UIPageViewController with multiple XIBs - ios

I am building a book app using uipageviewcontroller for the new Ipad. Each page is intractable, for example there are sound files assigned to each page, by pressing a button it can be played.
My question is
I am using 20 xibs for the book, is it OK to use this much of xibs? or do I have to reuse the xibs?

If contents on each page are repeating then you definitely should reuse the same class or XIB connected to controller.
Even if you use different XIBs for each page then it should not be any issue to UIPageViewController but you have to make sure that when that page is dismissed then you are deallocating all the outlets connected to XIB files and other resources used in that page and you are not retaining that page object anywhere.
I hope that will make understand it properly.

Related

Best approach for 1 screen contains 2 view controller

I want to learn parent - child concepts in iOS. I found a some app in app store and I liked the their design. They have 3 button in same view controller when the user taps a button below view changes and calls their view controllers. Like a TabBar.
I tried to create 3 xib files. When the user taps the buttons they are awaking from nib and I added them to my containerView subview. It works. But I couldn't send a data between them because there is no prepare for segue method to so i couldn't prepared them.
I tried to create 3 viewController in Storyboard and I use them with the Storyboard ID. It works. But still can't transfer data between them.
I didn't understand what is the best approach for solve this problem ? I researched on the web about Custom Segues and Parent - Child concepts but I couldn't find anything.
What is the best approach for make a container like in the image ?
Thank you.
I am not sure if there is something like a best approach, at least in general term. It really depends on your specific demands and other logic of your app.
Both creating XIB files and creating ViewControllers in Storyboard together with their ID is ok. Here it is more about your preferred way. I would say that today you will probably see more using Storyboard than XIB files.
In terms of data transition. There are several ways, if it is not some very heavy logic then delegates can do it pretty well and easy.

How to see a particular view clearly amongst lots of overlapping UIViews

When a view controller (VC) has hordes of views and subviews it becomes very difficult to modify a subview because I can't even see it completely (it is hidden behind some other subview). For example please have a look at current state of one of my VC:
I can't see highlighted "Congratulations - UILabel" or its UIView.
Is there a way I can see a specific view clearly (may be at the top of all the other views)?
Generally I drag drop a UIView on a different dummy blank VC, design view completely on that VC with all constraints and finally drag drop it back to my actual VC. This works most of the times but it seems like an inefficient approach to me.
I've observed that seeing overlapping views used to be easier in iOS6 but it is Very difficult in iOS7. Is there any feature in iOS7 Interface Builder that I am missing? Thanks for your precious time.
Update: Would Spark Inspector help me here? I am newbie to development so don't want to waste my time trying and understanding new plugin if it doesn't help me achieve what I want. Thanks.
This is widely considered one of the weak points of Xcode's new Storyboards feature. They're great for apps that require a large number of simple controllers, but they become difficult to work with when your interfaces get complicated. Most experienced developers use Storyboards in some places and individual controller XIBs in others, depending on what they're building.
Here's how to solve your problem:
Step 1. Break the View Controller out of your Storyboard into it's own XIB
From the File menu, choose New File and choose an Empty XIB file (from the User Interface section). Name it "YourExactVCClassName.xib".
Go to your Storyboard. Copy the entire View of your View Controller and then delete it.
Paste the View Controller into your new XIB. Change the class of "File's Owner" to be your View Controller, and set it's "view" property by drawing an outlet from the view to File's Owner.
When your app runs, it will try to instantiate the view controller
from your storyboard. When it realizes there's no view in the
storyboard for that controller, it will automatically find the file
MyViewController.xib and load it from there.
Step 2. Organize the contents of your main view into detached views that make sense.
In your example above, it looks like you have different views for different states of the game (game over, high score, etc.) Take each of those and remove them from the main view. With your controller in it's own XIB file, you can just drag the view out in to the whitespace around your controller. Each view you drag out becomes a top level object in the XIB file that you can design and see easily.
You're no longer stuck with an iPhone-5-sized workspace.
Create IBOutlets for each of your detached, top level views so you can reference them in your controller.
In viewDidLoad, programmatically add each of the separate views to your main view. Note that you may want to set their frames, make some of them invisible, etc. You have to write more code, but it's generally worth it for an easily maintainable XIB.

Do I need multiple view controllers for the iPhone & iPad storyboards?

I'm still relatively unfamiliar with all the new features of iOS 5, and what I can do in Xcode now. So, a good explanation would be appreciated.
I'm designed a single-view application and I have both an iPhone and iPad storyboard. I chose 'Single View Application' when I first started, so Xcode created a ViewController for me. Both storyboards list this view controller as their own.
Back in iOS 4 the way that I linked button actions to my view controller was to Right-Click on the button on the nib, pick the action that I wanted, then drag it over into the view controller's '.h' file, which auto-created a method/property for me.
I am confused about how to accomplish this now, since I have multiple storyboards but only one view controller. Do I need to have multiple links for each button; one for the button on the iPhone and one for the iPad? Or is there a better way to accomplish what I am trying to do now?
You do it the same way you did it in iOS4. But obviously you never built an universal app there ;-)
It's totally okay to have a single UIViewController class for two different nib files.
And if you use storyboards it's fine to use different storyboards and a single viewController too.
You can even use the same viewController for different scenes inside a single storyboard.
The connections to the viewController are saved in the nib or storyboard. So you can't overwrite them while designing the other user interface.
Open the iPhone storyboard, make your connections to actions and outlets. Then open the iPad storyboard and make totally independent connections.
In response to the first reply, I was under the impression that a view controller could only support two scenes in a storyboard layout. I say that because I found this thread.

Xcode storyboard UIWebView won't load

So all I want to do is create an App that has two pages: one with a button that opens up a UIWebView in the second. It seems simple enough, yet I have spent the past two days trying to figure it out.
I create the object and put in the code for the link and ctr - drag the web-view to the controlview.h but nothing will work.
Does anyone know a tutorial or can explain this to me? I have been searching the web for the pat two days and have gotten nowhere. thank you.
Each "page" should be a separate view controller. You open the storyboard editor, drag a view controller to it, drag a web view to your new view controller, then drag a segue from the appropriate control on the first page to the second page.
You will also need to create a UIViewController class for the second page, and set the controller's identity in the storyboard editor. (Select the second controller, type command-option-3, enter the view controller's class name in the "Custom Class" section.)
In the second view controller you will need some code to make the webview do something, obviously, so you probably will want to create an outlet for the webview.
Maybe you should start out with this general guide on View Controllers. You'll learn how to use View Controllers and how to present Modal View Controllers.
After that you go on with the documentation about UIWebView.
If you do a quick search for UIWebView you'll find tons of tutorials, but basics are important :)
CONTROL+DRAG does not work on storyboard. When I click view and drag to UIWebView, it opens a black popup but I cannot see my web value. I just see "view".
It does not work on storyboard either. I tried it on xib and it works with that.

Using NIBs with a UIPageViewController

I am trying to use a UIPageViewController to create a book app. Each page currently has its own viewcontroller and Nib and has its own set of unique features. I am not using Storyboarding since there are over 40 pages to the book app.
I have had a hard time finding out how to use NIBS (with their view controllers) with UIPageViewController. The UIPageViewController will switch to the desired viewcontroller/NIB, but will then not respond to any of the UIPageViewController gestures.
Is there an example of using the UIPageViewController with NIBs that might help?
Any thoughts? Thanks for your help!
This was a very nice tutorial: http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/Implementing_a_Page_based_iOS_5_iPhone_Application_using_UIPageViewController
As an added bonus, it deals with Xcode 4.2 details, like de-selecting storyboard on project creation.
My guess is that you forgot to retain your UIPageViewController object. That happened to me the very first time too! The result is that the initial page(s) display but you don't get gestures, because the page view controller no longer exists. Stuff the page view controller into an instance variable with a strong/retain policy right after you obtain it.
Yes. You can use nibs with UIPageViewController. Without storyboarding. See this:
http://www.ioslearner.com/implementing-uipageviewcontroller-programatically-without-storyboarding/

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