Passing data back from a modal view in WatchKit

Question

When modally presenting, or pushing, an interface controller we can specify the context parameter to pass some data to the new controller as follows.

// Push
[self pushControllerWithName:@"MyController" context:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:someObject, @"someKey", ..., nil]]; 

// Modal
[self presentControllerWithName:@"MyController" context:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:someObject, @"someKey", ..., nil]]; 

My question is, how can we do the reverse?

Say we present a controller modally for the user to pick an item from a list and we return to the main controller, how can we get the item that has been picked?

Answer 1

I wrote a full example that uses Delegation in WatchKit, passing the delegate instance in the context, and calling delegate function from the modal : Here is the full project example on GitHub

Here is the principale classes of the example :

InterfaceController.swift

This is the main Controller, there are a label and a button on his view. When you press the button, the presentItemChooser get called and it present the ModalView (ModalInterfaceController). I pass the instance of InterfaceController in the context to the modal. Important this controller implements `ModalItemChooserDelegate' functions (the protocol definition is in the modal file)

class InterfaceController: WKInterfaceController, ModalItemChooserDelegate {

    @IBOutlet weak var itemSelected: WKInterfaceLabel!
    var item = "No Item"

    override func awakeWithContext(context: AnyObject?) {
        super.awakeWithContext(context)

        // Configure interface objects here.

    }

    override func willActivate() {
        // This method is called when watch view controller is about to be visible to user
        itemSelected.setText(item)
        super.willActivate()

    }

    override func didDeactivate() {
        // This method is called when watch view controller is no longer visible
        super.didDeactivate()
    }

    func didSelectItem(itemSelected: String) {
        self.item = itemSelected
    }

    @IBAction func presentItemChooser() {

        self.presentControllerWithName("ModalInterfaceController", context: self)

    }
}

ModalInterfaceController.swift

This is the class of my modal controller. I hold the reference of my previous controller (self.delegate = context as? InterfaceController). When a row is selected, I call my delegate function didSelectItem(selectedItem) before dismissing it.

protocol ModalItemChooserDelegate {
        func didSelectItem(itemSelected:String)
    }

    class ModalInterfaceController: WKInterfaceController {

        let rowId = "CustomTableRowController"

        let items = ["Item 1", "Item 2", "Item 3", "Item 4", "Item 5"]

        var delegate: InterfaceController?

        @IBOutlet weak var customTable: WKInterfaceTable!

        override func awakeWithContext(context: AnyObject?) {
            super.awakeWithContext(context)
            self.delegate = context as? InterfaceController
            // Configure interface objects here.
            println(delegate)
            loadTableData()
        }

        override func willActivate() {
            // This method is called when watch view controller is about to be visible to user

            super.willActivate()
        }

        override func didDeactivate() {
            // This method is called when watch view controller is no longer visible
            super.didDeactivate()
        }

        private func loadTableData(){
            customTable.setNumberOfRows(items.count, withRowType: rowId)
            for(i, itemName) in enumerate(items){
                let row = customTable.rowControllerAtIndex(i) as! TableRowController
                row.fillRow(itemName)

            }

        }

        override func table(table: WKInterfaceTable, didSelectRowAtIndex rowIndex: Int) {
            let selectedItem = items[rowIndex]
            self.delegate?.didSelectItem(selectedItem)
            self.dismissController()
        }


    }

This is how I pass data back to my previous Controller. If is a better way let me know, I'll take it. :)