iPhone - Alternate Landscape View issue

Question

I'm having the landscape mode issue and I can not find the way out. Basically, I'm having a tab bar application and in the first tab i have navigation controller. In this navigation controller, first view contains table with items and after clicking the item, detail view describing the item is pushed.

I need to implement landscape mode for both list and detail view, but for list view, i need to use different view controller for landscape mode (generally, something like cover flow). Detail view is just changing orientation and no need to use alternate view controller in this case.

I tried to achieve this behaviour by implementing modal view controller for list view controller, according to Alternate Views example by Apple. This works fine when I'm in list view (when I turn device into landscape mode, cover flow view controller is correctly presented). Problem comes when I'm showing detail view. When I change the device orientation, cover flow shows up again. What I expected is that cover flow will be presented only in case that list view is on the screen. It seems like modal view controller is always visible no matter what VC is currently on the stack of NC.

It seems to me that presenting modal VC as landscape view for particular VC is not working for multiple navigation levels.

I also tried to add landscape view as a subview into view controllers view. When using this solution, i have no problem with navigation levels, but issue here is that tab bar is not hidden in landscape mode. I need to hide tab bar for cover flow, which is achieved by presenting modal VC.

I will appreciate any help with this issue.

Great thanks!

Answer 1

In the detail view controller, you could set up a different view entirely using something like this (code from a recent project of mine):

- (void)willRotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)toOrientation 
                                duration:(NSTimeInterval)duration
{
    if ([graphView superview]) {
        if (toOrientation == UIInterfaceOrientationPortrait ||
            toOrientation == UIInterfaceOrientationPortraitUpsideDown) {
            [graphView removeFromSuperview];
        }
    } else {
        if (toOrientation == UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeLeft ||
            toOrientation == UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeRight) {
            [[self view] endEditing:YES];
            [[self view] addSubview:graphView];
        }       
    }
}

And now to hide the tabbar when you are in landscape (bit of a hack, but works):

-(void)didRotateFromInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)fromInterfaceOrientation 
{ 
    UIInterfaceOrientation toOrientation = self.interfaceOrientation;

    if ( self.tabBarController.view.subviews.count >= 2 )
    {
        UIView *transView = [self.tabBarController.view.subviews objectAtIndex:0];
        UIView *tabBar = [self.tabBarController.view.subviews objectAtIndex:1];

        if(toOrientation == UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeLeft ||
           toOrientation == UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeRight) {                                     
            transView.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 480, 320 );
            tabBar.hidden = TRUE;
        }
        else
        {                               
            transView.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, 480);         
            tabBar.hidden = FALSE;
        }
    }
}

For this project, I added a view called "graphView" that I wanted to appear if and only if in landscape mode, and then I wanted to tabbar to be hidden. This sounds similar to what you're after, I think.

The only potential problem I foresee is that if you enter landscape mode before the detail view is pushed, things could get wonky. Therefore you may want to use these methods in the list view controller instead. This particular problem never arose for me, but it's something I thought about before I realized it was moot.