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https://github.com/aschuch/StatefulViewController

Placeholder views based on content, loading, error or empty states
https://github.com/aschuch/StatefulViewController

empty error loading placeholder state state-management swift uiviewcontroller

Last synced: 3 months ago
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Placeholder views based on content, loading, error or empty states

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# StatefulViewController



[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/aschuch/StatefulViewController.svg)](https://travis-ci.org/aschuch/StatefulViewController)

![Carthage compatible](https://img.shields.io/badge/Carthage-compatible-4BC51D.svg?style=flat)

![Swift 3.0](https://img.shields.io/badge/Swift-3.0-orange.svg)

![Platform](https://img.shields.io/badge/platform-iOS%20%7C%20tvOS-lightgrey.svg)



A protocol to enable `UIViewController`s or `UIView`s to present placeholder views based on content, loading, error or empty states.



![StatefulViewController Example](Resources/example.gif)



## Overview



In a networked application a view controller or custom view typically has the following states that need to be communicated to the user:



* **Loading**: The content is currently loaded over the network.

* **Content**: The content is available and presented to the user.

* **Empty**: There is currently no content available to display.

* **Error**: An error occurred whilst downloading content.



As trivial as this flow may sound, there are a lot of cases that result in a rather large decision tree.



![Decision Tree](Resources/decision_tree.png)



`StatefulViewController` is a concrete implementation of this particular decision tree. (If you want to create your own modified version, you might be interested in the [state machine](#viewstatemachine) that is used to show and hide views.)



## Version Compatibility



Current Swift compatibility breakdown:



| Swift Version | Framework Version |

| ------------- | ----------------- |

| 3.0           | 3.x               |

| 2.3           | 2.x               |

| 2.2           | 1.x               |



[all releases]: https://github.com/aschuch/StatefulViewController/releases



## Usage



> This guide describes the use of the `StatefulViewController` protocol on `UIViewController`. However, you can also adopt the `StatefulViewController` protocol on any `UIViewController` subclass, such as `UITableViewController` or `UICollectionViewController`, as well as your custom `UIView` subclasses.



First, make sure your view controller adopts to the `StatefulViewController` protocol.



```swift

class MyViewController: UIViewController, StatefulViewController {

    // ...

}

```



Then, configure the `loadingView`, `emptyView` and `errorView` properties (provided by the `StatefulViewController` protocol) in `viewDidLoad`.



```swift

override func viewDidLoad() {

    super.viewDidLoad()



    // Setup placeholder views

    loadingView = // UIView

    emptyView = // UIView

    errorView = // UIView

}

```



In addition, call the `setupInitialViewState()` method in `viewWillAppear:` in order to setup the initial state of the controller.



```swift

override func viewWillAppear(animated: Bool) {

    super.viewWillAppear(animated)



    setupInitialViewState()

}

```



After that, simply tell the view controller whenever content is loading and `StatefulViewController` will take care of showing and hiding the correct loading, error and empty view for you.



```swift

override func viewWillAppear(animated: Bool) {

    super.viewWillAppear(animated)



    loadDeliciousWines()

}



func loadDeliciousWines() {

    startLoading()



    let url = NSURL(string: "http://example.com/api")

    let session = NSURLSession.sharedSession()

    session.dataTaskWithURL(url) { (let data, let response, let error) in

        endLoading(error: error)

    }.resume()

}

```



### Life cycle



StatefulViewController calls the `hasContent` method to check if there is any content to display. If you do not override this method in your own class, `StatefulViewController` will always assume that there is content to display.



```swift

func hasContent() -> Bool {

    return datasourceArray.count > 0

}

```



Optionally, you might also be interested to respond to an error even if content is already shown. `StatefulViewController` will not show its `errorView` in this case, because there is already content that can be shown.



To e.g. show a custom alert or other unobtrusive error message, use `handleErrorWhenContentAvailable:` to manually present the error to the user.



```swift

func handleErrorWhenContentAvailable(error: ErrorType) {

    let alertController = UIAlertController(title: "Ooops", message: "Something went wrong.", preferredStyle: .Alert)

    alertController.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "OK", style: .Default, handler: nil))

    presentViewController(alertController, animated: true, completion: nil)

}

```



### Custom Placeholder View insets



Per default, StatefulViewController presents all configured placeholder views fullscreen (i.e. with 0 insets from top, bottom, left & right from the superview). In case a placeholder view should have custom insets the configured placeholderview may conform to the `StatefulPlaceholderView` protocol and override the `placeholderViewInsets` method to return custom edge insets.



```swift

class MyPlaceholderView: UIView, StatefulPlaceholderView {

    func placeholderViewInsets() -> UIEdgeInsets {

        return UIEdgeInsets(top: 20, left: 20, bottom: 20, right: 20)

    }

}

```






### View State Machine



> Note: The following section is only intended for those, who want to create a stateful controller that differs from the flow described above.



You can also use the underlying view state machine to create a similar implementation for your custom flow of showing/hiding views.



```swift

let stateMachine = ViewStateMachine(view: view)



// Add states

stateMachine["loading"] = loadingView

stateMachine["other"] = otherView



// Transition to state

stateMachine.transitionToState(.View("loading"), animated: true) {

    println("finished switching to loading view")

}



// Hide all views

stateMachine.transitionToState(.None, animated: true) {

    println("all views hidden now")

}

```



## Installation



#### Carthage



Add the following line to your [Cartfile](https://github.com/Carthage/Carthage/blob/master/Documentation/Artifacts.md#cartfile).



```

github "aschuch/StatefulViewController" ~> 3.0

```



Then run `carthage update`.



#### CocoaPods



Add the following line to your Podfile.



```

pod "StatefulViewController", "~> 3.0"

```



Then run `pod install` with CocoaPods 0.36 or newer.



#### Manually



Just drag and drop the two `.swift` files in the `StatefulViewController` folder into your project.



## Tests



Open the Xcode project and press `⌘-U` to run the tests.



Alternatively, all tests can be run from the terminal using [xctool](https://github.com/facebook/xctool).



```bash

xctool -scheme StatefulViewControllerTests -sdk iphonesimulator test

```



## Todo



* Default loading, error, empty views

* Protocol on views that notifies them of removal and add

* Views can provide delays in order to tell the state machine to show/remove them only after a specific delay (e.g. for hide and show animations)



## Contributing



* Create something awesome, make the code better, add some functionality,

  whatever (this is the hardest part).

* [Fork it](http://help.github.com/forking/)

* Create new branch to make your changes

* Commit all your changes to your branch

* Submit a [pull request](http://help.github.com/pull-requests/)



## Contact



Feel free to get in touch.



* Website: 

* Twitter: [@schuchalexander](http://twitter.com/schuchalexander)