UIView Animation Question

Question

To all,
I have a question about how to handle the asynchronous call when a UIView animation is created. My setup is as follows. I have a method in a view controller that get user input from and then makes external http calls. Since the calls could take a few seconds I wanted to notify the user when the call started and ended. In order to show this message I created a simple animation block in a method which I will list below.
The animation simply slides a box up with a label on it and then slides it back down. A pop up slider if you will.
This is my method which does the http processing simplified down.
My problem is that since the animation call is asynchronous the and takes 4 seconds total to complete. If the HTTP processing takes less then 4 seconds (at times it does) the next displayMessage is called and my animation gets screwed up.
The thoughts I have had were to have a check to see if the animation was running which is set true in the pop up reveal and false in the popup hide. Then I could simply sleep my thread if the boolean was true. But this wasn't working since the animation stop block was never called.
I need to bounce ideas of you guys cause I don't know how to get past this basic problem.
- (void)loadPostViewController:(id)sender
[self displayMessage:@"Parsing address"];
//Actual http processing code here which invokes external service
[self displayMessage:@"Address processed"];
- (void)displayMessage:(NSString *) inMessage
CGFloat PostListViewXOFFSET = 20.0f;
CGFloat PostListViewYOFFSET = 20.0f;
NSInteger messageWidth = 150;
NSInteger messageHeight = 60;
self.transitioning = TRUE;
self.view.userInteractionEnabled = NO;
UIView *localContainerView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] applicationFrame]];
CGRect messageFrame = CGRectMake(0,0,messageWidth, messageHeight);
roundedRectangle *view = [[roundedRectangle alloc] initWithFrame:messageFrame x:0 y:0 Width:messageWidth Height:messageHeight cIndex:0 radius:10.0f positionIndex:0];
CGRect frameOut = CGRectMake((localContainerView.bounds.size.width/2)-(messageWidth/2),localConta inerView.bounds.size.height+messageHe ight, messageWidth, messageHeight);
UILabel *mylabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(PostListViewXOFFSET, PostListViewYOFFSET, messageWidth-40,20)];
mylabel.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Helvetica" size:12];
mylabel.textColor = [UIColor blackColor];
mylabel.text = inMessage;
mylabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
self.messageLabel = mylabel;
[view addSubview:mylabel];
[mylabel release];
view.frame = frameOut;
self.messageView = view;
[self.view addSubview:view];
[UIView beginAnimations: nil context: nil]; // Tell UIView we're ready to start animations.
[UIView setAnimationDelegate: self]; // Set the delegate (Only needed if you need to use the animationDid... selectors)
[UIView setAnimationDidStopSelector: @selector(animationDidStop:finished:context:)]; // example of a selector called with context when animation finishes.
[UIView setAnimationCurve: UIViewAnimationCurveEaseInOut];
[UIView setAnimationDuration: 2.0f]; // Set the duration to 4/10ths of a second.
CGRect frameIn = view.frame; // Get the current frame.
frameIn.origin.x = (localContainerView.bounds.size.width/2)-(messageWidth/2); // Move the view completely on screen.
frameIn.origin.y = localContainerView.bounds.size.height-(messageHeight+20.0f);
view.frame = frameIn; // set the new frame
[UIView commitAnimations]; // Animate!
[view release];
- (void)animationDidStop:(NSString *)animationID finished:(NSNumber *)finished context:(void *)context
self.transitioning = FALSE;
[self HideMessage];
- (void)HideMessage
NSInteger messageWidth = 150;
NSInteger messageHeight = 60;
UIView *localContainerView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] applicationFrame]];
CGRect frameOut = CGRectMake((localContainerView.bounds.size.width/2)-(messageWidth/2),localConta inerView.bounds.size.height+messageHe ight, messageWidth, messageHeight);
[UIView beginAnimations: nil context: nil]; // Tell UIView we're ready to start animations.
[UIView setAnimationDelegate: self]; // Set the delegate (Only needed if you need to use the animationDid... selectors)
[UIView setAnimationDidStopSelector: @selector(clearMessageView)]; // example of a selector called with context when animation finishes.
[UIView setAnimationCurve: UIViewAnimationCurveEaseInOut];
[UIView setAnimationDuration: 2.0f]; // Set the duration to 4/10ths of a second.
self.messageView.frame = frameOut; // set the new frame
[UIView commitAnimations]; // Animate!
}

Answer 1

To all,
I have a question about how to handle the asynchronous call when a UIView animation is created. My setup is as follows. I have a method in a view controller that get user input from and then makes external http calls. Since the calls could take a few seconds I wanted to notify the user when the call started and ended. In order to show this message I created a simple animation block in a method which I will list below.
The animation simply slides a box up with a label on it and then slides it back down. A pop up slider if you will.
This is my method which does the http processing simplified down.
My problem is that since the animation call is asynchronous the and takes 4 seconds total to complete. If the HTTP processing takes less then 4 seconds (at times it does) the next displayMessage is called and my animation gets screwed up.
The thoughts I have had were to have a check to see if the animation was running which is set true in the pop up reveal and false in the popup hide. Then I could simply sleep my thread if the boolean was true. But this wasn't working since the animation stop block was never called.
I need to bounce ideas of you guys cause I don't know how to get past this basic problem.
- (void)loadPostViewController:(id)sender
[self displayMessage:@"Parsing address"];
//Actual http processing code here which invokes external service
[self displayMessage:@"Address processed"];
- (void)displayMessage:(NSString *) inMessage
CGFloat PostListViewXOFFSET = 20.0f;
CGFloat PostListViewYOFFSET = 20.0f;
NSInteger messageWidth = 150;
NSInteger messageHeight = 60;
self.transitioning = TRUE;
self.view.userInteractionEnabled = NO;
UIView *localContainerView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] applicationFrame]];
CGRect messageFrame = CGRectMake(0,0,messageWidth, messageHeight);
roundedRectangle *view = [[roundedRectangle alloc] initWithFrame:messageFrame x:0 y:0 Width:messageWidth Height:messageHeight cIndex:0 radius:10.0f positionIndex:0];
CGRect frameOut = CGRectMake((localContainerView.bounds.size.width/2)-(messageWidth/2),localConta inerView.bounds.size.height+messageHe ight, messageWidth, messageHeight);
UILabel *mylabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(PostListViewXOFFSET, PostListViewYOFFSET, messageWidth-40,20)];
mylabel.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Helvetica" size:12];
mylabel.textColor = [UIColor blackColor];
mylabel.text = inMessage;
mylabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
self.messageLabel = mylabel;
[view addSubview:mylabel];
[mylabel release];
view.frame = frameOut;
self.messageView = view;
[self.view addSubview:view];
[UIView beginAnimations: nil context: nil]; // Tell UIView we're ready to start animations.
[UIView setAnimationDelegate: self]; // Set the delegate (Only needed if you need to use the animationDid... selectors)
[UIView setAnimationDidStopSelector: @selector(animationDidStop:finished:context:)]; // example of a selector called with context when animation finishes.
[UIView setAnimationCurve: UIViewAnimationCurveEaseInOut];
[UIView setAnimationDuration: 2.0f]; // Set the duration to 4/10ths of a second.
CGRect frameIn = view.frame; // Get the current frame.
frameIn.origin.x = (localContainerView.bounds.size.width/2)-(messageWidth/2); // Move the view completely on screen.
frameIn.origin.y = localContainerView.bounds.size.height-(messageHeight+20.0f);
view.frame = frameIn; // set the new frame
[UIView commitAnimations]; // Animate!
[view release];
- (void)animationDidStop:(NSString *)animationID finished:(NSNumber *)finished context:(void *)context
self.transitioning = FALSE;
[self HideMessage];
- (void)HideMessage
NSInteger messageWidth = 150;
NSInteger messageHeight = 60;
UIView *localContainerView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] applicationFrame]];
CGRect frameOut = CGRectMake((localContainerView.bounds.size.width/2)-(messageWidth/2),localConta inerView.bounds.size.height+messageHe ight, messageWidth, messageHeight);
[UIView beginAnimations: nil context: nil]; // Tell UIView we're ready to start animations.
[UIView setAnimationDelegate: self]; // Set the delegate (Only needed if you need to use the animationDid... selectors)
[UIView setAnimationDidStopSelector: @selector(clearMessageView)]; // example of a selector called with context when animation finishes.
[UIView setAnimationCurve: UIViewAnimationCurveEaseInOut];
[UIView setAnimationDuration: 2.0f]; // Set the duration to 4/10ths of a second.
self.messageView.frame = frameOut; // set the new frame
[UIView commitAnimations]; // Animate!
}