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Background

I'm using interface builder to create the UI for an app I'm working on. The app has a single screen that displays a series of buttons. Clicking on a button displays an associated view which overlays the buttons. Clicking another button hides the previous overlay view and displays another one.

Too make managing the UI easier in IB I've decided to create multiple nib files for each sub view that is to appear when clicking the relevant button. I'm then loading the sub view's nib file in the view controller's viewDidLoad method using the UINib class.

The idea behind this was to avoid having multiple views stacked on top of each other in a single nib file as this would be hard to manipulate in IB. I could have created all the views in code but this would require a lot of tedious coding as the layouts of each sub view are quite complex (with multiple child views).

Example code loading a sub view from a nib file.

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    UINib *aSubViewNib = [UINib nibWithNibName:@"aSubView" bundle:nil];
    NSArray *bundleObjects = [aSubViewNib instantiateWithOwner:self options:nil];

    // get root view from bundle array
    UIView *aSubView = [bundleObjects objectAtIndex:0];
    [self.view addSubview:aSubView];
...

The code above is repeated for the other views.

To summarise I have a single screen iPhone app that has layered views that are shown/hidden by clicking buttons. This is achieved with a single view controller with an associated nib file and a series of additional nib files for the sub views which are loaded in the view controller's viewDidLoad method.

Questions!

Sorry for the long introduction but I wanted to be very clear what it is I am doing.

  • Is my approach bad or unusual?
  • Are there any potential issues to doing it this way?
  • What have other people done when they need a dynamic interface and still want to keep everything in Interface Builder?

Notes

Before anyone asks why don't I just display the sub views on a new screen and use the navigation bar, let me say that I have very good reasons and I do understand iOS UI guidelines. The above use case is not exactly my use case but it's one that clearly describes the problem without getting bogged down in my development app.

Also I know I could have written all the sub views as code but each sub view has a complex layout of child views and it would be a lot of code and messing around to try and get them looking right.

Thanks in advance.

Camsoft
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3 Answers3

1

There isn't necessarily a 1-to-1 relationship between view controllers and views. Most views contain many subviews, which are views themselves, so this literally doesn't make sense.

However, depending on the complexity of the views (including their content), you may want separate view controllers... or not.

For example, if you have two sbuviews that are each tableViews, you may want to have one view controller for each tableView. This is because each tableView is looking at the same delegate methods, and if they are in the same viewController, then the delegate methods have to differentiate between the tableViews. The delegate methods have signatures that allow this, but, in my experience, it can really make for a messy code design that is hard to follow and hard to manage.

On the other hand, you may have two tables that are managed by the same viewController, where one table is filled with meaningful data and the other is simply a place holder (as when the data source is empty). One might be visible while the other is not. Why make you life complicated by creating two view controllers when both are driven by the same data source (the model)?

In my mind, it comes down to how difficult it is to follow and manage the code. If the complexity of using a single view controller becomes burdensome, consider using more view controllers.

UPDATE

By the way, I have an example that I am currently working with that may illustrate a similar situation. In the InAppSettingsKit, that a lot of developers use, there are several xib files for pieces of the main view. You can look at the structure here on github. There is one main view controllers and several xib files. (There is also what I would call a "helper" view controller and an email composer view controller.) In this example, the xib files may be used multiple times to specify the layout of table view cells. There is no view controller for each xib file, though. (The documentation for InAppSettingsKit is sparse, so these things may not be obvious just by taking a quick look at it.)

Jim
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  • So for my use case where the only reason I split out the views into separate nib files was to make it easier to manage those views in IB, do you think my approach is safe to use or does it break Apple's guidelines? – Camsoft Jan 13 '12 at 10:18
  • There is no rule or guideline regarding what you are doing. You're fine in that regard. – Jim Jan 13 '12 at 15:38
  • I added an example of a real software component that many developers use. See my answer above for more details. – Jim Jan 13 '12 at 17:22
  • Thanks Jim. Just wanted to make sure I was not doing something crazy. – Camsoft Jan 13 '12 at 17:36
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actually its possible to do this.

Open your .xib file,select File’s Owner(in placeholder) -> "identity inspector" (utilities) -> change class name to your controller classname -> press control and drag file's owner placeholder to View object, select "view" in dialog. Now you can customize your view.

p.s. you can use the same outlets as first xib, you need only to drag them to the new xib(+control sure).

here is an explained tutorial: http://irawd.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/how-to-link-a-xib-file-to-a-class-and-use-2-xib-files-for-iphone4-and-iphone5/

user3206558
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Every View should have a corresponding UIViewController. Using one ViewController to "Control" more than one view breaks the MVC paradigm. "Controlling" multiple "views" from one controller will make it much harder to change one thing without breaking something else. The choices you make on how to present the content to the end user will be different for every individual. So if you say a NavigationController won't work in your case, maybe a Modal view is the answer or, you might just instantiate your custom UIViewControllers and add them to your view ([addSubview:]), if thats the road you want, but like I said, it would be beneficial for you to make a "controller" for each view object along with the corresponding xib. If you need information sent back, use a delegate or use Notifications to send the message back to the parent view. I learned the hard way that not following MVC paradigm, will make you life miserable. Try and keep your code as decoupled as possible. And read up on the MVC design pattern, you won't regret it.

Hubert Kunnemeyer
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  • All the sub views are related to the single screen and therefore a single view controller. I could have easily just added all the sub views in the same nib file but like I said it was getting messy and hard to layout as views are overlapping. My idea was to break out some of the views into separate nib files and then load them back into the main view using the view controller's viewDidLoad method. – Camsoft Jan 13 '12 at 10:14
  • Every View should have a corresponding UIViewController. Using one ViewController to "Control" more than one view breaks the MVC paradigm. if this was true how can universal view controller works?, it has 2 nibs. – Juan Jan 17 '13 at 04:53
  • I was thinking almost the same thing @Hubert. There seem to be some problems associated with this. If the decision is being made on run time, and on a button click, doesn't this mean that the xib will be loaded in the background, infact all of them, and one will be selected? Also, autolayout could have solved the problem easily. – Ali Abbas Jaffri Jul 22 '16 at 18:47