Detect if app is running in Slide Over or Split View mode in iOS 9

Question

In iOS 9, is it possible to detect when an app is running in iOS 9's Slide Over or Split View mode?

I've tried reading through Apple's documentation on iOS 9 multitasking, but haven't had any luck with this…

I ask because I might have a feature in my app that I'd like to disable when the app is opened in a Slide Over.

Answer 1

Just check if your window occupies the whole screen:

BOOL isRunningInFullScreen = CGRectEqualToRect([UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate.window.frame, [UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate.window.screen.bounds);

If this is false, then you're running in a split view or a slide over.

Here is the code snipped which will automatically maintain this flag irrespective of rotation

-(void)traitCollectionDidChange:(UITraitCollection *)previousTraitCollection
{
 // simply create a property of 'BOOL' type
 isRunningInFullScreen = CGRectEqualToRect([UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate.window.frame, [UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate.window.screen.bounds);
}

Answer 2

Just another way to repackage all of this

extension UIApplication {
    public var isSplitOrSlideOver: Bool {
        guard let w = self.delegate?.window, let window = w else { return false }
        return !window.frame.equalTo(window.screen.bounds)
    }
}

then you can just

• UIApplication.shared.isSplitOrSlideOver in Swift
• UIApplication.sharedApplication.isSplitOrSlideOver in Objective-C

Note that, in Swift, the window object is a double optional... WTF!

Answer 3

I'm late to the party, but if you want a property that works independent of the orientation, try this one:

extension UIApplication 
{
    func isRunningInFullScreen() -> Bool
    {
        if let w = self.keyWindow
        {
            let maxScreenSize = max(UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds.size.width, UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds.size.height)
            let minScreenSize = min(UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds.size.width, UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds.size.height)
            let maxAppSize = max(w.bounds.size.width, w.bounds.size.height)
            let minAppSize = min(w.bounds.size.width, w.bounds.size.height)
            return maxScreenSize == maxAppSize && minScreenSize == minAppSize
        }

        return true
    }
}

Answer 4

You can watch both -willTransitionToTraitCollection:withTransitionCoordinator: for the size class and viewWillTransitionToSize:withTransitionCoordinator: for the CGSize of your view. Hardcoding in size values isn't recommended though.

Answer 5

I recently had to determine display style of an application based including, not only if it changed to split view or slide-over, but also what portion of the screen was being utilized for the application (full, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3). Adding this to a ViewController subclass was able to solve the issue.

/// Dismisses this ViewController with animation from a modal state.
func dismissFormSheet () {
    dismissViewControllerAnimated(true, completion: nil)
}

private func deviceOrientation () -> UIDeviceOrientation {
    return UIDevice.currentDevice().orientation
}

private func getScreenSize () -> (description:String, size:CGRect) {
    let size = UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds
    let str = "SCREEN SIZE:\nwidth: \(size.width)\nheight: \(size.height)"
    return (str, size)
}

private func getApplicationSize () -> (description:String, size:CGRect) {
    let size = UIApplication.sharedApplication().windows[0].bounds
    let str = "\n\nAPPLICATION SIZE:\nwidth: \(size.width)\nheight: \(size.height)"
    return (str, size)
}


func respondToSizeChange (layoutStyle:LayoutStyle) {
    // Respond accordingly to the change in size.
}

enum LayoutStyle: String {
    case iPadFullscreen         = "iPad Full Screen"
    case iPadHalfScreen         = "iPad 1/2 Screen"
    case iPadTwoThirdScreeen    = "iPad 2/3 Screen"
    case iPadOneThirdScreen     = "iPad 1/3 Screen"
    case iPhoneFullScreen       = "iPhone"
}

private func determineLayout () -> LayoutStyle {
    if UIDevice.currentDevice().userInterfaceIdiom == .Phone {
        return .iPhoneFullScreen
    }
    let screenSize = getScreenSize().size
    let appSize = getApplicationSize().size
    let screenWidth = screenSize.width
    let appWidth = appSize.width
    if screenSize == appSize {
        return .iPadFullscreen
    }

    // Set a range in case there is some mathematical inconsistency or other outside influence that results in the application width being less than exactly 1/3, 1/2 or 2/3.
    let lowRange = screenWidth - 15
    let highRange = screenWidth + 15

    if lowRange / 2 <= appWidth && appWidth <= highRange / 2 {
        return .iPadHalfScreen
    } else if appWidth <= highRange / 3 {
        return .iPadOneThirdScreen
    } else {
        return .iPadTwoThirdScreeen
    }

}

override func traitCollectionDidChange(previousTraitCollection: UITraitCollection?) {
    super.traitCollectionDidChange(previousTraitCollection)
    respondToSizeChange(determineLayout())
}

Answer 6

The horizontal size class will be compact when in slide over or 33% split view. I don't think you can detect once you go to 50% or 66% though.

Answer 7

After much 'tinkering', I have found a solution for my App that may work for you:

In AppDelegate.swift, create the following variable:

var slideOverActive: Bool = false

Then, in ALL of your view controllers, add the UIApplicationDelegate to the Class definition, create an appDelegate variable, and then add the below traitCollectionDidChange function:

class myViewController: UIViewController, UIApplicationDelegate {

var appDelegate = UIApplication.sharedApplication().delegate as! AppDelegate

override func traitCollectionDidChange(previousTraitCollection: UITraitCollection?) {

        let screenWidth = UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds.width

        if previousTraitCollection != nil {
            let horizontalSizeClass: Int = previousTraitCollection!.horizontalSizeClass.rawValue

            if screenWidth == 1024 || screenWidth == 768 { // iPad

                if horizontalSizeClass == 2 { // Slide Over is ACTIVE!

                    appDelegate.slideOverActive = true

                } else {

                    appDelegate.slideOverActive = false

                }
            }
        }
    }

}

Then, wherever in your code you wish to check whether the slide-over is active or not, simply check:

if appDelegate.slideOverActive == true {

    // DO THIS

} else {

    // DO THIS

}

It's a bit of a workaround, but it works for me at the moment.

Happy trails!

Answer 8

Like the solution by Dan Rosenstark, but changed to work on the new iPad Pro's that seem to report a different frame and screen.bounds height based on if it's ran directly on the device through Xcode, or if it is compiled and released through TestFlight or App Store. The height would return 980 when through AS or TF, rather than 1024 as it was supposed to like through Xcode causing it to be impossible to return true.

extension UIApplication {
    public var isSplitOrSlideOver: Bool {
        guard let w = self.delegate?.window, let window = w else { return false }
        return !(window.frame.width == window.screen.bounds.width)
    }
}

Answer 9

And I'm really late to the party! But nonetheless, here's a simple, swifty solution to the problem. Using let width = UIScreen.mainScreen().applicationFrame.size.width we can detect the width of my app's window, and then have things occur when it is smaller than a certain number (i.e. on iPhone screen or in split view), useful to make different things happen on smaller screens. To have the computer check the width over and over again, we can run an NSTimer every hundredth of a second, then do stuff if the width is higher/lower than something.

Some measurements for you (you have to decide what width to make stuff occur above/below): iPhone 6S Plus: 414.0mm
iPhone 6S: 375.0mm
iPhone 5S: 320.0mm
iPad (portrait): 768.0mm
iPad (1/3 split view): 320.0mm
iPad Air 2 (1/2 split view): 507.0mm
iPad (landscape): 1024.0mm

Here's a code snippet:

class ViewController: UIViewController {

var widthtimer = NSTimer()

func checkwidth() {

var width = UIScreen.mainScreen().applicationFrame.size.width

if width < 507 { // The code inside this if statement will occur if the width is below 507.0mm (on portrait iPhones and in iPad 1/3 split view only). Use the measurements provided in the Stack Overflow answer above to determine at what width to have this occur.

    // do the thing that happens in split view
    textlabel.hidden = false

} else if width > 506 {

    // undo the thing that happens in split view when return to full-screen
    textlabel.hidden = true

}
}


override func viewDidAppear(animated: Bool) {

widthtimer = NSTimer.scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval(0.01, target: self, selector: "checkwidth", userInfo: nil, repeats: true) 
// runs every hundredth of a second to call the checkwidth function, to check the width of the window.

}

override func viewDidDisappear(animated: Bool) {
widthtimer.invalidate()
}

}

I hope this can help anyone who comes peeking!

Answer 10

Adding to @Tamas's answer:
Here is the code snippet that will automatically maintain this flag irrespective of rotation.

 -(void)traitCollectionDidChange:(UITraitCollection *)previousTraitCollection
{
 // simply create a property of 'BOOL' type
 isRunningInFullScreen = CGRectEqualToRect([UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate.window.frame, [UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate.window.screen.bounds);
}

Answer 11

I wrote a SizeClasser library based on @Michael Voccola's library.
You can initialize it with the traitCollection of your view controller and detect split views as well as device specific orientation.
So you could write your code specifically 1/3 horizontal split view or 1/3 portrait split view which UITraitCollection does not give you a way to detect them.
https://github.com/cemolcay/SizeClasser

Answer 12

Trying [UIScreen mainScreen].bounds, self.window.screen.bounds, self.window.frame, UIApplication.sharedApplication.keyWindow.frame and so on, the only working solution was deprecated method

CGRect frame = [UIScreen mainScreen].applicationFrame;

Which I fixed this way

CGRect frame = [UIScreen mainScreen].applicationFrame;
frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, frame.size.width + frame.origin.x, frame.size.height + frame.origin.y);
self.window.frame = frame;