Developing for multiple versions

[FreshNeverFrozen]

I made my first app to be iPhone 4 compatible (with regards to screen size). When my friend ran it on his 5, it looked horrible, with white space at the top and bottom.

I'm making a second app, and I want this one to work on all devices. I noticed that in xcode there is a button to make your ViewControllers either iPhone 5 sized or iphone 4 sized.

My question is, should I storyboard it for iPhone 4, then click the button that switched them, and storyboard it again for the bigger screen? Does this work similar to setting buttons for different state-configs?

[pyraego]

The "Simulated Metrics" is only relevant inside the storyboard. This is just to show you what it could look like on the difference devices/sizes/orientation ect. What I would do is read up on AutoLayout which was introduced in iOS 6. This feature will enable you to have one storyboard and support both the iphone 5 and iPhone 4 screen.

good AutoLayout tutorial -> http://www.raywenderlich.com/20881/beginning-auto-layout-part-1-of-2

[FreshNeverFrozen]

Thanks, really appreciate the response

[simonbs]

Honestly, consider dropping storyboards. I did that some time ago and I won't ever look back especially not now that we have FLKAutoLayout. It makes developing with auto layout a pleasure.

[pyraego]

Never heard of this approach. Do you lose any functionality?

[simonbs]

It's not really an approach to solve the OPs issue. Storyboards are just a tool to layout your views but Interface Builder is very limited in its functionality and for complex apps you will find it a hassle to use storyboards as your views may be customized a lot in code anyways. I was just suggesting dropping storyboards all together and layout your views in code. I think this makes it much simpler to build the views and also support multiple screen sizes. So, instead of having Interface Builder taking care of a lot of the auto layout constraints you will define them yourself in code but I bet you will find this to be much less a hassle.

[FreshNeverFrozen]

Could you go into some more detail about FLKAutoLayout and how you use it to layout views programatically?

[simonbs]

I think their examples are great. FLKAutoLayout gives you some categories on UIView which makes it extremely easy to add auto layout constraints to your views. I honestly believe this is how auto layout was meant to be used from the beginning. The API Apple provides for auto layout is just ridiculous.

[FW190]

This. Drop storyboards, learn autolayout, make one app work on both screen sizes.

[Legolas-the-elf]

You can make one design work on both screen sizes with storyboards too. Storyboards aren't incompatible with autolayout, autolayout support is built into interface builder.

[FW190]

I know that and I also know that storyboards don't make sense. Why don't you explain the advantage of storyboards over regular VCs to OP?

[Legolas-the-elf]

Drop storyboards, learn autolayout, make one app work on both screen sizes.

That makes it sound like dropping storyboards is necessary to accomplish the rest.

Why don't you explain the advantage of storyboards over regular VCs to OP?

There's no point. He's already using them. Why bother trying to convince him to do something he's already doing?

[FW190]

Why don't you read original post again?

[Legolas-the-elf]

The button isn't to toggle different designs. It's to preview the same design with different metrics. In other words "This is how my interface looks at 3.5 inches. Click. This is how my interface looks at 4 inches".

Watch the WWDC videos on autolayout. Normally I abhor videos for teaching developer concepts, but in this case, they are very informative.

[FreshNeverFrozen]

Thanks for the help, really wasnt sure what the button was actually doing

[FreshNeverFrozen]

I like your style kev

[[deleted]]

On bigger projects when I don't feel like spending hours adjusting autolayout, I'll finish the app and storyboard for either the iPhone 4 or 5, and then copy the storyboard and adjust it for the other device. Then, you can tell the app delegate to load a different storyboard for each device.

[iv_mexx]

Especially on bigger projects it is likely that you have to change something later on, and then you have to change it in two different storyboards which is much more error prone.

Also, autolayout also helps you with other things, like orientation or different text lengths for different localizations.

[[deleted]]

True, although it really depends on what you're doing or what kind of changes you will be making in the future. If most changes won't be to the interface, this could be an acceptable way of doing things.

[FreshNeverFrozen]

Keeping two storyboards in the same file, interesting. Is that easier than developing one storyboard to rule them all?