Question

My application consists of data downloaded from an XML file. data contains short text and images.

currently I’m downloading up all data and building up the view in a view controller, in the ViewDidLoad method, which causes the application not to show up the root view until all data is downloaded. I want it to show up in a more user friendly way, at least to preload some of the data during the splash screen.

By the way I’ve done the lazy image loading so images can load while the main view is displayed.

As long as the number of views depend on number of rows in XML, loading XML asynchronously while building up the the view does not suite my need (or maybe I’m wrong).

I understand that describing the solution in an answer is quite a challenge, so maybe you could point to an article or even a book that has a detailed explanation of asynchronous and multithread handling.

Answer 1

I don’t see why you can’t load it asynchronously o_O
You should show some “Loading” view anyway (preferably with an activity Indicator)
A progress bar would be nice, too.

And when it’s done downloading you just reload and relayout your view.

If by “number of views” you mean the number of cells in a table row you can just tell the tableview to reload all data whereas your numberOfRowsInSection function (or whatever you want to use) should return appropriate values depending on whether it’s loading or not.

EDIT: you shouldn’t do that while the application is still loading because that’s extremely user-unfriendly and slows down the loading of the application aswell