iOS 7 Programming Cookbook

1.8. Grouping Compact Options with UISegmentedControl

Problem

You would like to present a few options to your users from which they can pick an option, through a UI that is compact, simple, and easy to understand.

Solution

Use the UISegmentedControl class, an example of which is shown in Figure 1-22.

Figure 1-22. A segmented control displaying four options

Discussion

A segmented control is a UI component that allows you to display, in a compact UI, a series of options for the user to choose from. To show a segmented control, create an instance of UISegmentedControl. Let’s start with our view controller’s .m file:

#import "ViewController.h"

@interface ViewController ()
@property (nonatomic, strong) UISegmentedControl *mySegmentedControl;
@end

@implementation ViewController

...

And create the segmented control in the viewDidLoad method of your view controller:

- (void)viewDidLoad{
    [super viewDidLoad];

    NSArray *segments = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:
                         @"iPhone",
                         @"iPad",
                         @"iPod",
                         @"iMac", nil];

    self.mySegmentedControl = [[UISegmentedControl alloc]
                               initWithItems:segments];
    self.mySegmentedControl.center = self.view.center;
    [self.view addSubview:self.mySegmentedControl];
}

We are simply using an array of strings to provide the different options that our segmented control has to display. We initialize our segmented control using the initWithObjects: initializer and pass the array of strings and ...