MPMoviePlayerViewController customization

Question

I'm using MPMoviePlayerViewController - with the player controls set to: MPMovieControlStyleFullscreen

I'm having a problem with some of buttons that are in MPMovieControlStyleFullscreen: forward, reverse, and fullscreen (the one with the arrows pointing at eachother).

I would like to either remove the forward, reverse, and fullscreen buttons or control what they do when the user taps them.

Thank you!

Answer 1

There isn't a way to customize the MPMovieControlStyle values provided by Apple. What you need to do is is turn off the Apple controls (MPMovieControlStyleNone) and then create your own custom controls. Apple is fine with you putting your own UIViews in to the hierarchy here, so you can get started with something like this:

MPMoviePlayerController *moviePlayer = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL: YOUR_URL];
moviePlayer.controlStyle = MPMovieControlStyleNone;
UIView *movieView = moviePlayer.view;
[movieView addSubview: _movieControlsView];
[movieView bringSubviewToFront: _movieControlsView];

Where _movieControlsView was set up earlier in code or in IB.

Aesthetically, you can do what you want, but I would recommend sticking with something that looks like Apple's choices so as not to confuse the user. For the project I just finished, I created a transparent button the exact size of the movie player. Clicking the button fades in a control bar on the bottom with my custom controls. If one of the controls isn't clicked, the control bar fades back out again after a few seconds.

Answer 2

First off, MPMoviePlayerController is a little different than MPMoviePlayer*View*Controller, so some of these answers lead to problems when converting applications that were built in an iOS 4.3+ environment.

I've built some apps using MPMoviePlayerController that worked fine when built in iOS 3.2. When I rebuilt it with XCode 3.2.6, (iOS 4.3), the videos don't even play on the iPhone. I since fixed that by adding the MPMoviePlayerController instance to a subView, then presenting a modal (Player is a UIViewController) with the movplayer in fullScreenMode:

//from didSelectRowAtIndexPath

Vid *selected = [items objectAtIndex:position];

player = [[Player alloc] init]; 
movplayer = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:selected.vidURL];
movplayer.view.frame = player.view.bounds;
movplayer.view.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth | UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleHeight |
UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleLeftMargin | UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleRightMargin | 
UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleTopMargin | UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleBottomMargin;

[player.view addSubview:movplayer.view];
[self presentModalViewController:player animated:YES];
[movplayer setFullscreen:YES animated:NO];
[movplayer play];
[player release];

//movplayer is released inside - (void)exitedFullscreen:(NSNotification*)notification 

This was done on account of the UINavigationBar being half cut off when rotating.

When I got to the iPad version of the app the modal option wouldn't work aesthetically. It was also having the UISplitViewController navBar and toolbars half cut off when rotating in full screen mode. So I tried implementing MPMoviePlayerViewController instead of MPMoviePlayerController. With this conversion, XCode gave me errors when trying to set:

movplayer.controlStyle = MPMovieControlStyleEmbedded;

The proper way to do this with a MPMoviePlayerViewController is:

movplayer.moviePlayer.controlStyle = MPMovieControlStyleEmbedded;

When the player is added as a subView, the pinch gestures will toggle the player between fullScreen and the size of your parentView (player.view.bounds) smoothly, as well as preserve the toolbars and navBars native to the parent.

//iPad version with a view (viewForMovie) inside the DetailViewController
movplayer = [[MPMoviePlayerViewController alloc] initWithContentURL:[current vidURL]];
movplayer.moviePlayer.controlStyle = MPMovieControlStyleEmbedded;
movplayer.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
movplayer.view.frame = viewForMovie.bounds;
[viewForMovie addSubview:movplayer.view];

So these two examples show some workarounds for those who want to convert their iPhone or iPad apps to a newer iOS version.