Set content of the menu programmatically

[thang2410199]

        let menuLeftNavigationController = UISideMenuNavigationController(rootViewController: SideMenuViewController())
        menuLeftNavigationController.leftSide = true
        // UISideMenuNavigationController is a subclass of UINavigationController, so do any additional configuration of it here like setting its viewControllers.
        SideMenuManager.menuLeftNavigationController = menuLeftNavigationController

The code above let me open the side menu, but its empty. It should have root controller = SideMenuViewController(). It never loaded.

I tested SideMenuViewController and it display just fine anywhere else.

[jonkykong]

You either need to set the rootViewController in code or in your storyboard. SideMenu itself is just a navigation controller. Please see the demo project for additional insight.

[thang2410199]

I did set the rootViewController using
UISideMenuNavigationController(rootViewController: SideMenuViewController())

SideMenuViewController is my custom view controller.
I fully understand that SideMenu is subclass of navigation controller.

I have to use setViewControllers to make it works as expected, it is ugly to write.

[jonkykong]

Try doing more testing/debugging to assess root cause; I don't have enough to go on to tell you what's wrong with the info you've provided.

Add breakpoints in ViewDidLoad to see if SideMenuViewController is actually loading. Try subclassing UISideMenuNavigationController and overriding its init methods to see how rootViewController is being set. Try debugging the view hierarchy to see if anything is initialized but not visible.

[thang2410199]

let menuLeftNavigationController = UISideMenuNavigationController(rootViewController: SideMenuViewController())

let navigationController = UINavigationController(rootViewController: SideMenuViewController())

After those statement run, debugger shows:

(lldb) print menuLeftNavigationController.topViewController
(UIViewController?) $R0 = nil
(lldb) print navigationController.topViewController
(UIViewController?) $R1 = 0x000000015eebd790 {
  UIKit.UIResponder = {
    ObjectiveC.NSObject = {}
  }
}

SideMenuViewController never loaded in the first statement.

I sub classed UINavigationController just like you do, the topViewController of my sub class is not nil, so I think there is problem with your implementation

[thang2410199]

I found the problem:

when init with rootViewController, the pushViewControll function is called, you check if menuviewcontroller is nil or not. At init time it always nil. So no code is run.

I will submit a PR to fix it if you dont have time, its solved 👍

[jonkykong]

@thang2410199 can you point me to the file/line number?

[thang2410199]

https://github.com/jonkykong/SideMenu/blob/master/Pod/Classes/UISideMenuNavigationController.swift#L118

I created a PR here #46

I am learning iOS, so it will be really good if I can contribute to your project to learn in the process.

[jonkykong]

I appreciate your earnest in wanting to learn contributing to this repo! I came up with a fix for this myself, however I took a different approach. Let's sync on functional expectations of the menu before taking either one.

When I used the code snippet you provided at the outset of this issue, and then wire up a button to present the menu programmatically, the menu still appears but without a viewController.

From your PR, it seems that you are having problems getting the menu to appear at all because of the missing rootViewController.

In UISideMenuNavigationController, I added these lines which successfully set the rootViewController:

    // TODO: these initializers shouldn't be necessary, but they are failing to set 
    // the rootViewController for this custom class (on at least iOS 9.3)
    override public init(rootViewController: UIViewController) {
        super.init(rootViewController: rootViewController)

        viewControllers = [rootViewController]
    }

    required override public init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        super.init(coder: aDecoder)
    }

    override init(nibName nibNameOrNil: String?, bundle nibBundleOrNil: NSBundle?) {
        super.init(nibName: nibNameOrNil, bundle: nibBundleOrNil)
    }

[thang2410199]

Wow, I did try your approach first hand, but I think write

viewControllers = [rootViewController]

is kind of a hack (we are doing the job of super class!). And at the
same time I think not call super class 's method on pushViewController
is not expected.

If the menu view controller is created, and navigate to a second
controller, then assign to left menu, it wont show second view
controller because the super's pushViewController is not called

Best Regard
Ngo Quoc Thang
http://iwindroid.com
+358 449648202

On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 10:39 PM, Jon Kent notifications@github.com wrote:

I appreciate your earnest in wanting to learn contributing to this repo! I
came up with a fix for this myself, however I took a different approach.
Let's sync on functional expectations of the menu before taking either one.

When I used the code snippet you provided at the outset of this issue, and
then wire up a button to present the menu programmatically, the menu still
appears but without a viewController.

From your PR, it seems that you are having problems getting the menu to
appear at all because of the missing rootViewController.

In UISideMenuNavigationController, I added these lines which successfully
set the rootViewController:

// TODO: these initializers shouldn't be necessary, but they are failing to set
// the rootViewController for this custom class (on at least iOS 9.3)
override public init(rootViewController: UIViewController) {
    super.init(rootViewController: rootViewController)

    viewControllers = [rootViewController]
}

required override public init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
    super.init(coder: aDecoder)
}

override init(nibName nibNameOrNil: String?, bundle nibBundleOrNil: NSBundle?) {
    super.init(nibName: nibNameOrNil, bundle: nibBundleOrNil)
}

—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub
#44 (comment),
or mute the thread
https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe/ACUvOJnnhyyWqA5BfXcAwQOvgjEkaubkks5qUpvngaJpZM4JHF6l
.

[jonkykong]

I completely agree it's hacky, but I don't see any other reason why letting the superclass work as normal doesn't work.. I've put breakpoints in all over the code to see where else I might be clearing out the rootViewController and nothing is being called that would seem to indicate a bug.

So are you saying your fix demonstrates that you see the rootViewController as expected?

[thang2410199]

yes, I do. I debug and see the problem: when init with rootViewController, the framework actually called pushViewController. But your override method did not call super's pushViewController, so in the end there is no view controller added to navigation stack

[jonkykong]

Understood! Good find.

The reason why pushViewController is overridden is so that if you try to push a viewController from the side menu, it will instead defer that to the main screen. It appears that by overriding it that breaks the init method which uses the override to set itself up.

Here's how I would write the fix (note that I've learned a bit more about guard statements since I wrote this repo and I think it's syntactically cleaner to do it this way:

override public func pushViewController(viewController: UIViewController, animated: Bool) {
        guard viewControllers.count > 0 else {
            // NOTE: pushViewController is called by init(rootViewController: UIViewController)
            // so we must perform the normal super method in this case.
            super.pushViewController(viewController, animated: true)
            return
        }

        guard let menuViewController: UINavigationController = SideMenuTransition.presentDirection == .Left ? SideMenuManager.menuLeftNavigationController : SideMenuManager.menuRightNavigationController else {
            return
        }

        guard let presentingViewController = menuViewController.presentingViewController as? UINavigationController else {
            menuViewController.presentViewController(viewController, animated: animated, completion: nil)
            print("SideMenu Warning: cannot push a ViewController from a ViewController without a NavigationController. It will be presented it instead.")
            return
        }

        // to avoid overlapping dismiss & pop/push calls, create a transaction block where the menu
        // is dismissed after showing the appropriate screen
        CATransaction.begin()
        CATransaction.setCompletionBlock( { () -> Void in
            self.dismissViewControllerAnimated(true, completion: nil)
            self.visibleViewController?.viewWillAppear(false) // Hack: force selection to get cleared on UITableViewControllers when reappearing using custom transitions
        })

        UIView.animateWithDuration(SideMenuManager.menuAnimationDismissDuration, animations: { () -> Void in
            SideMenuTransition.hideMenuStart()
        })

        if SideMenuManager.menuAllowPopIfPossible {
            for subViewController in presentingViewController.viewControllers {
                if subViewController.dynamicType == viewController.dynamicType {
                    presentingViewController.popToViewController(subViewController, animated: animated)
                    CATransaction.commit()
                    return
                }
            }
        }
        if !SideMenuManager.menuAllowPushOfSameClassTwice {
            if presentingViewController.viewControllers.last?.dynamicType == viewController.dynamicType {
                CATransaction.commit()
                return
            }
        }

        presentingViewController.pushViewController(viewController, animated: animated)
        CATransaction.commit()
    }

[thang2410199]

agree, better to read compare to multi level of statements.

Btw, you tell me more about the transition (e.g fading) as I interact with the menu (swipe). My way of thinking is that I will observe the offset (?) of the moving controller, and change the alpha of the menu accordingly, I dig into your code and find only SideMenuTransition class. I want to add parallax effect to the side menu.

[jonkykong]

Actually, one more change. One of those guard statements isn't necessary and was left over from a refactor I did a while back.

    override public func pushViewController(viewController: UIViewController, animated: Bool) {
        guard viewControllers.count > 0 else {
            // NOTE: pushViewController is called by init(rootViewController: UIViewController)
            // so we must perform the normal super method in this case.
            super.pushViewController(viewController, animated: true)
            return
        }

        guard let presentingViewController = presentingViewController as? UINavigationController else {
            presentViewController(viewController, animated: animated, completion: nil)
            print("SideMenu Warning: cannot push a ViewController from a ViewController without a NavigationController. It will be presented it instead.")
            return
        }

        // to avoid overlapping dismiss & pop/push calls, create a transaction block where the menu
        // is dismissed after showing the appropriate screen
        CATransaction.begin()
        CATransaction.setCompletionBlock( { () -> Void in
            self.dismissViewControllerAnimated(true, completion: nil)
            self.visibleViewController?.viewWillAppear(false) // Hack: force selection to get cleared on UITableViewControllers when reappearing using custom transitions
        })

        UIView.animateWithDuration(SideMenuManager.menuAnimationDismissDuration, animations: { () -> Void in
            SideMenuTransition.hideMenuStart()
        })

        if SideMenuManager.menuAllowPopIfPossible {
            for subViewController in presentingViewController.viewControllers {
                if subViewController.dynamicType == viewController.dynamicType {
                    presentingViewController.popToViewController(subViewController, animated: animated)
                    CATransaction.commit()
                    return
                }
            }
        }
        if !SideMenuManager.menuAllowPushOfSameClassTwice {
            if presentingViewController.viewControllers.last?.dynamicType == viewController.dynamicType {
                CATransaction.commit()
                return
            }
        }

        presentingViewController.pushViewController(viewController, animated: animated)
        CATransaction.commit()
    }

Feel free to put this in your PR and I will take it to give you credit for your find/work. Also please remove any excess formatting changes you did outside of this method.

Re: parallax, it depends on what you mean. Check out SideMenuManager.menuParallaxStrength to see if that's the effect you were going for (run it on your device, not simulator to see properly).

[thang2410199]

Thanks, I will do it tomorrow.

About the parallax, its demonstrated in Twitch app (iOS), their left side menu is what I mean by "parallax". the menuParallaxStrength made me confused, but I will give it more try.

[jonkykong]

I see. The effect you're looking for isn't built into SideMenu currently. You want a modified version of the "In + Out" effect, which would partially slide the menu in as it is revealed. You could build this by either modifying the repo or writing your own subclasses.

The trouble with this effect is picking smart defaults, or making them configurable for how much you want the menu to slide as its revealed.

I believe the iOS push effect slides the covered screen by either 1/3 or 1/2 of its width. Perhaps this might be a good benchmark for you.

[jonkykong]

Thanks for contributing @thang2410199!

[stefanlam88]

hi bro, how do actually set rootview controller when tap tableview row
. i use pushviewcontroller..it keep navigate