没有故事板或xib文件的iOS Universal App

Question

I have a question about universal app. My app will not have storyboards or xib file. There is possibility to write universal iPhone/iPad application without it? I found some tutorial how to create universal app with storyboard, but i don't want (i can't) use this feature in my project.

If it is possible What should i do? If i have to made changes only in ViewControllers? I'm start to do this, i'm not changing old project so i can do anythng - what should i learn/what should i remember?

I'm targeting to iOS 5.

EDIT:

I have a screen information in resource file and my rootViewController or any other ViewController will be created in compile time, so i can't have xib file for that, i can't put button on xib with Interface Builder becouse i don't even know how many buttons i will have there. I don't know how many screens i've got till i hit run in my project.

Answer 1

Not only can you write any type of iOS app without Interface Builder , it is actually much more testable and pliable. Some auto layout tricks are difficult (not possible?) in IB style projects, as well.

There is an incredibly impressive library called Masonry that wraps the NSLayoutContraint syntax. This makes it quite pleasurable to subclass views while not having to use ugly VFL or incredibly verbose NSLayoutContraint syntax (not even going to address frame setting...blech!). IB style apps also promote bad software development practices and anti-patterns (just dumping everything in a view controller presentation-wise. No Separation of Concerns!). Also, it is more difficult to work on larger teams (IMHO even small teams) while utilizing Nibs, Xibs, and Storyboards due to merge issues.

On top of all of that, you gain a much deeper understanding of the classes you are working with ( UIView , UIResponder , etc.) when writing code in this manner (once again IMHO). There is an interesting article outlining some of these issues in more detail: http://doing-it-wrong.mikeweller.com/2013/06/ios-app-architecture-and-tdd-1.html This is by no means the only article that discusses this problem. Also, this will help for your app delegate: creating a universal window-based iphone app without generated xib file

Answer 2

This is certainly possible, I have only used storyborads once in the many apps I have published. As for not using XIBs, I am not sure why you would want to do that. You can lay out your views at runtime in the init method, but I feel like that is just making things unduly hard on yourself. You can set a XIB up for the iPad and one for the iPhone so you can tailor the UI specifically to each device.

Perhaps if you go into a bit more detail about why you are imposing this requirement on yourself we can discuss if it si worth the effort to go down that road.

Good Luck.