What is the best way to manage 9-15 view from a main menu in an iOS app?

Question

In my iPhone app, I must have around 9-15 different views, all available from a main menu. I started yesterday with a simple tab bar controllers, but they are only ideal with 6-7 views. Which controller can I use? Is there a nice one for my needs?

Edit : I am talking about around 9-15 menu-points for my application. Each point is a single, categorizable function. I though about something like the Facebook app, where the app shows 2 menu-pages (slideable) and 9 icons on each page, each with another view / function in it.

Answer 1

look for cocoacontrols.com . i think you will find your need there .....

Answer 2

I think the component you are looking for(the same used in facebook app) is in the three20 library. Its called Launcher. It's like having iphone springboard inside the app. I'd go with that.

Answer 3

Can your views be split into categories? If so, I would suggest using the tab bar tabs as categories, and then using a table view as a menu in each tab.

You could also try using a page control, but 9-15 views seems like they would be obnoxious to navigate with a page control.

Answer 4

I understand that you need to have access to those "views" all the time. You can do what an iphone CNN app does. It uses horizontal scroll, where it has lot's of "views".

Answer 5

This is propably the most challenging part of writing an app for mobile phones. At least i find it not that easy to find the perfect user interface. Espcially if you have so much content and navigation to show.

I think the best way to solve this problem is to write your own navigation. If you want to use something similar like the facebook app - this is not so hard. Take a UIScrollView in combination with the UIPagingControl. Create a new View for your buttons or whatever you want your user to see and put it in the scroll view. Enable paging for the UIScrollVIew and your almost done. Maybe it's not the easiest way - but in the end it's the most flexible way. You can decide what you want to show and you dont have to be dependent on what some other developer wrote. Just a thought :)

// Edit: Just read in another question about appLauncher. This might be such a control you are looking for.

https://github.com/rigoneri/myLauncher