Swapping Child Views in a Container View

Swapping child views in a container view

When you have child views that have their own view controllers, you should be following the custom container controller pattern. See Creating Custom Container View Controllers for more information.

Assuming you've followed the custom container pattern, when you want to change the child view controller (and its associated view) for the "content view", you would do that programmatically with something like:

UIViewController *newController = ... // instantiate new controller however you want
UIViewController *oldController = ... // grab the existing controller for the current "content view"; perhaps you maintain this in your own ivar; perhaps you just look this up in self.childViewControllers

newController.view.frame = oldController.view.frame;

[oldController willMoveToParentViewController:nil];
[self addChildViewController:newController];         // incidentally, this does the `willMoveToParentViewController` for the new controller for you

[self transitionFromViewController:oldController
                  toViewController:newController
                          duration:0.5
                           options:UIViewAnimationOptionTransitionCrossDissolve
                        animations:^{
                            // no further animations required
                        }
                        completion:^(BOOL finished) {
                            [oldController removeFromParentViewController]; // incidentally, this does the `didMoveToParentViewController` for the old controller for you
                            [newController didMoveToParentViewController:self];
                        }];

When you do it this way, there's no need for any delegate-protocol interface with the content view's controller (other than what iOS already provides with the Managing Child View Controllers in a Custom Container methods).

By the way, this assumes that the initial child controller associated with that content view was added like so:

UIViewController *childController = ... // instantiate the content view's controller any way you want
[self addChildViewController:childController];
childController.view.frame = ... // set the frame any way you want
[self.view addSubview:childController.view];
[childController didMoveToParentViewController:self];

If you want a child controller to tell the parent to change the controller associated with the content view, you would:

Define a protocol for this:

@protocol ContainerParent <NSObject>

- (void)changeContentTo:(UIViewController *)controller;

@end

Define the parent controller to conform to this protocol, e.g.:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#import "ContainerParent.h"

@interface ViewController : UIViewController <ContainerParent>

@end

Implement the changeContentTo method in the parent controller (much as outlined above):

- (void)changeContentTo:(UIViewController *)controller
{
    UIViewController *newController = controller;
    UIViewController *oldController = ... // grab reference of current child from `self.childViewControllers or from some property where you stored it

    newController.view.frame = oldController.view.frame;

    [oldController willMoveToParentViewController:nil];
    [self addChildViewController:newController];

    [self transitionFromViewController:oldController
                      toViewController:newController
                              duration:1.0
                               options:UIViewAnimationOptionTransitionCrossDissolve
                            animations:^{
                                // no further animations required
                            }
                            completion:^(BOOL finished) {
                                [oldController removeFromParentViewController];
                                [newController didMoveToParentViewController:self];
                            }];
}

And the child controllers can now use this protocol in reference to the self.parentViewController property that iOS provides for you:

- (IBAction)didTouchUpInsideButton:(id)sender
{
    id <ContainerParent> parentViewController = (id)self.parentViewController;
    NSAssert([parentViewController respondsToSelector:@selector(changeContentTo:)], @"Parent must conform to ContainerParent protocol");

    UIViewController *newChild = ... // instantiate the new child controller any way you want
    [parentViewController changeContentTo:newChild];
}

Swapping VC's in a Container View - childVC does not fit Container

OK crisis over. Turns out I was designing in storyboard for a 12 inch iPad and running as a 9.7 inch iPad. Several views had fixed value heights/widths - hence the wonky appearance when running the app.

Swap view controllers in a container view

If you have not started your work yet I would suggest using UITabViewController in place of container view in UIViewController. Using UITabViewController has one advantage over using container view that you dont have to manage Child View Controller your UITabViewController manages it all. As apple documentation says UITabBarController is a specialized view controller that manages a radio-style selection interface.

But if you have already started working on container view, you may want it working.I too learned regarding container view from the same link which @iOSGeek has shared. Every things is clearly explained. You can follow the same link and you are good to go.

Hope it helps. Happy Coding!!

Container View in Cocoa, Swap Contents at Runtime and Preserve Size

It turns out all I needed to do is add this line before setting up my constraints:

    newView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false

It isn't clear to me why I should need this, given that the child view I want to add belongs to a view controller created from a storyboard (and those are supposed to already not translate autoresizing mask into constraints...?); this code should only be needed for views created programmatically...

Switching containerView content from within viewController

While click on ButtonA. Post a notification to mainView. There remove viewController A from Container and add View Controller B .

how to load child view controllers or container views - Swift

As i understand there are 2 container views and you want to see the blue view when the segmented is first and you want to see the green view when the segmented is second if it is true the solution is like this;

You should init the uivew(hold on the ctrl and drag it to viewcontroller for both blue and green container view)(you need to add 2 different container view) and write

if segmented.selectedIndex == 0 { 

    greenView.isHidden = true
    blueView.isHidden = false

} else if segmented.selectedIndex == 1 {

    greenView.isHidden = false
    blueView.isHidden = true
}

Swapping Child Views in a Container View