previous ViewController to reload tableview(or any other func)
I recommend you to use Delegate to achieve the same feature.
Holding a reference to the previous viewController in the way you mentioned will make your app very hard to maintain when your app gets more complicated.
You can call tableview.reloadData() in viewWillAppear method in the controller that you present modally

Determine when leaving a view controller that it's not a segue

I'm trying to save some data upon user leaving this specific view controller (either by hitting nav back button or different tab bar button or exiting the app). However, there is one segue going forward, in this case I don't want to save the data yet, it will get saved on the next view controller with additional data.
How can I determine in viewWillDisappear: (or anywhere else) that user is leaving the view controller, but differentiate that it is not through the segue? I've looked at self.isBeingDismissed() and self.isMovingFromParentViewController() and I can't seem figure out a good solution. Any insight is greatly appreciated, thanks!
You might want to try this method instead of viewWillDisappear-
fun willMoveToParentViewController(parent : UIViewController?)
{
super.willMoveToParentViewController(parent);
if parent == nil {
//This means the current controller is getting popped out of the nav stack
}
}
Documentation:
Called just before the view controller is added or removed from a
container view controller.
Since navigation controller is a container controller, when it removes the top most controller, it should call this method with parent value as nil.
HTH

Conventional way to implement master-detail view controllers in iOS

I just have a quick question about recommended ways to implement a master-detail view hierarchy in iOS--the kind where selecting a row in a table on one screen pushes a details view for that item onto the navigation stack.
Specifically, should I reuse the same instance of the details view controller and just change its target and reload it each time, or should I instantiate a new instance of the view controller each time?
I'd prefer the first method, as it just seems generally more efficient, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to set the target and do the reload (especially the first time, when the view controller has not yet even been initialized--I'm using storyboards and that pretty much handles all of the initialization itself).
Or perhaps instead of setting the target on the child view controller, I could set it on the parent, such that each time the child view controller is shown, it reloads itself based on the parent selection? That actually sounds like the best bet so far, just looking for tips/warnings from anyone who's run into this before.
First, there's nothing wrong with creating a new view controller each time. If you use segues, that's what you'll get, since segues always instantiate new controllers. The detail controller will be deallocated when you pop or dismiss it anyway, so it won't persist.
If you want to use the same controller, you have to do your push or presentViewController in code. You can still setup the controller in the storyboard. Give it an identifier, but don't connect it up with a segue. In code, you check for the existence of your controller (you'll need a property for it), and if it doesn't exist, create it.
if (! self.detailController) {
DetailController *dvc = [self.storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:#"MyIdentifier"];
}
self.dvc.whateverProperty = self.somePropertyIWantToPass; // pass some date to it
[self.navigationController pushViewController:dvc animated:YES completion:nil];

IOS Navigation Non Heiarchical

I have an iOS app using iOS 5 and Xcode 4.3.2 that is made up of 7 view controllers. VC1 links to VC2, VC2 can link to VC3-VC7 and each of those controllers can link to each other (think of it as a side bar navigation). If I use segues the views are repeatedly added to the stack and if a user goes back and forth it can use a large amount of memory. How can I implement this navigation where I release the previous controller? They are all small controllers so loading them takes little time/processor/memory. Can I presentViewController and then release the presentingViewController somehow? Thanks.
If you implement a UINavigationController, you can use the push and pop view controller methods to go back and forth. popToViewController:animated: is described here, along with 3 other helpful methods.
Well seems like there should be no problem from VC1 to VC2. For the VC3 - VC7 you could:
Present as modalViewController instead of pushing that to the stack.
Or:
- Use the popToViewController:animated: function of your UINavigationController if the Controller is already present in the stack of controllers, otherwise push it. Like
// Assuming u need to push VC6
for(UIViewController *controller in [urNavController viewControllers]){
if([controller isKindOfClass:[VC6 class]])
{
[urNavController popToViewController:controller animated:YES];
}
else{
VC6 *VC6controller = [[VC6 alloc] init];
[urNavController pushViewController:VC6controller];
}
}
You could use UINavigationController's - (void)setViewControllers:(NSArray *)viewControllers animated:(BOOL)animated method to remove any view controllers below the topmost one. Since the navigation controller's viewControllers array is an immutable one, you could not use any NSMutableArray's removeObject... methods directly on the viewControllers array. You would have to make a mutableCopy into a mutable array, remove any (hidden) view controllers you wish to discard from the mutable array, and pass the resulting slimmed-down stack of view controllers to the above method. Since your topmost view controller would be unchanged, there would be no transition animation in your case (see discussion below), so you could also set the viewControllers property directly without bothering with the animated: argument.
From Apple's documentation:
Discussion
You can use this method to update or replace the current view controller stack without pushing or popping each controller explicitly. In addition, this method lets you update the set of controllers without animating the changes, which might be appropriate at launch time when you want to return the navigation controller to a previous state.
If animations are enabled, this method decides which type of transition to perform based on whether the last item in the items array is already in the navigation stack. If the view controller is currently in the stack, but is not the topmost item, this method uses a pop transition; if it is the topmost item, no transition is performed. If the view controller is not on the stack, this method uses a push transition. Only one transition is performed, but when that transition finishes, the entire contents of the stack are replaced with the new view controllers. For example, if controllers A, B, and C are on the stack and you set controllers D, A, and B, this method uses a pop transition and the resulting stack contains the controllers D, A, and B.

dismiss launched viewControllers and return to initial view controller (storyboards)

I've seen this question a couple of times but never really answered. I'm wondering if there is an acceptable/clean way to dismiss all launched view controllers and return to the initial view controller when using storyboards (say from an action within a spawned view controller).
I know how to use delegates, but, I'd prefer to not have my initial view controller implement delegates for every possible spawned view controller. Instead, I'd just like a home button that cleans everything up and returns to the initial view controller from anywhere in the app.
Thoughts?
EDIT: Just for clarity, assume I am NOT using UINavigation Controllers.
EDIT2: Is it possible to just access the methods of the "initial view controller" from anywhere in the app like you might do with the appDelegate?
This should do it at any point. Just stick it in an IBAction and hook it up to a button :)
[self.navigationController popToRootViewController];
I ended up using a singleton. Seems to work quite well.
On the initial load of the initial view controller, I set the view controller as the singleton's property. I can then execute the following code in any action method on any view controller in the app to dismiss all view controllers and return to the initial view controller.
initialViewControllerManager *ivcManager = [initialViewControllerManager sharedInstance];
LPViewController *ivc = ivcManager.initalViewController;
[ivc dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES];
May not be the "right" answer, but, seems to work. And, given the complexity of my scenes, relying exclusively on UINavigationControllers would be very complicated.

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