Yesterday I posted this question so all of the code can be found there for the structure of my problem.
The Problem... This Time
I have come from other languages to OBJ-C and some of the OOP structures are making me cringe a little bit (I don't like packing every possible function into a single UIViewController as some seem to do). I was originally going to make a full page UITableViewController with an embedded NavigationController however the use cases of this project would not allow me to use the default navbar. So I had to put in my own navbar and use a regular UITableView (resized to be pretty much full screen) instead of the simpler option, the UITableViewController... (I am aware this all could be solved by using it, but I cannot)
Instead I have a regular UIViewController with a property containing my own custom TasksTableView.h subclass. The subclass extends UITableView as seen in the link I posted above.
The actual problem is that I cannot seem to Segue or change views from inside of this UITableView because every function which does so, seems to need to come from the UIViewController class.
I Have Tried
Calling a manual segue in the didSelectRowAtIndexPath method of my UITableView subclass.
[self performSegueWithIdentifier:#"profile" sender:sender];
Which produces an obvious error telling me that performSegueWithIdentifier does not exist on this class, which it doesn't so thats fine. Obviously it belongs to the UIViewController class that instantiated my UITableView sub class...
I have tried importing the view controller that actually renders and holds the property of my table view subclass itself and trying to push the view to the stack.
-(void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
UIStoryboard *storyboard = [UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:#"Main" bundle:nil];
UIViewController *target = [storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:#"SingleTaskViewController"];
AllTasksViewController *allTasksView = [[AllTasksViewController alloc] init];
if(target) {
[target setModalTransitionStyle:UIModalTransitionStyleCoverVertical];
[allTasksView presentViewController:target animated:YES completion:nil];
}
}
This gives me the error Warning: Attempt to present <SingleTaskViewController: 0x7fa15d5359f0> on <AllTasksViewController: 0x7fa15d5363c0> whose view is not in the window hierarchy!
... Even though it must be in the heirarchy because it is the view that contains and instantiated this UITableView.
I have also tried manually invoking the didSelectRowAtIndexPath from the UIViewController that holds the UITableView sub class but again it was the same kinda thing. It invoked, however obviously since I had to pass in the index, it is me picking it instead of the table telling me what was actually selected.
What I Want
I would really like to keep the UITableView sub class seperate from the UIViewController and not bring the delegate methods and protocols to the view controller. I would prefer to keep the logic separated. All I need is a way to segue or transition to the Single Task View in question and send some data with it about what was pressed.
There are good tutorials out there, but the basic idea is...
Main "ViewController" class - contains a Table View, and a "manual" Segue to a "Profile" View controller
Separate Datasource and Delegate classes for the table view
Custom Protocol / Delegate to send the "didSelectRow" action
When the main vc loads, it creates instances of the Datasource and Delegate classes, and assigns them to the table view.
It also "conforms to" a custom Protocol in the Delegate class. This allows the Delegate class to "call back" to the main vc when a row is tapped.
I put together a very simple example demonstrating this approach that can be seen here: https://github.com/DonMag/OCTableViewExample
I have MainVC than contains 2 tabs: FirstVC and SecondVC.
Then I tap on some of this taps I want to present below desired View/VC.
I am working on this project with Nib, so I have some confusion about it.
That object should I use here? View? How?
How I have MainVC with 2 View that hidden/shown based on tab.
In FirstVC I need to load tableView. In SecondVC - simpleView
So, can somebody give me some advices how to achieve this thing more cleverly?
You might want to use Container View Controllers, I blogged about that awhile back. (See http://www.notthepainter.com/container-view-controllers/)
Text pasted here for the future:
OS5 added something a lot of iOS developers have been needing, container view controllers. This lets you put a view controller inside another view controller. This is wonderful for countless reasons, but the one that draws me is reuse and abstraction.
I was working on a app which had 2 similar windows, they had a top part (body) and a footer. The top part was easy, they each had their own UIViewControllers. But when I went to add the footer to the second one I got to thinking DRY, I was repeating myself and that’s never a good idea. So I abstracted out a parent class and I went to put the footer code in and I got stuck, I wanted my footers to also be view controllers.
I remembered a talk I attended about new iOS5 features and container view controllers was mentioned. After a bit of googling around I had it.
- (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
[super viewWillAppear:animated];
// set up the footer contained view, this has nothing to do with table footers, this is below
// the tableview
//
FooterViewController *vc = [[FooterViewController alloc] initWithNibName:#"FooterViewController" bundle:nil];
vc.view.frame = self.footerFPOView.frame;
vc.delegate = self;
[self addChildViewController:vc];
[vc didMoveToParentViewController:self];
[self.view addSubview: vc.view];
}
Of course there are a few things to note. First, hooray, I’m loading my footer from a xib file. I’ve placed a UIVIew called footerFPOView in the outer view controller’s xib, this is a trick I use all the time. FPO stands for For Position Only and that lets me use interface builder for positioning. I communicate with a protocol, hence the delegate. And then I call addChildViewController to add it, and then I tell the new one that it has a new parent, and finally, add its view.
This is just a few lines of code yet the window should respond to both view controllers and respond to rotations.
I'm trying to update the interface contents of a ContainerView on iOS (UIViewController embedded in a UIView) from the UIViewController that it's being displayed in. However, the ContainerView just won't update its content.
The ContainerView and the ViewController are associated with different classes. I can pass data between the two View Controllers by using a few methods like these:
- (void)displayStringInContainer:(NSString *)string
The string gets successfully passed to the ContainerView from the ViewController, however when I try to display that string in an interface element - nothing happens (even though the code is getting called):
self.buttonName.titleLabel.text = string;
I've even tried calling setNeedsDisplay on the button, but nothing happens. Note that this is happening with all interface items.
Here's how I call the method on the ContainerView from my ViewController:
ContainerViewController *cvc = [[ContainerViewController alloc] init];
[cvc displayStringInContainer:#"Text"];
I've done quite a bit of searching, but haven't found anything (also tried to look on the Apple Dev Site, but it's been down for the past three days :P). Does anyone know how to update the content of a ContainerViewController from another ViewController? Why isn't this working? I've been scratching my head on this for a while now.
Alloc init'ing cvc is not the right way to get your reference -- that's a new instance, not the same instance as the one embedded in your view. You can access that instance in code from the parent controller with self.childViewControllers[0] (assuming you have only one container view). You can also get the reference by implementing prepareForSegue and use segue.destinationController (that will be your embedded controller).
What you seem to be missing in your understanding, is that the controller you get when you use a container view in the storyboard is a child view controller. It's the same as if you had called [self addChildViewController:whatever] in code and then added the child's view as a subview of your view.
I am trying to present a UIViewController inside a UIPopoverController. I've designed a view controller in Interface Builder, gave it a custom class (let's say MyAppTestViewController) and I'm trying to create a popover this way:
MyAppTestViewController *fxViewController = [MyAppTestViewController new];
self.fxPopover = [[UIPopoverController alloc] initWithContentViewController:fxViewController];
self.fxPopover.popoverContentSize = CGSizeMake(1024, 120);
[self.fxPopover presentPopoverFromBarButtonItem:_fxButton permittedArrowDirections:UIPopoverArrowDirectionDown animated:NO];
When I press the button, a popover is displayed at the correct place with the correct size, but it is empty. I've verified that the MyAppTestViewController's viewDidAppear method is being called (by NSLog), but the Popover's inside is empty:
Am I missing something?
I see that you mentioned in a comment that you're using a storyboard. So why not use a popover segue to your MyAppTestViewController? You could wire the segue directly to the Effects button on your toolbar. (Or, alternatively, call performSegueWithIdentifier: from your presenting view controller.) You might do a quick test by just throwing a UILabel into MyAppTestViewController right on the storyboard and seeing if it displays properly.
I think the problem is here:
MyAppTestViewController *fxViewController = [MyAppTestViewController new];
Generally you would use [[MyViewControllerClass alloc] initWithNibName:nil bundle:nil] (assuming you have a xib file with a matching name). I don't believe I have ever seen a view controller initialized with new. Everything in Objective-C is alloc-init.
Apple Docs: UIViewController Class Reference
Quote:
To initialize your view controller object using a nib, you use the
initWithNibName:bundle: method to specify the nib file used by the
view controller. Then, when the view controller needs to load its
views, it automatically creates and configures the views using the
information stored in the nib file.
EDIT:
Fascinating, well okay. It looks like you are right about the use of the new keyword, here is bit of an explanation of this.
So fine, that's not the problem. Have you tried breaking on the viewDidAppear method and using the debugger to print out the view properties, check its frame, check its superview, and so on, try to understand the problem better? You may already know how to do this, but the commands would be po self.view and so on.
In any case, I also found this, although it only goes into the mechanics of popover presentation and not content view assignment, which you seem to have down.
I've read numerous posts about people having problems with viewWillAppear when you do not create your view hierarchy just right. My problem is I can't figure out what that means.
If I create a RootViewController and call addSubView on that controller, I would expect the added view(s) to be wired up for viewWillAppear events.
Does anyone have an example of a complex programmatic view hierarchy that successfully receives viewWillAppear events at every level?
Apple's Docs state:
Warning: If the view belonging to a view controller is added to a view hierarchy directly, the view controller will not receive this message. If you insert or add a view to the view hierarchy, and it has a view controller, you should send the associated view controller this message directly. Failing to send the view controller this message will prevent any associated animation from being displayed.
The problem is that they don't describe how to do this. What does "directly" mean? How do you "indirectly" add a view?
I am fairly new to Cocoa and iPhone so it would be nice if there were useful examples from Apple besides the basic Hello World crap.
If you use a navigation controller and set its delegate, then the view{Will,Did}{Appear,Disappear} methods are not invoked.
You need to use the navigation controller delegate methods instead:
navigationController:willShowViewController:animated:
navigationController:didShowViewController:animated:
I've run into this same problem. Just send a viewWillAppear message to your view controller before you add it as a subview. (There is one BOOL parameter which tells the view controller if it's being animated to appear or not.)
[myViewController viewWillAppear:NO];
Look at RootViewController.m in the Metronome example.
(I actually found Apple's example projects great. There's a LOT more than HelloWorld ;)
I finally found a solution for this THAT WORKS!
UINavigationControllerDelegate
I think the gist of it is to set your nav control's delegate to the viewcontroller it is in, and implement UINavigationControllerDelegate and it's two methods. Brilliant! I'm so excited i finally found a solution!
Thanks iOS 13.
ViewWillDisappear, ViewDidDisappear, ViewWillAppear and
ViewDidAppear won't get called on a presenting view controller on
iOS 13 which uses a new modal presentation that doesn't cover the
whole screen.
Credits are going to Arek Holko. He really saved my day.
I just had the same issue. In my application I have 2 navigation controllers and pushing the same view controller in each of them worked in one case and not in the other. I mean that when pushing the exact same view controller in the first UINavigationController, viewWillAppear was called but not when pushed in the second navigation controller.
Then I came across this post UINavigationController should call viewWillAppear/viewWillDisappear methods
And realized that my second navigation controller did redefine viewWillAppear. Screening the code showed that I was not calling
[super viewWillAppear:animated];
I added it and it worked !
The documentation says:
If you override this method, you must call super at some point in your implementation.
I've been using a navigation controller. When I want to either descend to another level of data or show my custom view I use the following:
[self.navigationController pushViewController:<view> animated:<BOOL>];
When I do this, I do get the viewWillAppear function to fire. I suppose this qualifies as "indirect" because I'm not calling the actual addSubView method myself. I don't know if this is 100% applicable to your application since I can't tell if you're using a navigation controller, but maybe it will provide a clue.
Firstly, the tab bar should be at the root level, ie, added to the window, as stated in the Apple documentation. This is key for correct behavior.
Secondly, you can use UITabBarDelegate / UINavigationBarDelegate to forward the notifications on manually, but I found that to get the whole hierarchy of view calls to work correctly, all I had to do was manually call
[tabBarController viewWillAppear:NO];
[tabBarController viewDidAppear:NO];
and
[navBarController viewWillAppear:NO];
[navBarController viewDidAppear:NO];
.. just ONCE before setting up the view controllers on the respective controller (right after allocation). From then on, it correctly called these methods on its child view controllers.
My hierarchy is like this:
window
UITabBarController (subclass of)
UIViewController (subclass of) // <-- manually calls [navController viewWill/DidAppear
UINavigationController (subclass of)
UIViewController (subclass of) // <-- still receives viewWill/Did..etc all the way down from a tab switch at the top of the chain without needing to use ANY delegate methods
Just calling the mentioned methods on the tab/nav controller the first time ensured that ALL the events were forwarded correctly. It stopped me needing to call them manually from the UINavigationBarDelegate / UITabBarControllerDelegate methods.
Sidenote:
Curiously, when it didn't work, the private method
- (void)transitionFromViewController:(UIViewController*)aFromViewController toViewController:(UIViewController*)aToViewController
.. which you can see from the callstack on a working implementation, usually calls the viewWill/Did.. methods but didn't until I performed the above (even though it was called).
I think it is VERY important that the UITabBarController is at window level though and the documents seem to back this up.
Hope that was clear(ish), happy to answer further questions.
As no answer is accepted and people (like I did) land here I give my variation. Though I am not sure that was the original problem. When the navigation controller is added as a subview to a another view you must call the viewWillAppear/Dissappear etc. methods yourself like this:
- (void) viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
[super viewWillAppear:animated];
[subNavCntlr viewWillAppear:animated];
}
- (void) viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated
{
[super viewWillDisappear:animated];
[subNavCntlr viewWillDisappear:animated];
}
Just to make the example complete. This code appears in my ViewController where I created and added the the navigation controller into a view that I placed on the view.
- (void)viewDidLoad {
// This is the root View Controller
rootTable *rootTableController = [[rootTable alloc]
initWithStyle:UITableViewStyleGrouped];
subNavCntlr = [[UINavigationController alloc]
initWithRootViewController:rootTableController];
[rootTableController release];
subNavCntlr.view.frame = subNavContainer.bounds;
[subNavContainer addSubview:subNavCntlr.view];
[super viewDidLoad];
}
the .h looks like this
#interface navTestViewController : UIViewController <UINavigationControllerDelegate> {
IBOutlet UIView *subNavContainer;
UINavigationController *subNavCntlr;
}
#end
In the nib file I have the view and below this view I have a label a image and the container (another view) where i put the controller in. Here is how it looks. I had to scramble some things as this was work for a client.
Views are added "directly" by calling [view addSubview:subview].
Views are added "indirectly" by methods such as tab bars or nav bars that swap subviews.
Any time you call [view addSubview:subviewController.view], you should then call [subviewController viewWillAppear:NO] (or YES as your case may be).
I had this problem when I implemented my own custom root-view management system for a subscreen in a game. Manually adding the call to viewWillAppear cured my problem.
Correct way to do this is using UIViewController containment api.
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
// Do any additional setup after loading the view.
UIViewController *viewController = ...;
[self addChildViewController:viewController];
[self.view addSubview:viewController.view];
[viewController didMoveToParentViewController:self];
}
I use this code for push and pop view controllers:
push:
[self.navigationController pushViewController:detaiViewController animated:YES];
[detailNewsViewController viewWillAppear:YES];
pop:
[[self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:YES] viewWillAppear:YES];
.. and it works fine for me.
A very common mistake is as follows.
You have one view, UIView* a, and another one, UIView* b.
You add b to a as a subview.
If you try to call viewWillAppear in b, it will never be fired, because it is a subview of a
iOS 13 bit my app in the butt here. If you've noticed behavior change as of iOS 13 just set the following before you push it:
yourVC.modalPresentationStyle = UIModalPresentationFullScreen;
You may also need to set it in your .storyboard in the Attributes inspector (set Presentation to Full Screen).
This will make your app behave as it did in prior versions of iOS.
I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think that adding a view to the view hierarchy directly means calling -addSubview: on the view controller's view (e.g., [viewController.view addSubview:anotherViewController.view]) instead of pushing a new view controller onto the navigation controller's stack.
I think that adding a subview doesn't necessarily mean that the view will appear, so there is not an automatic call to the class's method that it will
I think what they mean "directly" is by hooking things up just the same way as the xcode "Navigation Application" template does, which sets the UINavigationController as the sole subview of the application's UIWindow.
Using that template is the only way I've been able to get the Will/Did/Appear/Disappear methods called on the object ViewControllers upon push/pops of those controllers in the UINavigationController. None of the other solutions in the answers here worked for me, including implementing them in the RootController and passing them through to the (child) NavigationController. Those functions (will/did/appear/disappear) were only called in my RootController upon showing/hiding the top-level VCs, my "login" and navigationVCs, not the sub-VCs in the navigation controller, so I had no opportunity to "pass them through" to the Nav VC.
I ended up using the UINavigationController's delegate functionality to look for the particular transitions that required follow-up functionality in my app, and that works, but it requires a bit more work in order to get both the disappear and appear functionality "simulated".
Also it's a matter of principle to get it to work after banging my head against this problem for hours today. Any working code snippets using a custom RootController and a child navigation VC would be much appreciated.
In case this helps anyone. I had a similar problem where my ViewWillAppear is not firing on a UITableViewController. After a lot of playing around, I realized that the problem was that the UINavigationController that is controlling my UITableView is not on the root view. Once I fix that, it is now working like a champ.
I just had this problem myself and it took me 3 full hours (2 of which googling) to fix it.
What turned out to help was to simply delete the app from the device/simulator, clean and then run again.
Hope that helps
[self.navigationController setDelegate:self];
Set the delegate to the root view controller.
In my case problem was with custom transition animation.
When set modalPresentationStyle = .custom viewWillAppear not called
in custom transition animation class need call methods:
beginAppearanceTransition and endAppearanceTransition
For Swift. First create the protocol to call what you wanted to call in viewWillAppear
protocol MyViewWillAppearProtocol{func myViewWillAppear()}
Second, create the class
class ForceUpdateOnViewAppear: NSObject, UINavigationControllerDelegate {
func navigationController(_ navigationController: UINavigationController, willShow viewController: UIViewController, animated: Bool){
if let updatedCntllr: MyViewWillAppearProtocol = viewController as? MyViewWillAppearProtocol{
updatedCntllr.myViewWillAppear()
}
}
}
Third, make the instance of ForceUpdateOnViewAppear to be the member of the appropriate class that have the access to the Navigation Controller and exists as long as Navigation controller exists. It may be for example the root view controller of the navigation controller or the class that creates or present it. Then assign the instance of ForceUpdateOnViewAppear to the Navigation Controller delegate property as early as possible.
In my case that was just a weird bug on the ios 12.1 emulator. Disappeared after launching on real device.
I have created a class that solves this problem.
Just set it as a delegate of your navigation controller, and implement simple one or two methods in your view controller - that will get called when the view is about to be shown or has been shown via NavigationController
Here's the GIST showing the code
ViewWillAppear is an override method of UIViewController class so adding a subView will not call viewWillAppear, but when you present, push , pop, show , setFront Or popToRootViewController from a viewController then viewWillAppear for presented viewController will get called.
My issue was that viewWillAppear was not called when unwinding from a segue. The answer was to put a call to viewWillAppear(true) in the unwind segue in the View Controller that you segueing back to
#IBAction func unwind(for unwindSegue: UIStoryboardSegue, ViewController subsequentVC: Any) {
viewWillAppear(true)
}
I'm not sure this is the same problem that I solved.
In some occasions, method doesn't executed with normal way such as "[self methodOne]".
Try
- (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
[self performSelector:#selector(methodOne)
withObject:nil afterDelay:0];
}
You should only have 1 UIViewController active at any time. Any subviews you want to manipulate should be exactly that - subVIEWS - i.e. UIView.
I use a simlple technique for managing my view hierarchy and have yet to run into a problem since I started doing things this way. There are 2 key points:
a single UIViewController should be used to manage "a screen's worth"
of your app
use UINavigationController for changing views
What do I mean by "a screen's worth"? It's a bit vague on purpose, but generally it's a feature or section of your app. If you've got a few screens with the same background image but different overlays/popups etc., that should be 1 view controller and several child views. You should never find yourself working with 2 view controllers. Note you can still instantiate a UIView in one view controller and add it as a subview of another view controller if you want certain areas of the screen to be shown in multiple view controllers.
As for UINavigationController - this is your best friend! Turn off the navigation bar and specify NO for animated, and you have an excellent way of switching screens on demand. You can push and pop view controllers if they're in a hierarchy, or you can prepare an array of view controllers (including an array containing a single VC) and set it to be the view stack using setViewControllers. This gives you total freedom to change VC's, while gaining all the advantages of working within Apple's expected model and getting all events etc. fired properly.
Here's what I do every time when I start an app:
start from a window-based app
add a UINavigationController as the window's rootViewController
add whatever I want my first UIViewController to be as the rootViewController of the nav
controller
(note starting from window-based is just a personal preference - I like to construct things myself so I know exactly how they are built. It should work fine with view-based template)
All events fire correctly and basically life is good. You can then spend all your time writing the important bits of your app and not messing about trying to manually hack view hierarchies into shape.