Interface builder does not allow you to add a UISplitViewController as the root controller of a UINavigationController.
I've also tried programmatically creating the UINavigationController and setting its root view controller to be the UISplitViewController.
The result is an empty window with just the nav bar.
I've also tried a split view controller replacement, MGSplitViewController. It mostly works, except that within the split view controller, the master view is another UINavigationController. Its nav bar shows up too thick. Changing orientation and back clears it up.
I've been trying all sorts of different approaches to having a view that looks like a split view and other views that I switch between. I've tried within a tab view controller, writing my own controller to manage subviews of the window and having the split view as a managed view, and now the navigation controller. All attempts have had some issues. The most consistent issue is regarding the orientation of the view. My app is running in landscape mode and typically the child views think its still portrait.
Any ideas appreciated.
No.
The bottom line: a UISplitViewController must be the root view of an app (or perhaps more specifically, a window). It can not live inside a UINavigationController or anything else.
This is the case with the current SDK, and there's no guarantee that will change in future SDKs.
It seems strange to add a split view to a navigation stack. The master pane of a split view controller is generally a navigation controller, so (without knowing more about your design), I'd probably use that to control your navigation hierarchy.
Related
I’d like to have split views in several places of my iOS app, none of them as the root view controller. I understand that split views are initially designed to sit at the root of the app and provide the root navigation controller, and that Apple’s guidelines initially did not allow any workarounds. Updated guidelines state
You cannot push a split view controller onto a navigation stack. Although it is possible to install a split view controller as a child in some other container view controllers, doing is not recommended in most cases.
Now the split view pattern would really benefit my app, and I don’t want to reinvent the wheel here, so I gave it a try using a container view, mainly using the following steps:
Create a scene with a regular UIViewController.
Add a UIContainerView covering the entire screen.
Add a UISplitViewController to the storyboard, which creates a split view controller, a navigation controller, a table view controller (for the master view), and a regular view controller (for the detail view).
Create an embed segue from the container view to the split view controller.
This has a few quirks, which I hope to iron out eventually (e.g. initially showing detail view, swiping in the table view from the left on an iPad apparently tries to also back nav on the main navigation), but it basically works. So far, so good.
Now, the problem is that I have two navigation controllers: the main navigation controller at the root of my app and the navigation controller in the embedded split view. This gives me two navigation bars with independent navigation, allowing me to:
navigate back to the root of the split view using the embedded navigation controller
navigate back from the container view in the enclosing navigation controller
Besides two navigation bars not being appealing, I don’t want iPhone users to perform the second directly from the detail view. So my next steps were:
hide the navigation bar in the outer view controller
add a back navigation button to the inner navigation bar to take over the role of the main navigation bar’s back button
Left to do is the implementation for that back button that pops the container's view controller of the main navigation stack. The question is: how can I access the main navigation controller from the embedded view that has its own navigation controller (using Swift)?
Accessing the navigation stack of the parent's (containing view controller's) navigation controller turned out to be straightforward:
#IBAction func backButtonTapped(_ sender: UIBarButtonItem) {
parent?.navigationController?.popViewController(animated: true)
}
I had to face a similar kind of problem while developing my app.
My problem was, I had to display navigation controller and splitviewcontroller on side bar. Again a problem was navigation controller form splitview to navigation controller. Below are the steps which i followed
1) While creating a split view controller, I hided the navigation controller of master and detail and set it to root view, please also keep the reference of your top level navigation controller.
2) I increased the 'y' of splitview.root.window and view to accommodate custom view.
3) I created a custom view with a back button and then handled the transition with animation.
Please let me know if you want code snippets. I would have shared it now. But i have to search for it.
So far, I have two distinct uses of a navigation bar in my app: one produced by a Navigation Controller with a View Controller embedded in it and one added manually from the Object Library into a different View Controller presented modally (since a modally presented view apparently doesn't inherit the navigation controller of the view under it).
My question: do either of these navigation bars require constraints?
Yes, the one added by you, as it is managed by you. The other one is managed by UINavigationController. Also it wouldn't make sense for a modal controller to have the navigation bar of its presenter - you are showing an "extra" screen, not navigating the hierarchy. It is also worth mentioning that nothing stops you from presenting another UINavigationController modally with a separate navigation flow.
I have a simple Navigation View Hierarchy that has 2 views it goes between. I wanted a customized navigation bar, so I have the default one hidden, and I've implemented a Container View which is shared between the 2 views in the nav hierarchy.
Everything works as I want it to, except when I segue to the lower or higher view the top bar appears slides away and reappears on the new view. I would like it to appear stationary when I push or pop to other views in the hierarchy.
Is there an easy way to do this? Or should I delete my custom shared Container View and try to make this work with the Navigation Bar (which I have currently "hidden")?
I had to do this for a client once. The way we did it was, like you said, make an encompassing view controller that housed a container view. Within this container view, we embedded a UINavigationController and would manually pop and push UIViewControllers to its navigation stack. Of course you want to hide the UINavigationController's nav bar.
It sounds like you sort of implemented this, but instead you just embedded a plain old view controller inside your custom navigation controller, and then segue to another view controller that is also embedded in the custom view controller? Ideally you want one instance of this custom nav controller with an embedded UINavigationController. I believe you will have to do all the view controller transitions programmatically.
Opinion: Personally, I would recommend against doing this. I believe that an app should feel like an extension of the OS it's on. A user should feel it's a part of their phone. Using the native navigation bar also decreases the level of effort a user is required to put forth to understand your app.
I know you're thinking "but it's just a nav bar" but we're talking about the same people that will potentially uninstall an app if it takes longer than 2.5s to load.
I wanted a customized navigation bar, so I have the default one hidden
That's your mistake. The way to get a customized navigation bar in a UINavigationController interface is to initialize it with init(navigationBarClass:toolbarClass:). Now the built-in navigation controller is using your navigation bar! And from there on, all will be well.
https://developer.apple.com/reference/uikit/uinavigationcontroller/1621866-init
I have an app with UITabBarViewController as rootviewcontroller. On some tab item, I want to have a SplitViewController inside a UITabbarViewController.
So here my UISplitViewController will become a childViewController for TabbarVC.
Will this be allowed? Are there any Apple guidelines suggesting not to do this?
As I see, they are suggesting to put SplitVC as RootVC. But many applications have already done what we are doing now.
Answers here might help Apple recommends UISplitViewController should always be the rootviewcontroller
I had nearly same scenario of creating a UISplitViewController inside a view controller. So I created my own custom SplitViewController
Here is the note from apple
You cannot push a split view controller onto a navigation stack. Although it is possible to install a split view controller as a child in some other container view controllers, doing is not recommended in most cases. Split view controllers are normally installed at the root of your app’s window.
Apple HIG recommends to have tab bar as the root or split view controller as root. But I still achieved this by putting in a container for one of the tab bar's child view controller. And as a result, you can load split view controller into the container view of any view controller, irrespective of whether its tab bar or a normal view controller.
I am creating a iPad App and it has several views to load data,but for one view i need to add split view. I dont need split views in other views. They are just detail pages. I search Through the net and found lots of tutorials based on iPad split view. But the problem is they all are creating a project as Split view project or they create a window base app and add slipt view to the delegate. I dont need to do that, I need to implement this split view only for one view. Is There any way to overcome this problem?
You can add the split view inside a Navigation Controller.
Even if the Split View is a container view controller and Apple recommends in the documentation that all containers should not be embedded in other containers, adding a split view inside a navigation controller works correctly and I never noticed any side effect in doing it.
Basically what you should do is:
- in the app delegate create a UINavigationController and use it as root view of your application window
- hide the navigation controller navigation bar if you don't want to see it (showing a split view with a main navbar on top is not nice looking...)
- then add your view controllers inside the navigation bar.
Example: imagine you have this application views sequence:
FIRST VIEW (full view = detail page)
SECOND VIEW (split view)
THIRD VIEW (full = detail page)
So you can represent FIRST and THIRD as standard view controllers (full screen), while SECOND will be a split view. Your app will be initialized by creating the main navigation controller, adding FIRST on it as top controller and using the main navigation controller as window's root view.
Than use the navigation controller push, pop methods to switch between these views or change the navigation controller "viewControllers" array directly if you don't want the recommended push/pop methods.
If you need to add special behavior to the navigation controller based on the type of view on top, just register your app delegate as navigation controller delegate (or a "main controller" object dedicated to this if you don't want to complicate your app delegate).
I am not 100% sure, but it seems to me that you can't use a SplitView just somewhere in your view hierarchy.
The Apple intended way is to use the SplitViewController as the top level controller. The left side of it can include a drill down mechanism with a navigation controller so you are ably to drill down hierarchies and the right side will present details for the item you select on the left side.
If you need a view with some kind of split mechanism in it, you probably have to code it yourself. Or even better: find some other mechanism you can use in your UI.
How are you switching your view hierarchies now? Maybe you could integrate your existing UI into a SplitViewController?