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I'm currently working on an app that will be using multiple story boards as follows:

1) login.storyboard (handles registration and login)

2) main.storyboard (handles game options and selection)

3) settings.storyboard (handles settings for game(s))

4) game.storyboard (actualy game play)

I currently test for a session token in NSUserDefaults and if it exists, load the main.storyboard otherwise auth.storyboard using:

NSUserDefaults *tagDefaults = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];

if (![tagDefaults objectForKey:@"session_token"]) {

    NSLog(@"session token not found");
    NSString *storyboardId = @"nonauth";
    UIStoryboard *storyboard = [UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:@"login" bundle:nil];
    UIViewController *initViewController = [storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:storyboardId];

    self.window = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds]];
    self.window.rootViewController = initViewController;
    [self.window makeKeyAndVisible];

} else {

    NSString *storyboardId = @"init";
    UIStoryboard *storyboard = [UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:@"init" bundle:nil];
    UIViewController *initViewController = [storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:storyboardId];

    self.window = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds]];
    self.window.rootViewController = initViewController;
    [self.window makeKeyAndVisible];
}

from the login screen if the login return is valid I use this to switch from login.storyboard to main.storyboard in my NSURLSession completion handler:

    UIStoryboard *storyboard = [UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:@"main" bundle:nil];
    UINavigationController *viewController = [storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:@"main"];
    self.view.window.rootViewController = viewController;

My two questions are: A) is this the correct way to implement this? B) There is a considerable delay after executing the switch from login.storyboard before main.storyboard actually loads (20-30 seconds of delay), is there a way to speed this up or improve the code to avoid this delay?

Thanks in advance.

J

danh
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DevGW
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  • Where in the app is this code? Does the login perform a web request? Is it possible part/all of the delay is from the web request? – danh Jan 11 '14 at 19:11
  • why do you want to use so many storyboards? you should use only one storyboard for iphone and, if you need, one for ipad. but not for every section inside the app... – thorb65 Jan 11 '14 at 19:13
  • Yes the login does perform an NSURLSession request. The server response is almost immediate and is logged to NSLog almost immediately so I don't believe that is the bottleneck. – DevGW Jan 11 '14 at 22:22
  • @thorb the login functionality and registration is a rarely needed view so it seems wasteful to have loaded and retain those views when they will be unneeded 90% of the time. – DevGW Jan 11 '14 at 22:23
  • @RWSDevTeam That isn't how a storyboard works. No view or view controller gets "loaded and retained" unless and until it is actually needed. Storyboards are extremely efficient. Don't optimize prematurely. – matt Jan 12 '14 at 05:41

2 Answers2

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  1. Do not change the root view controller. There is no need. An app should have one root view controller for the entire lifetime of the app. If you want to completely replace the interface with a view controller's view, present that view controller. A presented view controller can appear and just stay there for the rest of the lifetime of the app. (Actually, if the login interface is the rarer interface, it would make more sense to make the main interface the main interface and present the login interface on top of it.)

  2. By the same token, there is no need to use both a login storyboard and a main storyboard. Those sets of interface can be in the same storyboard, so that there is no need to load a new storyboard.

matt
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  • There are many different viewControllers and because of this I felt it would be best to place them relatively into subdivided storyboards. Would this not be a better optimization than to load one storyboard with a large number of VCs that will most often NOT be used? – DevGW Jan 11 '14 at 22:29
  • Evidently not, since you yourself say that switching storyboards and root view controllers is slow. How about actually _trying_ it the way I'm suggesting and _seeing_ whether that helps? – matt Jan 12 '14 at 05:42
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I tend to modally present login VCs. I always load the main VC. If no session token exists then I modally present the login VC without animation. Effectively this makes it appear as if the login view was present on startup. Once the user successfully logs in you can dismiss with the typical modal dismiss (fall off the bottom of the screen) or do something like a cross-fade.

For storyboards, I personally use multiple. If you have a non-trivial app the number of views in an SB can grow quite large. It can be difficult to manage - finding the one you want in the sea of views is annoying and time consuming. Further, it bogs my machine down horribly. Perhaps most importantly, if you are working on a team with source control (which you absolutely should be using) - it is really annoying to try to manage access to the one monolithic SB. Generally it isn't possible to merge changes if multiple devs modify a single SB. At least with multiple you can assign different people to different tasks which are each tied to their own SB. There's no performance advantage to having multiple SBs (only the instantiated views occupy memory). But there are advantages from a development efficiency point of view.

Peter
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