iOS Likely rejection from the app store?

[Craigy]

I have about 30-40 pngs I want to use pagecontrol on so the user can flick through them. Only thing is that the OS can only seem to handle about 20 dots on the screen.

I was considering maybe showing 5 dots - using the centre dot highlighted and as someone flicks left or right to have the dots move to one side before centring again.

I have a concern...

Would manipulating a UI element in a way that it does not normally behave result in the app being potentially rejected by apple....

Anyone else come across potential UI element issues like this...

 

[Sbrocket]

I was considering maybe showing 5 dots - using the centre dot highlighted and as someone flicks left or right to have the dots move to one side before centring again.

<snip>

Would manipulating a UI element in a way that it does not normally behave result in the app being potentially rejected by apple....

Sounds confusing (for the user) and unnecessary. The Human Interface Guidelines are, for the most part, there for good reasons. Is there any purpose in using the UIPageControl? This control is not what actually implements the paged scrolling behavior - for that you use UIScrollView with pagingEnabled=YES. The UIPageControl simply provides the user another way to change the page, and foremost gives the user an idea where they are in relation to the total number of pages. Using it like you propose would be confusing to the user, not to mention that the leftmost and rightmost dots would never be used.

No one here can account for what Apple will and will not reject applications for. That said, I doubt that using a control in a non-standard way is enough for them to reject.

 

[pghendry]

The page control does 2 things. First it allows you another way to page. But secondly it is a visual cue to the user that there are multiple pages and that they can move between them. Simply putting up a scrollview with no cue is not ideal.

The behaviour would be when on page 1 the left dot is lit. On pages from 2 to middlepage-1 then 2nd dot (1 left of center) is lit. On the middle page (or middle 2 pages) the center dot is lit. And on to the right side where the last dot gets lit on the last page.

The idea of the approach is to indicate that there are multiple pages and also to indicate when there are no more pages to the left or to the right. This could be done with 3 dots but I think it "feels" better with 5.

The scrollview is also used to allow paging by dragging.

The question is how strict are apple on conformance to the exact intention of a control?

 

[Sbrocket]

I don't think the OP has anything to worry about, especially if its implemented in a way that makes sense.

 

[Craigy]

I don't think the OP has anything to worry about, especially if its implemented in a way that makes sense.

Hi Sbrocket - In case you're wondering pghendy and I are working on this together!

What do you mean by OP?

Cheers

EDIT: Forget my last post - OP - original poster of course! - brain not working. Sorry

 

[grimjim]

Greetings from a fellow Warwickshirian! (I'm in Rugby.)

I can't help but think that Sbrocket might have a point - changing the way that an established control works/looks may not get your app excluded from the app store, but it will almost certainly confuse your users.

Do you really need to make your users page through the images one at a time? Unless you have a particular reason to do it, it would be a bit annoying, especially if a user in on image 1 and wants to view image 40. They would have to page through all the other images in turn to get there.

Perhaps a better way would be to use an image picker, which displays all the images in thumbnail form and allows the user to choose the one they want and zip straight to it? I don't have the docs in front of me, so I can't point you at the exact class.

Of course, if going one page at a time is the whole point, then that's no good. But I would recommend trying some kind of custom control that shows the user where they are in the page list rather than playing around with an existing control. Just my £0.02...

 

[Craigy]

Greetings from a fellow Warwickshirian! (I'm in Rugby.)

I can't help but think that Sbrocket might have a point - changing the way that an established control works/looks may not get your app excluded from the app store, but it will almost certainly confuse your users.

Do you really need to make your users page through the images one at a time? Unless you have a particular reason to do it, it would be a bit annoying, especially if a user in on image 1 and wants to view image 40. They would have to page through all the other images in turn to get there.

Perhaps a better way would be to use an image picker, which displays all the images in thumbnail form and allows the user to choose the one they want and zip straight to it? I don't have the docs in front of me, so I can't point you at the exact class.

Of course, if going one page at a time is the whole point, then that's no good. But I would recommend trying some kind of custom control that shows the user where they are in the page list rather than playing around with an existing control. Just my £0.02...

Hey grimjin - greetings indeed - can't be that many of us in Warwickshire!

I think the thumbnails are not appropriate in this instance. We may go for a solution like the photo app - where there is a control bar with icons that shows on load but disappears as you scroll through. We'll look at some options and scratch our heads a little more...

As a side - have you any idea how long the wait is currently from submission to appearing on the store?

Thanks for your Warwickshire 2p!

 

[grimjim]

As a side - have you any idea how long the wait is currently from submission to appearing on the store?

Well, for my trivial little app it was six days, I think. Dunno whether more complex apps take longer. From what I've seen, in can take anything from a couple of days to several weeks.

 

[Craigy]

Well, for my trivial little app it was six days, I think. Dunno whether more complex apps take longer. From what I've seen, in can take anything from a couple of days to several weeks.

Do send the link to the app!

 

[Sbrocket]

Perhaps a better way would be to use an image picker, which displays all the images in thumbnail form and allows the user to choose the one they want and zip straight to it? I don't have the docs in front of me, so I can't point you at the exact class.

Sounds like a good idea, just one note on this. If you decided to do this you'd need to re-implement that scrolling list of thumbnails as the class you're referring to is UIImagePickerController, which isn't able to be used with an arbitrary library other than the iPhone's Photo Library. It wouldn't be that hard to do - just a UIScrollView containing a blank UIView with small thumbnail-size UIImageViews positioned on it.

 

[Craigy]

Sounds like a good idea, just one note on this. If you decided to do this you'd need to re-implement that scrolling list of thumbnails as the class you're referring to is UIImagePickerController, which isn't able to be used with an arbitrary library other than the iPhone's Photo Library. It wouldn't be that hard to do - just a UIScrollView containing a blank UIView with small thumbnail-size UIImageViews positioned on it.

Just took a look at your app - fantastic! - Just wanted to congratulate you on it...

Thanks for the tip also. When we have the app complete we'll post up a link.

Craig