I'm using XCode 4 and storyboarding an application I'm creating, however I cannot visually modify the UIToolbar.
I'm attempting to modify a UIToolbar that is inside of a UITableViewController - however I have to place the UIToolbar out of the correct hierarchy in order to be able to modify it visually. I've tried placing it onto the view controller area but that does not make it show up.
At one point I was able to make it appear below, as it's own object however I was not able to recreate that.
Once I was able to get it to look like this
Your UITableViewController is inside a UINavigationController, which already has its own UIToolbar—you don't need to drag a new one into your view hierarchy. Interface Builder can simulate the toolbar for you under "Simulated Metrics" in the inspector panel.
Once the simulated toolbar is visible, simply drag UIBarButtonItems into it. Use a custom item with a custom view if you need anything more complicated than a button or spacer.
If you need your toolbar items need to be dynamic, you can maintain a reference via IBOutlets without necessarily having them in your view. Then set your UITableViewController's toolbarItems property or call -setToolbarItems:animated: at runtime to display the appropriate items.
See Apple's UINavigationController Class Reference: Displaying a Toolbar.
To answer your question, the visual editor simplifies the setup of most controls, view hierarchies, and delegation patterns, but it's still up to the developer to make sure they check out. The implementation of UITableViewController makes certain assumptions and assertions about its view hierarchy that Xcode does not enforce through the visual editor. Given that your desired view hierarchy is unsupported, I have to assume that the editor's behavior is either undefined or irrelevant. For a workaround, see Maxner's suggestion.
UITableViewControllers only allow one view object, which of course is UITableView. UITableViews are not cooperative for subviewing and they usually push everything into footers or headers. Something like this isn't possible:
-TableController
-Table
-Subview
-Another subview
UITableViewControllers are reduced to this:
-TableViewController
-Table
So you will need to use a UIViewController and declare a UITableView in there. Heres the Hierarchy you should use then:
- ViewController <Table's Delegate & Data Source>
- View
-Table
- Your UIToolbar
In your ViewController.h declare IBOutlet UITableView and connect Data Source and Delegate to the ViewController. Then simply add the UITableView implementations to your .m file and you're good to go.
Related
I want to launch a XLForms view controller as a Form Sheet. I want the controller to have a toolbar at the top and then the XLForm tableview underneath it. How?
The view controller isn't a navigation controller and so I need to add a toolbar at the top (or bottom) where I can add buttons. So how do I do this?
It turns out that this is not too difficult. I just wish that it was documented somewhere.
All the sample code I could find showed the top view controller inheriting from XLFormViewController. In this case, the IB controller only requires a topline view.
I wanted to expand the view controller to have other components in it other than just a "View" object. I wanted a toolbar across the top and a couple of other things.
So, here's how I did it. I'm not sure that this is the best approach but it did work.
Create the View Controller in IB and add all the components you want.
Include a TableView object someone in your design
Go into the "Assistant Editor" and hook the TableView object to the "tableView" object defined in XLFormViewController.h by ctrl-dragging and dropping on the IBOutlet tableView object.
All other controls work as usual.
Important:
Do not treat the tableView object like a regular object. In other words, do not implement UITableViewDataSource and UITableViewDelegate methods.
Hope this helps.
I have a UIViewController with a UITableView that is fed with data from the local database. When the user first launches the app (after installing) the table view is empty and I display a UIView in the middle of the table view that contains a UIImage, a UILabel and a UIButton (a call to action).
The first version of this view I built programmatically, which was no good to me because every time I tweaked something I had to build the app again. Then I switched to the storyboard but had to drag a UIView to the middle of my tableView. It is working now but I don't like the way it is, I can't edit my table view cells without having to move the UIView out of the table view.
I'd like to have a way to build this view entirely separated from my tableView (or even from my view controller in question) and then reference it in the viewDidLoad call of my view controller.
Unfortunately Xcode does not allow us to drag views directly to the storyboard so I'm pretty lost here.
Please tell me if I haven't been clear enough. I appreciate any help you could give me.
UPDATE: It'd be particularly awesome to me if I could also create a custom Swift class for this view of mine and reference it in the storyboard. And then in my viewDidLoad I could simply instantiate my custom view.
Thanks in advance.
Create a XIB file in which you can drag a view (without a view controller).
In your code you can load the XIB using NSBundle.mainBundle().loadNibNamed("MyXibName", owner:self, options:nil).
In the XIB file you can give the UIView a custom class (like you can do with view controllers in storyboard).
You then of course have to retrieve the view from the array returned by loadNibNamed and cast it to your custom class.
I want my ViewController to be shared by a tableView and a TextView, where the TextView would appear beneath the TableView. But the TableView insists on taking over the entire scene/screen. How do I set the height of the TableView in the storyboard so I can make room for my TextView? (Please notice that I am not asking for a footer, which is actually what I am trying to change from)
The problem is that you are using a UITableViewController, which means that you get a scene with a full-screen UITableView.
To avoid this, use a normal UIViewController scene and just insert the UITableView into the interface manually (and configure its delegate and dataSource to point to the view controller).
UITableViewController is just a convenience. It doesn't do anything for you that you can't do yourself with a normal UIViewController. And in your situation, it is an inconvenience instead of a convenience.
Add a container view to your ViewController and link to an "external" UITableView instead of the provided UIView that comes with it when your drop it into your storyboard.
Send data via the segue, get it back via a delegate.
This way you can freely design your View with very little headaches.
I'm building a custom view with an xib file that contains various subcontrols. I've got some container control that needs to hold my custom view. I'm kind of unclear on whether I need to make a View that somehow loads itself from the xib file, or a ViewController that does this.
However it's done, I'd like my custom view to be reusable, and something that appears in the toolbox in Xcode, along side buttons and textboxes and such, so I can visually design other views containing my custom view.
What is the right way to do this?
Does your component manages other view controllers (like UITabBarViewController does for example)? If yes, make it a subclass of view controller, if not, and it's just a control, like a switch or a fancy button, scroll wheel etc, then make it a subclass of UIView.
In complex screens (View Controllers) I used to separate the whole thing in smaller pieces (I call them widgets). These widgets consist basically of a MyWidget.h and a MyWidget.m file as well as a MyWidget.xib file, where the root element is a UIView and the MyWidget class is the File Owner of the UIView. In the init of this widget I do a loadNibNamed.
In my View Controller I then do a [[MyWidget alloc] init], which I add to View's Controller main view as a sub view. This, so far, works perfectly.
I'm now wondering, how to do the same with storyboard, because I cannot really start to drag in a UIView somewhere, I always have to start with an UIViewController, which I don't want to.
If there is no possible way doing this with a Storyboard, can I simply do it the old way, by using the Storyboard for my main screens and segues, and use a separate .xib file to define custom views?
Putting the widget/view in a separate .xib file works, and is appropriate especially if you might want to reference that same view from multiple View Controllers.
However, sometimes you do want to see the additional view/widget within the same storyboard, and it is possible. Here's how you do it:
Select your view controller in IB (click on the black bar below the view), then drag a UIView from the Object Library into the black bar:
When a view is in the black bar, it's instantiated like any other view in IB but just isn't added to your view hierarchy until you do so in code. Change the view's class to match your own subclass if necessary:
You can hook it up to your view controller like you would hook up any other view:
The added view shows up in your Document Outline and you can hook up actions and references there too:
Now, the problem that remains is that you can't actually see the view no matter how many times you try to click or double click, which would defeat the whole purpose of putting it in the same storyboard. Fortunately there are two workarounds that I know of.
The first workaround is to drag the view from the black bar back into your view controller's view, edit it, then drag it back into the black bar once you're done. This is troublesome but reliable.
The other workaround is more finicky, but I prefer it because it lets me see all my views at the same time:
Drag a UITableView from the Object Library into your newly added view.
Then drag a UITableViewCell into that UITableView.
Once you do that, your view pops out magically by the side, but you have a UITableView that you don't want. You can either resize that to 0x0, or you can delete it and your UIView will (usually) still stay visible.
Occasionally the secondary view will become hidden again in IB. You can repeat the above steps if you deleted the UITableView, or if the UITableView is still in the hierarchy you just need to click on the UITableViewCell and the view will appear again.
The second method works for UIViews but not so well for UIToolbars and is impossible for UIButtons, so the cleanest solution I've found when you need to include lots of different subviews is to attach a single secondary UIView to your view controller as a container that never gets shown, put all your secondary views in there, and use the UITableViewCell trick to make everything visible. I resize my dummy UITableView to 0x0 to make that invisible. Here's a screenshot of how it all looks like together:
If you're just looking to make your view controllers else-where(and not in your story-board), then there's a pretty simple way to accomplish this:
1) Create your CustomViewControllers(abcdController in the code I tried) with their individual xibs as usual.
2) Add a UIViewController(or whatever was the superclass of your CustomViewController) to the story-board.
3) Set the CustomClass to CustomViewController instead of UIViewController as shown here:
4) Finally, in your viewDidLoad, load the custom xib and you're done.
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];
[[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:#"abcdController" owner:self options:nil];
// Do any additional setup after loading the view from its nib.
}
I think you can do something like this to get instance of specific viewcontroller from Storyboard and use view on top of it.
ex:
MyViewController* myViewController = [[UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:#"Main" bundle:nil] instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:#"myViewController"];
UIView* view = myViewController.view; //Get the view from your StoryBoard.
Hope this helps
Thanks
Vijay