Lorenzo Bulfone

Recently I’ve been looking into ways to create an interface that allows the user to navigate through full-page views using both vertical and horizontal scrolling. Each view provides a data chart (replaced by a simple label in this example) for a specific day, week or month. By swiping left/right the user can navigate between days, while swiping up/down they can switch to the weekly (and further down, monthly) view and back up. The navigation works in a very similar way to Sony PS3’s and PS4’s menu interface.

iOS provides different ways to display scrolling and paged content, namely UIPageView, UIScrollView and UICollectionView. The last of the three was the last to be introduced and it is the most versatile thanks to the ability to use a custom UICollectionViewLayout to create a grid interface.
At first, a grid interface with only one view at a time on-screen seemed like the way to go, but then the horizontal and vertical navigation would have been tied together: if the user navigates 3 days back in time (horizontally) and then swipes down to the week view, they would be provided with the data from 3 weeks back, and this would be counterintuitive and confusing.

The solution was to have three different UICollectionView to handle the horizontal navigation independently and a UIPageView to navigate vertically between the three.

I added a UIPageViewController to the storyboard, and in the Attribute Inspector I set the navigation direction to vertical and the transition style to scroll. This will be the initial view controller.

Then I added a UICollectionViewController and set its storyboard ID to “collectionViewController” in the Identity Inspector. I navigated the view hierarchy down one level to the UICollectionView and configured it as follows.

The UIPageView is handled by VerticalPageViewController:

@implementation VerticalPageViewController

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];

    // Set yourself as the datasource and delegate of the page view
    self.dataSource = self;
    self.delegate = self;

    // Get the first of the three UICollectionViewControllers and load it on screen
    HorizontalCollectionViewController *startingViewController = [self viewControllerAtIndex:0];
    NSArray *viewControllers = @[startingViewController];
    [self setViewControllers:viewControllers direction:UIPageViewControllerNavigationDirectionReverse animated:NO completion:nil];
}

#pragma mark - UIPageViewController Delegate & Datasource

- (UIViewController *)pageViewController:(UIPageViewController *)pageViewController viewControllerBeforeViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController
{
    NSInteger index = ((HorizontalCollectionViewController *) viewController).pageIndex;

    if (index == NSNotFound) {
        return nil;
    }

    index--;

    return [self viewControllerAtIndex:index];
}

- (UIViewController *)pageViewController:(UIPageViewController *)pageViewController viewControllerAfterViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController
{
    NSInteger index = ((HorizontalCollectionViewController *) viewController).pageIndex;

    if (index == NSNotFound) {
        return nil;
    }

    index++;

    return [self viewControllerAtIndex:index];
}

- (HorizontalCollectionViewController *)viewControllerAtIndex:(NSInteger)index
{
    if ((index > 0) || (index < -2)) {
        return nil;
    } else {

        // Get a new UICollectionViewController (with all the settings and subviews) from the storyboard
        HorizontalCollectionViewController *collectionViewController = [self.storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:@"collectionViewController"];
        // Give the controller a page index so it is aware of which data to display (day/week/month)
        collectionViewController.pageIndex = index;

        return collectionViewController;
    }
}       

@end

The three UICollectionView are handled by a single controller, HorizontalCollectionViewController.m.

@interface HorizontalCollectionViewController ()

@property IBOutlet UILabel *label;

@property NSMutableArray *dailyContent;
@property NSMutableArray *weeklyContent;
@property NSMutableArray *monthlyContent;

@end

@implementation HorizontalCollectionViewController

static NSString * const reuseIdentifier = @"Cell";

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];

    // Register cell classes
    // [self.collectionView registerClass:[UICollectionViewCell class] forCellWithReuseIdentifier:reuseIdentifier];

    // Do any additional setup after loading the view.
    _dailyContent = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithArray:@[@"DAY: One", @"DAY: Two", @"DAY: Three", @"DAY: Four", @"DAY: Five"]];
    _weeklyContent = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithArray:@[@"WEEK: One", @"WEEK: Two", @"WEEK: Three", @"WEEK: Four", @"WEEK: Five"]];
    _monthlyContent = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithArray:@[@"MONTH: One", @"MONTH: Two", @"MONTH: Three", @"MONTH: Four", @"MONTH: Five"]];

    [self scrollToEnd];
}

- (void)didReceiveMemoryWarning {
    [super didReceiveMemoryWarning];
    // Dispose of any resources that can be recreated.
}

/*
#pragma mark - Navigation

// In a storyboard-based application, you will often want to do a little preparation before navigation
- (void)prepareForSegue:(UIStoryboardSegue *)segue sender:(id)sender {
    // Get the new view controller using [segue destinationViewController].
    // Pass the selected object to the new view controller.
}
*/

#pragma mark <UICollectionViewDataSource>

- (NSInteger)numberOfSectionsInCollectionView:(UICollectionView *)collectionView
{
    return 1;
}


- (NSInteger)collectionView:(UICollectionView *)collectionView numberOfItemsInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    // Depending on the page index (0 to -2) figure out which data to display
    switch (_pageIndex)
    {
        case 0: {
            return [_dailyContent count];
            break;
        }

        case -1: {
            return [_weeklyContent count];
            break;
        }


        case -2: {
            return [_monthlyContent count];
            break;
        }

        default: {
            return 1;
            break;
        }
    }
}

- (UICollectionViewCell *)collectionView:(UICollectionView *)collectionView cellForItemAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    // Don't forget to give the UICollectionViewCell a class and a storyboard ID in the Interface Builder
    // HorizontalCollectionViewCell.h declared a IBOutlet UILabel *label
    // This way the compiler knows that each cell has a label and doesn't complain (wire the outlet to the placeholder cell in the Interface Builder)
    HorizontalCollectionViewCell *cell = [collectionView dequeueReusableCellWithReuseIdentifier:@"MovesCell" forIndexPath:indexPath];

    // Get the content from the correct array and update the label
    switch (_pageIndex)
    {
        case 0: {
            cell.label.text = [_dailyContent objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
            break;
        }

        case -1: {
            cell.label.text = [_weeklyContent objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
            break;
        }


        case -2: {
            cell.label.text = [_monthlyContent objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
            break;
        }

        default: {
            break;
        }
    }

    return cell;
}

#pragma mark UICollectionViewDelegate

- (CGSize)collectionView:(UICollectionView *)collectionView layout:(UICollectionViewLayout *)collectionViewLayout sizeForItemAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    // Each cell must be the same as the screen size minus the height of the status bar (otherwise it will brake the UICollectionViewFlowLayout)
    CGFloat width = self.view.frame.size.width;
    CGFloat height = self.view.frame.size.height - [UIApplication sharedApplication].statusBarFrame.size.height;

    return CGSizeMake(width, height);
}

@end

The header files for these two classes just declare the public properties and the protocols the two classes conform to. Using a custom subclass of UICollectionViewCell allows to declare its outlets and to design its interface easily in the storyboard.

If everything has been wired and set correctly in the storyboard, these few lines of code will allow you to create a pretty neat and complex UI!