What is the best way to load a custom UIView?

Question

In my iPhone app, I made a custom UIView that I use in several different view controllers to display some information.

I'm familiar with making customer table cells for use in a table but I've never made a custom view again.

My question is what is the best way to load this view? I've tried simply placing the view in the view controllers I want it to appear in using IB, but that doesn't seem to be enough. It seems to me that it would make sense that if you set the Class Identity for the view that it should load up that view when the view controller is created. Or maybe it doesn't because it doesn't know what nib to get it from (it's in its own nib, of course).

Since it's not a view controller, I can't just use initWithNibName. I've tried using NSBundle loadNibNamed like I do with table cells but it seems like an awfully large amount of work. The code looks like this:

NSArray *topLevelObjects = [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:@"MyCustomView" owner:nil options:nil];
for (id currentObject in topLevelObjects) {
    if ([currentObject isKindOfClass:[MyCustomView class]]) {
        self.customView = currentObject;
        break;
    }
}
[self.view addSubview:self.customView];

There must be an easier way which doesn't involve the loop. Also, creating the view this way makes me lose all the info from IB on where I actually placed the view. It's created at 0,0 which is not where I want it. Yes, I know I can set a new frame, but again, there must be an easier way. Is there a way I can do this all through IB? Or at least with less work programmatically?

Answer 1

I also make it that way. I ran into the problem that I want to subclass UIView and using nib at the same time. I don't think there's better way to do so, because nib file can contains many objects and you have to specify which one to use. However, do it this way you can put IBOutlet in your MyCustomView and bind it in IB so the view can manage itself e.g. overriding layoutSubviews.

Answer 2

Try this: create a new UIViewController subclass (called ParentViewController for the sake of answer) that each of your controllers that need to display this information will then also subclass. This controller should not have a nib associated with it.

In ParentViewController, create an IBOutlet for a UIView that will hold a reference to a view containing your custom nib. (Called customView, again just because)

Now, open your nib (for the commonly used customView) in Interface Builder and select the File's Owner. Now in the Identity tab, choose the ParentViewController created above for the class. Now here comes the trick. In Connections, remove any connection to "view" (if there is any) and create a connection from the customView outlet to the topmost UIView of the nib that defines your customView.

Now, when you do a loadNibNamed in the code for a subclass of ParentViewController, it should automagically load the UIView from your nib and put a reference to it in the outlet for you to use. No loop required.

You could also add outlets for any other interface components in your nib and do the same thing.

Good luck!