I didn't trust segues much at first (because of crashes if they were not set up correctly and because it wasn't clear to me what was going on under the hood) but I find I am using them more. I still don't exactly "get" what is going on though.
I have a segue between ViewController A and ViewController B with no UINavigationController involved. It does a FlipHorizontal transition, which I like.
When A initiates the segue, what happens to the A instance? I put a log statement in A's viewDidUnload method and it doesn't get called. So is A still lurking around? I'd like to be able to segue back to that same instance of A with all it's vars intact but I haven't been able to figure out how to do that.
As a test, I embedded A in a Nav Controller and tried both a segue and a push to B - and wasn't able to get back to my instance of A. What am I screwing up here?
Remember the difference between the view and the controller. The calling controller is still around, and so is it's view. However, any VIEW that is not on screen can be unloaded by the system. That's when viewDidUnload will get called.
Basically, a controller, like every other object, lives until all references to it are gone. In addition, anything the controller owns is still alive as well. However, while it is still alive, it can get two important messages, which tell it "Get rid of anything you don't need or can rebuild."
One of them is viewDidUnload. The other is didReceiveMemoryWarning.
So, yes, if you have a stack 100 view controllers deep within your NavController, then all 100 view controllers are still around... though some of their views may not be.
Related
My app consists of two views. The first one is a GMSMapView and the second one is used to connect to a Bluetooth device that sends coordinates.
After the Bluetooth device is connected, I use a delegate to send the information back to the map view and move a marker around. To transition between views I was previously using segues, this didn't stop the Bluetooth view controller and the data made its way like I wished to the map view.
I ran into the problem of my map view being reinitiated so I decided to use a navigation controller. Now I use a push segue to get to my second view, and pop to come back to the same instance of the first one. Great, that worked! The issue I have now is that popping the second view seems to stop it completely from running in the background like it used to. Is there a way to keep it running in the background like it did before?
What I'm currently using to pop the second view is
self.navigationController?.popViewControllerAnimated(true)
Any idea would be appreciated! Thanks!
A popped view controller does not "stop running". It is returned to you, and if you don't retain it, it is completely destroyed.
If you don't want that to happen, retain it when it is returned. You are currently ignoring the returned view controller:
self.navigationController?.popViewControllerAnimated(true)
Instead, keep a reference to it:
self.mySecondViewController =
self.navigationController?.popViewControllerAnimated(true)
Be warned, however, that this is a very unusual architecture. You will not be able to use the storyboard segue to push again, because it will push a different copy. It would be better to abandon your navigation controller architecture entirely, as it is completely unsuited to the idea of a view controller persisting after it is popped. If you want an architecture where two view controllers persist simultaneously, you would be better off using a UITabBarController — or, even better, reorganize your app completely. The notion that you need the view controller to persist after being popped is a "bad smell": it means that you have put the functionality in the wrong place. Put the functionality in a place that does persist, rather than forcing the view controller to persist in some artificial way.
I have been searching all over the web but I can't seem to find the answer to this.
Currently i am using presentViewController to start new ViewControllers, but on certain view controllers i do not dismiss it and call over it. I currently am not using any navigation controllers or anything like that.
I am just worried that if I call the same viewController again via presentViewController, that the same viewController would have 2 running instances.
Is it possible? Or does the iOS framework automatically reuse the idle viewController?
If so, how do i remove the idle view controllers?
Thank you! (I was holding back my question and tried to find it all over the web, so if you can point me in the right direction, it would be very helpful thanks!)
iOS will not reuse your view controller, you can easily check it yourself by printing your view controller in viewDidLoad, you will notice first that viewDidLoad is called every time, and next that all objects have different addresses.
Unless you create thousand of them, or the navigation of your app doesn’t let you come back to an “idle” view controller, I would not say this is an issue though.
I don’t see any clean way to remove a view controller from the memory without calling “dismiss”. You could try to:
- “refresh” your view with new data.
- use something like UIPageViewController if the workflow of your app allows this kind of behaviour.
- rework the navigation so you can dismiss the view before calling another one
Good luck
I got some serious problems understanding the viewcontroller stack.
When will my app use a stack to save the previous viewcontrollers? Only if I use a navigation viewcontroller or anytime I use normal viewcontrollers and segue modally between them?
So I was just wondering if I use some sort of chained routine for example, like going from vc 1 to vc 2 and from vc 2 back to vc 1. No navigation controller, just modal segues, no unwinding.
Does my app got performance issues because of a stack (which will grow everytime I go around) or doesn't it make any difference?
----updated
So basicly this is my problem. If I went through the routine of the app, the views get stacked everytime I do a transtition.
UINavigationController will retain any controller you push onto it's navigation stack until you pop it back off.
Any UIViewController will retain a controller it presents modally until that child controller is dismissed.
In either case every controller will at a minimum consume some memory until you remove it. Apps which construct ever expanding stacks of controllers are likely to encounter a number of issues including:
you will eventually run out of memory, how fast depends on how much memory each controller uses.
you may see unexpected side effects if many controllers in the background react to the same event.
users may become confused if they change state in an instance of controller 'A', push an instance of controller 'B' on top of it, and then "return" to a second instance of 'A' added to the top of the state. Since they're looking at a new controller and view whatever selection, scroll position, user input, or other state they set on the previous instance may be lost.
developers, including you, may come to dread touching this app.
I suspect that everyone will have a better experience if you view controller management matches whatever visual metaphor you are presenting to the user.
I'm new to iOS dev and am not entirely sure on Storyboards/Segues/Pushing and Popping.
So in my app I have a navigation controller with 5 view controllers leading from one to another.
When it reaches the last view controller i have a segue to the first and I have a few tasks listed in the prepareForSegue method.
Out of curiosity I decided to check what happens to the [self.navigationController.viewControllers count]. I found that it keeps growing and growing which doesn't 'feel' correct.
Am i handling going back to the first screen correctly? The prepareForSegue method is useful as it allows me to send some data back to the first segue. Is it possible to maybe say when you go back clear all views on that navigation controller?
Thanks
You can use an unwind segue. Here's a good tutorial:
pragmaticstudio.com/blog/2013/2/5/unwind-segues
Make sure to create the unwind action method before you wire it up in the storyboard otherwise it won't show up when you drag to 'Exit'. That was the most confusing part for me when I first set one up. The tutorial does it in the correct order so if you follow it you should be fine.
Also, here's a sample I put together showing how to transfer data back in an unwind segue. It uses a modally presented view controller but the technique is the same:
github.com/soleares/AddToTableView
No, you should never go backwards with a segue (other than an unwind). Segues ALWAYS instantiate new controllers, so you're not actually going back to the first controller, you're just creating a new instance, which gets added to the stack. So either go back with an unwind segue or use popToViewController:animated:. Using an unwind segue will allow you to use prepareForSegue, and it does cause all the controllers in between to be deallocated (if you have no other strong pointers to them).
Im transitioning from one view controller to another UINavigationController by using a modal segue. Its important for me that this view controller (and its child view controllers) stay in memory so specific references are kept up. Although obviously exactly this not happening. When debugging the viewWillAppear function the rootViewController (viewControllers[0]) reference points to different memory addresses between calls (and contains nil values, my actual problem).
Now there two possibilities which could cause this issue:
The UiNavigationController became destroyed
The rootViewController became destroyed
But to make it really confusing, none of them did happen; neither the UINavigationController nor the rootViewController became destroyed (viewDidUnload not called!).
Edit: Further investigation discovered that the UINavigationController is really recreated for every modal segue. I hope that by maintaining a property i can solve the problem.
I finally ended up by creating my own IBAction functions wich present the controller manually. This works just fine and is coded in less than 5 minutes. One just need to init the controller one time on ViewDidLoad from the storyboard.
Create a strong reference in the main view controller and point your new view controllers to that property. This will keep the view around as long as you need, although this is not recommended for n number of views because it defeats the purpose of a nav controller handling its own creation and removing of views.