UISplitViewController and iOS14

I have been working to update a storyboard-based iOS app to run on iOS13+ and iOS14 (on both iPad and iPhone). While the new features appear to be very nice, there are some braking behavior changes that have been introduced, particularly with respect to iPhone. I'll list the major ones I've seen below.

My Question: are there any available workarounds? Or am I simply observing bugs in the Simulator and/or SDK from Xcode 12 beta 3?

Breaking Changes:

  1. On iPhone, using .primary and .secondary columns, I have found no way to force the controller to display the .master column initially. (I tried lots of things; details on request.)

  2. So, I thought to assign the .compact viewController to the .primary controller. But that doesn't work because the .compact viewController ignores "show-detail" segues. (Unlike previous behavior, they are NOT simply translated into push segues.)

Originally, one purpose of the UISplitViewController was to provide a "smart" interface that would work on both iPad and iPhone, so that the application needn't be written twice. It appears that iOS14 has broken with this idea.

Am I seeing bugs? (If so, I'll happily provide feedback.) Or do I actually have to engineer iPhone-specific code?

Up vote post of richard_aurbach Down vote post of richard_aurbach
2.5k views
Posted by
richard_aurbach
Reply
Add a Comment

Accepted Reply

Here is my solution:
(1) Using Xcode 12 beta 5, in IB, I set the properties of the split-view controller to be:

  • Display Mode: Two Columns Beside

  • Behavior: Tiled (<== this is important)

Then I use the following code for the view controller:
SplitViewController


It seems like the key to making this work was to change the behavior from "Automatic" to "Tiled".


Posted by
richard_aurbach
Up vote reply of richard_aurbach Down vote reply of richard_aurbach
Post marked as solved
Add a Comment

Replies

Same exact issue.
Posted by
isaranjha
Up vote reply of isaranjha Down vote reply of isaranjha
Add a Comment
Same also here.

What I personally would like is to be able to specify in the storyboards that I want to use the classic system for split view controllers and not the new columns based system.
Posted by
DaleOne
Up vote reply of DaleOne Down vote reply of DaleOne
Add a Comment
I have the same issue. I'm looking into the split delegate method: optional func splitViewController(_ svc: UISplitViewController,  topColumnForCollapsingToProposedTopColumn proposedTopColumn: UISplitViewController.Column) -> UISplitViewController.Column
Posted by
kkendall33
Up vote reply of kkendall33 Down vote reply of kkendall33
Add a Comment
I had the same issue and I found a solution. You can see it following this link: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/656014
Posted by
AnthonyVO
Up vote reply of AnthonyVO Down vote reply of AnthonyVO
Add a Comment
Here is my solution:
(1) Using Xcode 12 beta 5, in IB, I set the properties of the split-view controller to be:

  • Display Mode: Two Columns Beside

  • Behavior: Tiled (<== this is important)

Then I use the following code for the view controller:
SplitViewController


It seems like the key to making this work was to change the behavior from "Automatic" to "Tiled".


Posted by
richard_aurbach
Up vote reply of richard_aurbach Down vote reply of richard_aurbach
Post marked as solved
Add a Comment