iOS5, UIScrollView and layoutSubviews behaviour

Question

In my app (code very similar to Apple's PhotoScroller demo from WWDC10), I have a UIScrollView. Within the scroll view I have overwridden layoutSubviews with code like:

- (void) layoutSubviews {
    [super layoutSubviews];
    // center the image as it becomes smaller than the size of the screen
    CGSize boundsSize = self.bounds.size;
    ...
 }

In iOS 4.x if the application starts up on landscape mode (user is holding it landscape), then layoutSubviews gets called twice (very quickly). The first time its called, boundsSize has dimensions that indicate its in portrait but immediately afterwards it gets called again and self.bounds.size returns dimensions that indicate the device is in landsacpe and my layout calculations work correctly.

In iOS 5.x, layoutSubviews only gets called once with bounds.size returning dimensions indicating portrait and it doesn't get the second call, so all my calculation code is messed up.

If the user physcially rotates the device then layoutSubviews gets called and works correctly -- so a user starting the app in landscape (draws incorrectly), rotates to portrait (draws correcty) and then rotates back to landscape (now draws correctly).

Its that second "automatic" call of layoutSubviews that I'm missing.

Anybody else notice this or have any advice?

Update:

I did find this in the UIKit release notes for iOS 5, but I'm not sure if it's relevent or even what the impact is of this change.

Rotation callbacks in iOS 5 are not applied to view controllers that are presented over a full screen. What this means is that if your code presents a view controller over another view controller, and then the user subsequently rotates the device to a different orientation, upon dismissal, the underlying controller (i.e. presenting controller) will not receive any rotation callbacks. Note however that the presenting controller will receive aviewWillLayoutSubviews call when it is redisplayed, and the interfaceOrientation property can be queried from this method and used to lay out the controller correctly.

Further updates:

Using [UIView recursiveDescription], to dump the view hierarchies, I got the following output:

iOS 4 (which is working correctly):

Portrait:

2011-12-19 15:57:06.400 stroom[10889:11603] <0x5e7f9b0 stroomViewController.m:(402)> <UIView: 0x6a6f2f0; frame = (0 0; 768 1024); autoresize = W+H; layer = <CALayer: 0x6a659d0>>
   | <UIScrollView: 0x5e911e0; frame = (-20 0; 808 1024); clipsToBounds = YES; autoresize = LM+W+RM+TM+H+BM; layer = <CALayer: 0x5e91370>; contentOffset: {0, 0}>
   |    | <stroomFullScreenPhotoScrollView: 0x5ea1010; baseClass = UIScrollView; frame = (20 0; 768 1024); clipsToBounds = YES; layer = <CALayer: 0x5ea0940>; contentOffset: {0, 0}>
   |    |    | <UIImageView: 0x5ea2600; frame = (0 224; 768 576); transform = [0.75, 0, 0, 0.75, 0, 0]; opaque = NO; userInteractionEnabled = NO; layer = <CALayer: 0x5ea0890>>

Landscape:

2011-12-19 15:57:34.522 stroom[10889:11603] <0x5e7f9b0 stroomViewController.m:(402)> <UIView: 0x6d96c30; frame = (0 0; 768 1024); transform = [0, 1, -1, 0, 0, 0]; autoresize = W+H; layer = <CALayer: 0x6d66440>>
   | <UIScrollView: 0x5e9eb70; frame = (-27 0; 1078 768); clipsToBounds = YES; autoresize = LM+W+RM+TM+H+BM; layer = <CALayer: 0x5eadde0>; contentOffset: {0, 0}>
   |    | <stroomFullScreenPhotoScrollView: 0x6dab850; baseClass = UIScrollView; frame = (20 0; 1038 768); clipsToBounds = YES; layer = <CALayer: 0x6dab2e0>; contentOffset: {0, 0}>
   |    |    | <UIImageView: 0x5e97f70; frame = (0 224; 1024 768); opaque = NO; userInteractionEnabled = NO; layer = <CALayer: 0x5e97fa0>>

iOS 5 (which is working incorrectly):

Portrait:

 2011-12-19 15:55:59.530 stroom[10850:16103] <0x848b520 stroomViewController.m:(402)> <UIView: 0xa884710; frame = (0 0; 768 1024); autoresize = W+H; layer = <CALayer: 0xa8849a0>>
   | <UIScrollView: 0xa883820; frame = (-20 0; 808 1024); clipsToBounds = YES; autoresize = LM+W+RM+TM+H+BM; layer = <CALayer: 0xa883a80>; contentOffset: {0, 0}>
   |    | <stroomFullScreenPhotoScrollView: 0x8699630; baseClass = UIScrollView; frame = (20 0; 768 1024); clipsToBounds = YES; layer = <CALayer: 0x8699360>; contentOffset: {0, 0}>
   |    |    | <UIImageView: 0x869a7c0; frame = (0 0; 768 576); transform = [0.75, 0, 0, 0.75, 0, 0]; opaque = NO; userInteractionEnabled = NO; layer = <CALayer: 0x869a800>>

Landscape:

 2011-12-19 15:56:32.521 stroom[10850:16103] <0x848b520 stroomViewController.m:(402)> <UIView: 0x8498530; frame = (0 0; 768 1024); transform = [0, 1, -1, 0, 0, 0]; autoresize = W+H; layer = <CALayer: 0x8498560>>
   | <UIScrollView: 0x849ead0; frame = (-27 0; 1077 768); clipsToBounds = YES; autoresize = LM+W+RM+TM+H+BM; layer = <CALayer: 0x848f390>; contentOffset: {808, 0}>
   |    | <stroomFullScreenPhotoScrollView: 0x81e4b80; baseClass = UIScrollView; frame = (828 0; 768 1024); clipsToBounds = YES; layer = <CALayer: 0x81e7dc0>; contentOffset: {0, 0}>
   |    |    | <UIImageView: 0x81e5090; frame = (0 0; 768 576); transform = [0.75, 0, 0, 0.75, 0, 0]; opaque = NO; userInteractionEnabled = NO; layer = <CALayer: 0x81e5010>>

From these I can see that the contentOffset of the UIScrollView in iOS 5 looks incorrect and that the landscape frame have incorrect dimensions in iOS 5 where they appear to have correct dimensions in iOS 4.

Answer 1

Eventually, I stumbled upon the solution to this problem for me. I'll provide the answer here as it maybe helpful for others.

The solution for me was to implement the - (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated method on my view controller. I didn't have one and I had all my setup logic in - (void) viewDidLoad method.

In particular, I implemented the following:

- (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated{
    [super viewWillAppear:animated];

     CGRect bounds = pagingScrollView.bounds; // <=== this was the key

     // ... use the bounds in my view setup logic
}

It appears to me, that there has been a change in iOS 5 (from previous versions of the OS). When a view is loaded when a device is in landscape, the bounds property on a view does not reflect the orientation transformation until viewWillAppear. Previously, the bounds value was correct for me in viewDidLoad but moving the calculations and reading of the bounds property out of there and into viewWillAppear did the trick.

All works fine in iOS4 as well, when I did my testing.

Perhaps, I should always have been reading the bounds property in viewWillAppear and it may well be the more correct behavior. However, something has changed in between iOS4 and iOS 5 that I have not been able to find documentation on.

`