Use of MBProgressHUD Globally + make it singleton

Question

In my Project, each of the user interaction events make a network call (Which is TCP, not HTTP). I need Activity Indicator to be global to show from a rando

Answer 1

NOTE...

as with many iOS issues, this is now drastically, totally out of date.

These days you certainly just use a trivial

Container view

for any issue like this.

Full container view tutorial for beginners .. tutorial!

MBProgressHUD was a miraculous solution back in the day, because there was a "drastic hole" in Apple's pipeline.

But (as with many wonderful things from the past), this is only history now. Don't do anything like this today.

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Just FWIW, 2014, here's a very simple setup we use. Per David Lawson...

UIWindow *window = [[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate].window

as Matej says, just use AppDelegate...

#define APP ((AppDelegate *)[[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate])

AppDelegate.h

// our convenient huddie system (messages with a hud, spinner)
@property (nonatomic, strong) MBProgressHUD *hud;
-(void)huddie;

AppDelegate.m

-(void)huddie
{
// centralised location for MBProgressHUD
[self.hud hide:YES];

UIWindow *windowForHud = [[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate].window;
self.hud = [MBProgressHUD showHUDAddedTo:windowForHud animated:YES];

self.hud.dimBackground = YES;
self.hud.minShowTime = 0.1;
self.hud.labelText = @"";
self.hud.detailsLabelText = @"";
}

Set the titles in your code where you are using it - because you very often change them during a run. ("Step 1" ... "Step 2" etc)

-(void)loadBlahFromCloud
{
[APP huddie];
APP.hud.labelText = @"Connecting to Parse...";
APP.hud.detailsLabelText = @"step 1/2";

[blah refreshFromCloudThen:
    ^{
    [... example];
    }];
}

-(void)example
{
APP.hud.labelText = @"Connecting to the bank...";
APP.hud.detailsLabelText = @"step 2/2";

[blah sendDetailsThen:
    ^{
    [APP.hud hide:YES];
    [...  showNewDisplay];
    }];
}

Change huddle to take the texts as an argument if you wish

You always want self.hud.minShowTime = 0.1; to avoid flicker

Almost always self.hud.dimBackground = YES; which also blocks UI

Conceptually of course you usually have to "slightly wait" to begin work / end work when you bring up such a process, as with any similar programming with the UI.

So in practice code will usually look like this...

-(void)loadActionSheets
{
[APP huddie];
APP.hud.labelText = @"Loading json from net...";

dispatch_after_secs_on_main(0.1 ,
    ^{
    [STUBS refreshNowFromCloudThen:
        ^{
        [APP.hud hide:YES];
        dispatch_after_secs_on_main(0.1 , ^{ [self buildActionsheet]; });
        }];
        }
    );
}

Handy macro ..

#define dispatch_after_secs_on_main( SS, BB )                   \
        dispatch_after(                                         \
            dispatch_time(DISPATCH_TIME_NOW, SS*NSEC_PER_SEC),  \
            dispatch_get_main_queue(),                          \
            BB                                                  \
            )

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This is all history now :) https://stackoverflow.com/a/23403979/294884