Sorry if this is a really silly question but I'm new to iOS. I'm trying to do this:
The table cells are static as the content shouldn't change (the options are the same all the time). I also need to place the submit and cancel buttons below and replace the red background with an image.
My problem is, I get the error saying:
static table views are only valid when embedded in uitableviewcontroller
So my question is, how would I embed a table inside my view, like any other element?
Thanks in advance for any help :)
There are two relatively simple options to build a screen like that:
Make your controller a `UITableViewController, add two sections to the bottom of your static part, and put custom cells with buttons into these two sections, or
Define the static content of your table in code.
The look of your screen will change slightly for option 1, but it is important only when you have many cells, forcing the sections with buttons off the screen until the user scrolls.
The second option requires writing some code, but not too much to cause you too much inconvenience.
Related
New to Swift. I am trying to write a recipe-sharing app for fun. One of the features is to let users create a new recipe. On this page, users should be able to give an intro to the recipe to be created, upload an image THEN add a LIST of ingredients dynamically (as we have no idea how many ingredients in total beforehand).
I have created a UIViewController, which includes a UIViewTable, an image view and a "add another ingredient" button. I have created a class for the ingredient. And when the "add" button is pressed, a new "Ingredient" cell will be added to the table. However, I found that adjusting the UIViewTable height dynamically is quite hard.
I want my table to adjust its height according to the number of cells (rows). I haven't found much useful info online.
Or maybe I should've not even used this structure. Instead, just use UITableController (The entire page is a table)? But I got confused that some of the elements (image view, submit a recipe button, recipe-intro textfield etc) will be only created once. Why do I bother making them as prototype cells and add them to my view programmatically?
Thanks in advance!
First of all, welcome to Swift!
You put a few questions together, I will try to answer them one by one. Let's start with the simple stuff.
Don't try to change the height of UITableView based on the number of items. If you want to achieve similar functionality, take a look at UIStackView. Set fixed size for the tableView, ideally with constraints using auto layout.
UITableView is supposed to fill specified space and scroll items inside or show cell on top if there are not enough cells to cover all space.
UITableView is highly optimized to scroll over huge amount of cells as the cells are reused on the background. If you are new to the iOS world, take a look at this function https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uitableviewcell/1623223-prepareforreuse it can save you hours of debugging (I have been there)
UITableView vs UITableController
UITableController can save you a few lines of code, but using UITableView inside of UIViewController can give you more freedom and save you refactoring if your app is likely to change in the future. There is no specific advantage of UITableController
If you want to provide the extra elements (image view, submit button, text field etc), you can use several methods and this is where the UIViewController with your own UITableView comes in handy.
You can put some buttons, like a plus icon or "Done" button into the navigation bar, as the native Calendar app does.
You can put the static content (intro text field, image view) above the table view (visible always). Use constraints to place the static content on the viewController.view and constraint the table view under your static content. The table view will take less space on the view keeping the space for your content.
Insert your static content as a table view header (will scroll out with the content). Search "HeaderView" here on stack overflow to see how to achieve that.
Place your content over the tableView. If your button is small (rounded), you can place it over the tableView, eg. Twitter uses this for a new tween button.
Hope this answer your questions. Cheers!
I'm currently creating an update of my iOS application and I'm a bit stuck. I've tried to googling around but cannot find a decent answer on this.
I've a menu which links to different views. And I'm not really sure if I've done it the best method.
I've created a view, and added the links into a stack view. Should I considering changing it all to a tableview? or a collection view? Or maybe there's another way?
The current look:
Should I change this to a tableview? collection view? or something else? Or just let it stay as it is?
If the number of items in your menu changes at runtime and is large, you should use a table view, because a table view is good for efficiently displaying a screen's worth of items from a large list of items.
If the contents of your menu is small (under maybe two screenfuls of items) and fixed at compile time and you are using a storyboard, then you could use a table view with static cells, if you can make it look the way you want.
If the contents of your menu is small, then you can use a stack view (inside a scroll view) if that is easier for you. There is no particular advantage to using a table view over a stack view to display a small amount of content, unless you need other features of the table view (like the ability to select/deselect rows).
Based on the screen shot you posted, I'd either use a table view with static cells (since the screen shot is from a storyboard) or a stack view, depending on whether I can get the appearance I want from a table view. If, as in the screen shot, the buttons must be centered vertically, I'd use a stack view, because it's easier to vertically center the content with a stack view.
Look, the fact of have many itens on your screen is clear on the mobile applications, to make it easy, we have collecions view like UITableView and UICollectionView. On the UITableView's case, this implements the scrolling and have methods do handle the operations' list, you can see the documentation to check these methods: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uitableview.
Main reasons to use UITableView
Implements scroll behavior.
Independent of size screen you can access all itens.
Easy to detect interactions like tap on cell.
Easy to make changes, like insert and remove content.
The UITableView exists precisely to solve problems like you has.
I have to build a tableView with a top bar "slider" like the one in the youtube app in the picture below.
I just wanted to ask if it's better to:
Use just one tableView and switch the content by changing some switches in the delegates methods and reloading all the rows
or
Use two tableViews and hide the one that's not displayed
If none of the two methods above is the best one please point me in the right direction, thank you.
Option 1 :
Take a UISegmentView on the top and have a single UITableView. Change the content of UITableView on valueChange event of segment.
Option 2 :
Have look at this awesome library by Yalantis - Segmentio. I have myself used this on couple of occasions. Handy when you have to horizontally scroll the segments (exactly what you need in your case). You can have a single UITableView for this as well.
Option 3 :
Check out another useful library by Yalantis - Persei. Just hard scroll the table to see these options. Again, single UITableView.
In all, the best solution, in my opinion is to have a single UITableView. Working with multiple tableView might seem a clean way for a start, but trust me, maintainability is the key and having a single UITableView would be a better approach.
I am wondering what is the best practice for creating a page in storyboard that consist of multiple object (It can be imageView, View, label, etc). Look at this image, I feel ridiculous adding new object under the bottom view that is outside the page view.
I know a little how to arrange view with relativeLayout etc in Android. But how can I arrange this page with storyboard and autolayout? I want to arrange a page that consist of multiple object with different size. This maybe a stupid question, but I mean it a lot for me as a newbie developer. Thank you.
Its hard to say without knowing more about what you are trying to do.
It looks to me like it might be a good candidate for using a UITableView. You'd create a table view and add cells for each of the items that you want.
You could also create a scroll view and install the items on the scroll view, either through custom code, or with AutoLayout if there are a fixed number of items.
You could also use a UICollectionView if you need a layout other than a vertical scrolling list of items.
Edit your question with more details on what you're trying to do if you want more specific help.
I'm writing a app that contains quite a bit of input fields for collecting data.
and im wondering what are some good methods to display these kind of input fields, if there are too many to fit on a screen? so something like the add contact screen... where u can scroll down and there are fields there
my initial idea is to put them in a scroll view and then i can scroll through them, is there a tutorial to do this? it seems like the scroll view is more for dynamically displaying data like a text view, and not for static forms like i was describing.
if anyone has any different methods for doing this please post.
UITableview will match perfectly for what you need.
My friend wrote this which is a container view that automatically helps with moving fields out of the way of the keyboard - It will certainly save you some time if you don't want to use a UITableView:
https://github.com/mackross/GTKeyboardHelper
The other way as H2CO3 suggested is to use a UITableView. If it is a UITableViewController, then you get the moving out of the keyboards way automatically. You could build custom table view cells that are styled to have a prompt and a UITextField for input. You can also set the selectionStyle to UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone to prevent these cells from highlighting when selected.
I think the third way is to do this with a UINavigationController (or a UIPageControl) and build a kind of wizard, where you go through various pages of related data. This might be the neatest way depending on how many fields you have and if you can group data into common sets (e.g. personal information, work information etc)
I had the same problem and found GTKeyboardHelper to be an easy way out.
After drag and drop the framework in your project, include the header file.
Download and open the example project, then drag the "Keyboard Helper" object from the objects section in the xib to the objects section in your project's interface builder.
Drag and drop all your views to be children of the "Keyboard Helper".