UIPageViewController: return the current visible v

Question

How do you know what is the current page/view displayed inside an UIPageViewController?

I have overridden the viewDidAppear method of my child views, so that they send an id to the parent view in their viewDidAppear method.

However, the problem is this: i cannot reliably use that id as id for the displayed page. because if the user turns the page but halfway through decides to stop the turning and put the page back, viewDidAppear will already have been called. (the view is visible behind the curled page).

Maybe i should only switch to a new id if the current view disappears. But I wonder if there is not a more simple way to return the view that is currently visible?

Answer 1

UIViewController *viewController = [pageViewController.viewControllers objectAtIndex:0];
NSUInteger currentIndex = [(ViewController*) viewController indexNumber];

It will return current page index. and must use this code under the delegate function of UIPageViewController (didFinishAnimating).

Answer 2

You should manually keep track of the current page. The delegate method pageViewController:didFinishAnimating:previousViewControllers:transitionCompleted: will tell you when to update that variable. The last argument of the method transitionCompleted: can tell you whether a user completed a page turn transition or not.

Answer 3

I first used Corey's solution but it wasn't working on iOS5 then ended up using,

- (void)pageViewController:(UIPageViewController *)pageViewController didFinishAnimating:(BOOL)finished previousViewControllers:(NSArray *)previousViewControllers transitionCompleted:(BOOL)completed{

    if(completed) {
        _currentViewController = [pageViewController.viewControllers lastObject];
    }
}

It tried switching through different pages and it works well for now.

Answer 4

Below demo code (in Swift 2) that demonstrates how this is done by implementing a simple image swiper tutorial. Comments in the code itself :

import UIKit

/*
VCTutorialImagePage represents one page show inside the UIPageViewController.
You should create this page in your interfacebuilder file:
- create a new view controller
- set its class to VCTutorialImagePage
- sets its storyboard identifier to "VCTutorialImagePage" (needed for the loadView function)
- put an imageView on it and set the contraints (I guess to top/bottom/left/right all to zero from the superview)
- connect it to the "imageView" outlet
*/

class VCTutorialImagePage : UIViewController {
    //image to display, configure this in interface builder
    @IBOutlet weak var imageView: UIImageView!
    //index of this page
    var pageIndex : Int = 0

    //loads a new view via the storyboard identifier
    static func loadView(pageIndex : Int, image : UIImage) -> VCTutorialImagePage {
        let storyboard = UIStoryboard(name: storyBoardHome, bundle: nil)
        let vc = storyboard.instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier("VCTutorialImagePage") as! VCTutorialImagePage
        vc.imageView.image      = image
        vc.pageIndex            = pageIndex
        return vc
    }
}


/*
VCTutorialImageSwiper takes an array of images (= its model) and displays a UIPageViewController 
where each page is a VCTutorialImagePage that displays an image. It lets you swipe throught the 
images and will do a round-robbin : when you swipe past the last image it will jump back to the 
first one (and the other way arround).

In this process, it keeps track of the current displayed page index
*/

class VCTutorialImageSwiper: UIPageViewController, UIPageViewControllerDataSource, UIPageViewControllerDelegate {

    //our model = images we are showing
    let tutorialImages : [UIImage] = [UIImage(named: "image1")!, UIImage(named: "image2")!,UIImage(named: "image3")!,UIImage(named: "image4")!]
    //page currently being viewed
    private var currentPageIndex : Int = 0 {
        didSet {
            currentPageIndex=cap(currentPageIndex)
        }
    }
    //next page index, temp var for keeping track of the current page
    private var nextPageIndex : Int = 0


    //Mark: - life cylce


    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        //setup page vc
        dataSource=self
        delegate=self
        setViewControllers([pageForindex(0)!], direction: .Forward, animated: false, completion: nil)
    }


    //Mark: - helper functions

    func cap(pageIndex : Int) -> Int{
        if pageIndex > (tutorialImages.count - 1) {
            return 0
        }
        if pageIndex < 0 {
            return (tutorialImages.count - 1)
        }
        return pageIndex
    }

    func carrouselJump() {
        currentPageIndex++
        setViewControllers([self.pageForindex(currentPageIndex)!], direction: .Forward, animated: true, completion: nil)
    }

    func pageForindex(pageIndex : Int) -> UIViewController? {
        guard (pageIndex < tutorialImages.count) && (pageIndex>=0) else { return nil }
        return VCTutorialImagePage.loadView(pageIndex, image: tutorialImages[pageIndex])
    }

    func indexForPage(vc : UIViewController) -> Int {
        guard let vc = vc as? VCTutorialImagePage else {
            preconditionFailure("VCPagImageSlidesTutorial page is not a VCTutorialImagePage")
        }
        return vc.pageIndex
    }


    //Mark: - UIPageView delegate/datasource


    func pageViewController(pageViewController: UIPageViewController, viewControllerAfterViewController viewController: UIViewController) -> UIViewController? {
        return pageForindex(cap(indexForPage(viewController)+1))
    }

    func pageViewController(pageViewController: UIPageViewController, viewControllerBeforeViewController viewController: UIViewController) -> UIViewController? {
        return pageForindex(cap(indexForPage(viewController)-1))
    }

    func pageViewController(pageViewController: UIPageViewController, willTransitionToViewControllers pendingViewControllers: [UIViewController]) {
        nextPageIndex = indexForPage(pendingViewControllers.first!)
    }

    func pageViewController(pageViewController: UIPageViewController, didFinishAnimating finished: Bool, previousViewControllers: [UIViewController], transitionCompleted completed: Bool) {
        if !finished { return }
        currentPageIndex = nextPageIndex
    }

    func presentationCountForPageViewController(pageViewController: UIPageViewController) -> Int {
        return tutorialImages.count
    }

    func presentationIndexForPageViewController(pageViewController: UIPageViewController) -> Int {
        return currentPageIndex
    }

}

Answer 5

I've been using view.tag for a while now, trying to keep track of the current page was too complicated.

In this code the index is stored within the tag property of each view and is used to fetch the next or previous VC. Using this method it's also possible to create an infinite scroll. Check out the comment in code to view this solution as well:

extension MyPageViewController: UIPageViewControllerDataSource {

  func viewControllerWithIndex(var index: Int) -> UIViewController! {
    let myViewController = storyboard?.instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier("MyViewController") as MyViewController

    if let endIndex = records?.endIndex {
      if index < 0 || index >= endIndex { return nil }
      // Instead, We can normalize the index to be cyclical to create infinite scrolling
      // if index < 0 { index += endIndex }
      // index %= endIndex
    }

    myViewController.view.tag = index
    myViewController.record = records?[index]

    return myViewController
  }

  func pageViewController(pageViewController: UIPageViewController, viewControllerAfterViewController viewController: UIViewController) -> UIViewController? {
    let index = viewController.view?.tag ?? 0
    return viewControllerWithIndex(index + 1)
  }

  func pageViewController(pageViewController: UIPageViewController, viewControllerBeforeViewController viewController: UIViewController) -> UIViewController? {
    let index = viewController.view?.tag ?? 0
    return viewControllerWithIndex(index - 1)
  }

  func presentationCountForPageViewController(pageViewController: UIPageViewController) -> Int {
    return records?.count ?? 0
  }

  func presentationIndexForPageViewController(pageViewController: UIPageViewController) -> Int {
    return (pageViewController.viewControllers.first as? UIViewController)?.view.tag ?? 0
  }
}

Answer 6

Thank for your answer guys, i faced similar problem, had to store index. I slightly modify my code, paste it below:

- (MenuListViewController *)viewControllerAtIndex:(NSInteger)index {

    if (_menues.count < 1)
        return nil;

    //    MenuListViewController *childViewController = [MenuListViewController initWithSecondSetFakeItems];
    MenuListViewController *childViewController = self.menues[index];
    childViewController.index = index;

    return childViewController;
}

#pragma mark - Page View Controller Data Source

- (void)pageViewController:(UIPageViewController *)pageViewController
        didFinishAnimating:(BOOL)finished
   previousViewControllers:(NSArray<UIViewController *> *)previousViewControllers
       transitionCompleted:(BOOL)completed{

    if (completed) {

        NSUInteger currentIndex = ((MenuListViewController *)self.pageController.viewControllers.firstObject).index;
        NSLog(@"index %lu", (unsigned long)currentIndex);
    }
}

- (UIViewController *)pageViewController:(UIPageViewController *)pageViewController viewControllerBeforeViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController
{
    NSUInteger index = [(MenuListViewController *)viewController index];

    if (index == 0)
        return nil;

    index --;

    return [self viewControllerAtIndex:index];
}


- (UIViewController *)pageViewController:(UIPageViewController *)pageViewController viewControllerAfterViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController
{

    NSUInteger index = [(MenuListViewController *)viewController index];

    index ++;

    if (index == _menues.count)
        return nil;

    return [self viewControllerAtIndex:index];
}