ADTransitionController - custom navigation controller

ADTransitionController is drop-in replacement for UINavigationController with custom transition animations.

Quickstart

Add the content of the ADTransitionController folder to your iOS project
Link against the QuartzCore Framework if you don't already
Import ADTransitionController.h and use it like you would use a UINavigationController
Navigate through your controllers by calling pushViewController:withTransition: and popViewController

Example

Instantiate an ADTransitionController like a UINavigationController:

UIViewController * viewController = [[UIViewController alloc] init];
ADTransitionController * transitionController = [[ADTransitionController alloc] initWithRootViewController:viewController];
[viewController release];
self.window.rootViewController = transitionController;
[transitionController release];

To push a viewController on the stack, instantiate an ADTransition and use the pushViewController:withTransition: method.

- (IBAction)pushWithCube:(id)sender {
    UIViewController * viewController = [[UIViewController alloc] init];
    ADTransition * transition = [[ADCubeTransition alloc] initWithDuration:0.25f orientation:ADTransitionRightToLeft sourceRect:self.view.frame];
    [self.transitionController pushViewController:viewController withTransition:transition];
    [transition release];
    [viewController release];
}

To pop a viewController from the stack, just use the `popViewController method.

- (IBAction)pop:(id)sender {
    [self.transitionController popViewController];
}

Note

When a UIViewController is pushed onto the stack of view controllers, the property transitionController becomes available to the controller (see example above: self.transitionController). This way, an ADTransitionController can be used like a UINavigationController.

ADTransition subclasses

For now, the built-in transitions available are the following. Try out our demo application to see them in action!

ADCarrouselTransition, ADCubeTransition, ADCrossTransition, ADFlipTransition, ADSwapTransition, ADFadeTransition, ADBackFadeTransition, ADGhostTransition, ADZoomTransition, ADSwipeTransition, ADSwipeFadeTransition, ADScaleTransition, ADGlueTransition, ADPushRotateTransition, ADFoldTransition, ADSlideTransition.

ADTransitionController API

The ADTransitionController API is fully inspired by the UINavigationController, to be very easy to integrate in your projects. The few differences between the two APIs are presented below.

Methods

The point of ADTransitionController is to be able to customize the animations for a transition between two UIViewController instances. Here are the methods we added to let you take advantage of the built-in transitions:

- (void)pushViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController withTransition:(ADTransition *)transition;
- (UIViewController *)popViewControllerWithTransition:(ADTransition *)transition;
- (NSArray *)popToViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController withTransition:(ADTransition *)transition;
- (NSArray *)popToRootViewControllerWithTransition:(ADTransition *)transition;

Here are the convention for the push and pop actions:

pass nil to the transition parameter to disable the animation. Thus the transition won't be animated.
pass an ADTransition instance to the transition parameter to animate the push action.
by default the pop action uses the reverse animation used for the push action. However you can pass a different transition to the transition parameter to change this behavior.

Delegate

Like a UINavigationController, an ADTransitionController informs its delegate that a viewController is going to be presented or was presented. The delegate implements the ADTransitionControllerDelegate protocol.

@property (nonatomic, assign) id<ADTransitionControllerDelegate> delegate;

@protocol ADTransitionControllerDelegate <NSObject>
- (void)transitionController:(ADTransitionController *)transitionController willShowViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController animated:(BOOL)animated;
- (void)transitionController:(ADTransitionController *)transitionController didShowViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController animated:(BOOL)animated;
@end

Going Further

If you want to totally take control of the ADTranstionController API, feel free to create your own transitions and animations! All you need to do is to subclass ADDualTransition or ADTransformTransition and implement a init method.

The simplest example of a custom transition is the ADFadeTransition class. The effect is simple: the inViewController fades in. For this the inViewController changes its opacity from 0 to 1 and the outViewController from 1 to 0.

@interface ADFadeTransition : ADDualTransition
@end
@implementation ADFadeTransition
- (id)initWithDuration:(CFTimeInterval)duration {
    CABasicAnimation * inFadeAnimation = [CABasicAnimation animationWithKeyPath:@"opacity"];
    inFadeAnimation.fromValue = @0.0f;
    inFadeAnimation.toValue = @1.0f;
    inFadeAnimation.duration = duration;
    
    CABasicAnimation * outFadeAnimation = [CABasicAnimation animationWithKeyPath:@"opacity"];
    outFadeAnimation.fromValue = @1.0f;
    outFadeAnimation.toValue = @0.0f;
    outFadeAnimation.duration = duration;
    
    self = [super initWithInAnimation:inFadeAnimation andOutAnimation:outFadeAnimation];
    return self;
}
@end

This example is really basic and if you want to create more funky effects, just have a look to the following API and the examples we provided.

ADTransition API

The ADTransition class is an abstract class that has two abstract subclasses: ADDualTransition and ADTransformTransition.

Instances of ADDualTransition have two importants properties:

@property (nonatomic, readonly) CAAnimation * inAnimation;
@property (nonatomic, readonly) CAAnimation * outAnimation;

The inAnimation is the CAAnimation that will be applied to the layer of the viewController that is going to be presented during the transition. The outAnimation is the CAAnimation that will be applied to the layer of the viewController that is going to be dismissed during the transition.

Instance of ADTransformTransition have three importants properties:

@property (readonly) CAAnimation * animation;
@property (readonly) CATransform3D inLayerTransform;
@property (readonly) CATransform3D outLayerTransform;

The inLayerTransform is the CATransform3D that will be applied to the layer of the viewController that is going to be presented during the transition. The outLayerTransform is the CATransform3D that will be applied to the layer of the viewController that is going to be dismissed during the transition. The animation is the CAAnimation that will be applied to the content layer of the ADTransitionController (i.e. the parent layer of the two former viewController layers).

Future Work

There are a couple of improvements that could be done. Feel free to send us pull requests if you want to contribute!

Add new custom transitions
Add support for non plane transitions (Fold transition for instance)
iOS 7 APIs support (planned!)
More?

nuttapol/ADTransitionController