Xcode Table View sections without using TableViewController - xcode

I have a special thing to realize here.
I have a ViewController with a View on it. On the View I have an ImageView (I need a nice Background-Image) and many Buttons and Textfields and so on.
Now I need a Tableview. This Table view is located in the center of the screen.
I need sections in this tableview, so when I edit it to have sections its complaining,
because he wants a TableViewController to use static cells and sections.
Here's the problem. I cant use a TableViewController cause I need this stuff around
the tableview (those buttons and textfields) and I also need the image in the background.
So how can I realize that?

Interface Builder doesn't allow static cells in a table view that's embedded in a view controller. You need to have the table view's datasource point to your UIViewController. The view controller should hardcode the values/configuration for the cells. It's essentially the same thing... you just don't see the results until you run the app.
Also see this question Using static cells in a storyboard UIView with Xcode 4.2

Related

Designing UICollectionView cells in nib with Interface Builder (without storyboard)

I am trying to design a custom UICollectionViewCell prototype (in Xcode 5.0.2), however Interface Builder doesn't let me add a cell to my UICollectionView while designing a nib. I can set the number of items (cells) and Interface Builder creates and displays cells perfectly if I'm using storyboard, but I can't add a cell to my collection view in a nib. I've tried:
Drag and dropping collection view cell into collection view manually from the object library. (fails: doesn't let me drop the cell anywhere in my view)
Creating my collection view with cells in storyboard and copy-pasting the whole view into nib. (fails: collection view is copied but the cell is gone)
Creating my collection view with cells in storyboard, opening the storyboard as source code, finding my collection view cells, copying the relevant XML, opening my nib as source code, pasting it inside my collection view in XML. (fails: unable to open the nib in Interface Builder, it gives errors. When I remove the cell from source code, it opens again. Do not try this if you don't know what you are doing.)
I've also seen several questions about the same issue:
Is it possible to create prototype cells in Interface Builder without story boards?
Custom Header in UICollectionView with Interface Builder without Storyboard
Prototype Cells in a nib instead of a storyboard
They all point out to doing them programatically and/or using another nib for the cell. I know how to do them, but is there any way to design the collection view cell, inside a collection view inside the same view in a nib, just as in storyboard? Why doesn't Interface Builder let me do that in nib where it allows (and even encourages) perfectly using storyboard?
The simple answer is no, this cannot be done. Think of a storyboard as a collection of XIBs. A XIB simply defines the facets of a particular view so that it can be constructed at runtime.
Regarding collection views and their storyboard implementations, it's important to understand that a storyboard allows for nesting of viewcontrollers and defining collection views with their XIBs because that keeps the fundamental paradigm of storyboards coherent. Since a storyboard is the means of defining the "story" or scene of an application it is only natural that it allows for the declaration of the reusable views for use inside a collection view.
The same cannot be said for XIBs because the fundamental idea behind XIBs is in reusability. This will allow a collection view defined in a XIB to have any cells used with it as long as the controller registers these classes with the collection view. This way you get the benefit of reusability as another controller can use the same XIB and register different cells etc.
So I think it would be far more confusing to allow for the declaration of the supported cells of a collection view inside a XIB since that breaks the single responsibility principle(if it can be called that) that XIBs aspire to.
Your best solution would be to define a custom collection view subclass that registers the relevant cells on instantiation, and then use this class in your XIB.

Autolayout with TableViewController

I have my DetailViewController that I originally based on a UIViewController. The view uses Table View with static cells, but xcode then started to complain that I should use UITableViewController as a base class for the view. So I changed my view to be subclass of UITableViewController and wired everything again. There is a Date Picker in the bottom and when I start to use Autolayout to set constrains, xcode does not allow me to manage these under TVC. My setup works fine under ViewController.
Are there any limitations with Autolayout under TableViewController? I can also see that Table View always fills up whole view under TVC and does not allow uder subviews to exist on the same level.
Many thanks!
Only the UITableViewController can use static cells defined in the storyboard. However, it can only really show a table view, not other views as well - it's view property is the table view, which you can't just add new subviews to.
The solution is to use a table view controller to hold and manage the table, and to make this a child view controller of your main controller. This is trivial to achieve in storyboards using a container view and embed . The table view is then a subview of your main view controller's view, and you can add additional views such as the picker just as you were before.

NSView added as subview doesn't show

I have a puzzling problem. Working on a cocoa app in mac os x 10.7.
My app main window contains a split view. In a certain use context in one of the subviews of the split view is loaded a custom view with some labels (nstextfield) and a split view (instantiating a view controller that loads a nib and getting view from that controller). Frame of the custom view is set to split view subview bounds and everything works fine.
Problem is that one of the subviews of the second split view should be loaded (same method: view controller-nib-view-frame/bounds) with a custom view containing a table view and a button, but in this case nothing shows. Everything is done the same way but last custom view is not visible. Any idea?
Thanks
(edit)
this is the code I use to instantiate controller for the view to be added, get the view, and add it as subview to a subview of the split view
- (void)loadSubview {
self.subviewToAddController = [[viewController alloc] initWithNibName:nil bundle:nil];
//nib name is coded in the controller class definition
[[self.subviewToAddController view] setFrame:[self.splitViewContainerSubView bounds]];
//container subView is an outlet
[self.splitViewContainerSubView addSubview:[self.subviewToAddController view]];
}
However I don't think the problem is in this code because if I ask the container subview for its own subviews I can see the new subview is present in the list. It just doesn't show. If I add it as a subview of the split view (a test a just made) or as subview of the subview of the most external split view it is correctly showed too (sorry for the confused explanation, I would need a diagram but in this moment I can't make it)
To elaborate more my doubt (I didn't want to misled so I didn't mention before) can't it be a problem of coordinates, so view is correctly loaded and added as subview but is not visible because hidden by something or showed out of visible area?
(update)
Sorry it took so long to post an update.
After more testing I found out the problem is related to autolayout. No idea what the exact problem is and how to solve it. I ended up turning it off for the nibs the were in troubles and use the old way to set interface objects position and size/resize. Not the best way but for now I can go on.
My best guess is that you didn't set the autoresizing masks of the view properly.

Replace subview of NSSplitview with custom view

I still have a lot to learn with cocoa so I may have missed something obvious here. I have a custom view I would like to display in an nssplitview which replaces the current subview there.
I have a MessageView.xib file, and a MessageView .h/.m which subclasses NSView. I created a custom view instance for my main window (the one which contains the nssplitview) through Xcode 4's built in gui builder. I created an outlet to this instance of MessageView in my window's controller.
In my controller for the window when I want to swap out the subview for the splitview it runs this
[splitView replaceSubview:[[splitView subviews] objectAtIndex:1] with:viewMessage];
viewMessage is the outlet to the MessageView.
When this code is run the display of that subview changes to be blank. I'm not sure if there is something wrong with my custom view or there is some size issue. Is there something I need to do to fit the view into the split screen view or is my custom view just not displaying correctly? I have had a difficult time finding a tutorial on creating custom subviews with Xcode 4 so I'm not sure if something could be wrong with that. The custom view just has a label and a textfield in it.
Generally, you shouldn't need to replace NSSplitView's subviews with your own. Rather, you add your own custom view(s) as child views of the default subviews on each side of the divider. You can do this in code with addSubview:, but it's probably easier to just use Interface Builder in Xcode. Drag a "Custom View" into the splitview, then in the Identity Inspector, under Custom class, change the class to the name of your custom NSView subclass:
I think (off the top of my head, not tested), if you really do need to replace the default NSSplitView subviews with your own class, you can probably do it in Interface Builder using this same method, but selecting the default subview itself and changing its class in the inspector. This doesn't work for all AppKit classes, but it may work for NSSplitView.

How to set size of UITableView inside Interface Builder?

Is it possible to change the frame of UITableViewController's UITableView frame inside Interface Builder? I want to make my table, which I instantiate in IB, a little bit narrower.
When you have create your tableViewController in IB, if you then go to the section on the right of the screen where all the options are set size to "freeform" then drag it to whatever you like. When you init it it will then get this frame. Unless it is within a container controller.
The best way to do what you are after is to create a viewController and add a table view to its view. Make the table view narrower that the main controller view and wire it up to an IBOutlet on your controller. If you then make your controller implement the and methods you will be able to use your table view exactly as you want to.
Hope this is of help to you, if this is unclear or you would like any extra help, let me know :)
You can change it in IB but unless you customize your view controller somehow, it will set it be full screen (module enclosing controllers like nav, tab bar, split view, etc.) That's just the way view controllers work.
From the Apple docs:
When a view controller is displayed on screen, its root view is
typically resized to fit the available space, which can vary depending
on the window’s current orientation and the presence of other
interface elements such as the status bar.
You can create another UIView to hold your table view and then have more control over the table view sizing, But then you won't be a table view controller and will have to implement some of the things that table view controller provides you, e.g., deselectRowAtIndexPath on viewDidAppear.

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