Question

I need to develop an iPad application which should manage the two orientation mode (landscape and portrait).
According the official Apple iOS documentation, there are 2 ways to proceed.

-The first one consists in adjusting views element when the rotation event is received. The main advantage is that we had only one ViewController
-The second one consists in displaying a specific ViewController for each orientation. Therefore, we have 2 ViewControllers.

The second approach seems to be nice, but I’am afraid by the numbers of ViewController that will be needed. What’s more, the “data synchronisation logic” in the ViewControllers will have to be duplicated (or isolated from the ViewController) to be used in both orientation.

The application I need to develop will contain many “full custom elements” and many ViewControllers.

If anyone has advices or experience feedback, it would be really appreciated 😉

Thank’s for reading !

Answer 1

The second way should rather be: using 2 different views (one for portrait, one for landscape) and swapping the view controller’s view in willRotateToInterfaceOrientation:. No need to duplicate your data logic.

Which way to use? I would say: it depends.

• If the lanscape and the portrait modes differ only by the position / size of views, I use the first one (plus you’ll get nice animations of the frame changes)
• If landscape and portrait are too different, I prefer the second one.