Allowing different navigation controller views to have different orientation rules

Question

I am trying to follow a previous question in allowing a navigation controller view controllers in having different orientation rules. Previous Question

So for example, I have two view controllers the first is a Welcome the second Home. I would like the first view controller to only be Potrait and the second (Home) to allow both Port/Landscape.

I am not sure I quite understand in full how to complete this. Once I do, I intend to create a seperate project explaining how to do this and add to Github/share on the question for future reference.

In this particular project I am using a side view controller github project. PPRevealSideViewController.

My app Delegate is the following:

// Then we setup the reveal side view controller with the root view controller as the navigation controller
welcomeViewController = [[MESWelcomeViewController alloc] init];
UINavigationController *navController = [[MESNavViewControllerSubClass alloc] initWithRootViewController:welcomeViewController];


self.revealSideViewController = [[PPRevealSideViewController alloc] initWithRootViewController:navController];
[self.revealSideViewController setDirectionsToShowBounce:PPRevealSideDirectionNone];
[self.revealSideViewController setPanInteractionsWhenClosed:PPRevealSideInteractionContentView | PPRevealSideInteractionNavigationBar];

//self.window.rootViewController = welcomeViewController;
self.window.rootViewController = self.revealSideViewController;
[self.window makeKeyAndVisible];

From the above you can see I have subclassed the Navigation Controller as MESNavViewController. This is my head for this file:

@interface MESNavViewControllerSubClass : UINavigationController {
    BOOL setLandscapeOK;
}

Imp file for MESNavViewController:

-(void)viewDidLoad {
    NSLog(@"subclass called");
}

- (BOOL)shouldAutorotate
{
    return YES;
}

- (NSUInteger)supportedInterfaceOrientations
{
    if (self->setLandscapeOK) {
        // for iPhone, you could also return UIInterfaceOrientationMaskAllButUpsideDown
        return UIInterfaceOrientationMaskAll;
    }
    return UIInterfaceOrientationMaskPortrait;
}

In my first (Welcome) View controller I have the following:

-(void)viewWillAppear {
    BOOL setLandscapeOK = NO;
}
- (NSInteger)supportedInterfaceOrientations {
    // Restriction for the welcome page to only allow potrait orientation
    return UIInterfaceOrientationMaskPortrait;
}

In my second (Home) View controller I have only the following:

-(void)viewWillAppear {
    BOOL setLandscapeOK = YES;
}

What I am seeing is both view controllers within the nav allow either orientation. I am not sure I quite understand it correctly. Hopefully I have provided enough information.

EDIT ----- I have updated the PPRevealSidePanel sub class which is the very top level controller. This then holds the nav controller, which in turn holds the view controller. The orientation should be decided by the view controller displayed.

PPRevealSidePanel Sub class -

Secondly I receive an error trying to update the setter setLandscapeOK for this sub class, on the actual view controller. Login View controller -

Answer 1

Can you check the below thread which talks about handling orientation with nav controllers

NavController ShouldAutorotate

-anoop

Answer 2

Is your viewWillAppear method being called? The actual method is - (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated.

Aside from that, the issue is that supportedInterfaceOrientations is called before viewWillAppear. Try setting your BOOL flag in your initWithNibName method.

EDIT:

something like this:

- (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil {
    self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil];
    if (self) {
        self.setLandscapeOK = YES;
    }
    return self;
}

EDIT 2:

I just noticed you're re-declaring setLandscapeOK as a new variable in viewWillAppear. This is hiding your superclass's instance of that variable. Try using self.setLandscapeOK instead of BOOL setLandscapeOK

EDIT 3:

Since you aren't subclassing your main nav controller, the above stuff wont work. You'll need an explicit way of notifying your navigation controller that it's subview doesnt want it to support certain orientations. When you push the viewcontroller that is portrait only, setLandscapeOK should be set to NO.

Answer 3

What goes wrong in your case is that you're overriding -supportedInterfaceOrientations in that UINavigationController subclass, so that method never gets passed to its child ViewControllers. Also you're declaring a new setLandscapeOK BOOL in viewWillAppear, not changing the global one. What is weird is that based on the code you've posted your app should be stuck in portrait, not allow all orientations, since you never seem to set the setLandscapeOK boolean to YES in the UINavigationController subclass.

But you seem to make things a lot more complicated than they should be. You shouldn't need that setLandscapeOK boolean and you shouldn't need to subclass UINavigationController or the PPRevealSideViewController just for the rotation issue. Both PPRevealSideViewController and UINavigationController are container ViewControllers, aka parent ViewControllers that contain child ViewControllers. By default when an orientation callback is called on the parent ViewController, it will call and return the same method of the child ViewController.

When -shouldAutoRotate, -supportedInterfaceOrientations or -shouldAutoRotateToInterfaceOrientation is called on the PPRevealSideViewController, it will call the same methods on its rootViewController, in your case a UINavigationController. The UINavigationController is also a container ViewController and will call the same method on the currently visible ViewController, in your case either the WelcomeViewController or the HomeViewController.

So, all you need to do is override -supportedInterfaceOrientations and -shouldAutoRotateToInterfaceOrientation in the WelcomeViewController (return portrait only) and the HomeViewController (return all). Don't override these methods in MESNavViewController, you shouldn't even need this subclass. You don't need to do anything else. You can remove that setLandscapeOK boolean in all of your ViewControllers as well.