Is there a View Controller to show thumbnails like the Photos app?

Question

I am looking to replicate the image gallery view that shows thumbnails, like in the photos app on the iPhone.

Is there a view controller or any examples that anyone can provide to replicate this?

Answer 1

There isn't one provided by Apple. I would recommend looking at Three20. It has a few things with look a lot like the Photos app.

Answer 2

Another option is AQGridView.

Answer 3

I've recently given enormego's PhotoViewer a try. It's easy to use, and it's much more focused than the Three20 project. (Which I also use and like a lot.)

Answer 4

Take a look at the video of Session 104 from the WWDC 2010. It's basically a 40 minute tutorial on how to do the photo app.

Bear in mind that allowing users to zoom will greatly increase the space required. If you use CATiledLayers, that is, which, depending on your desired zoom level, you should consider doing.

Oh, and there is source code ;)

What they don't tell you is how they did their tiling. I found that you can

a) download ready-made tiles from the server with the app or with a content update (you can use ImageMagick's crop tileWidthXtileHeight - e.g. crop 100x100 - to do the tiling). This has the disadvantage of large downloads.

b) download ready-made tiles from the server as needed (may lead to lags in your app, but then MKMapView does it quite nicely, doesn't it?)

c) tile on the phone as needed (here you can also consider caching the results, although that will likely mean you have to check space left on the device)