Gamecenter authentication in landscape only Cocos2d with CCLayer for iOS 6

Question

I'm having what seems to be a fairly common problem, but my searches and implementations of solutions have not worked out.

I've built a Cocos2d game that is intended to be landscape only, but needs to access Gamecenter. Gamecenter is working, with portrait mode enabled, but it's also allowing the game to flip to portrait mode too.

I've attempted the following fixes:

Game center login lock in landscape only in i OS 6

GameCenter authentication in landscape-only app throws UIApplicationInvalidInterfaceOrientation

Error in iOS 6 after adding GameCenter to a landscape-only cocos2d app

Cocos 2d 2.0 shouldAutorotate not working?

I believe the problem is that I've built the game using CCLayers instead of UIViewControllers

Example: MenuLayer.h

@interface MenuLayer : CCLayer <GKAchievementViewControllerDelegate, GKLeaderboardViewControllerDelegate, UINavigationControllerDelegate>{
   ..my header info..
}

MenuLayer.m

...
-(NSUInteger)supportedInterfaceOrientations {
    return UIInterfaceOrientationMaskLandscape;
}
-(BOOL)shouldAutorotate {
    return [[UIDevice currentDevice] orientation] != UIInterfaceOrientationPortrait;
}

-(void)authenticateLocalPlayer
{

    GKLocalPlayer * localPlayer= [GKLocalPlayer localPlayer];

    if(localPlayer.authenticated == NO)
    {
        NSString *reqSysVer = @"6.0";
        NSString *currSysVer = [[UIDevice currentDevice] systemVersion];
        if ([currSysVer compare:reqSysVer options:NSNumericSearch] != NSOrderedAscending)
        {
            [[GKLocalPlayer localPlayer] setAuthenticateHandler:(^(UIViewController* viewcontroller, NSError *error) {
                if (viewcontroller != nil) {
                    AppController *app = (AppController*) [[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate];
                    [[app navController] presentModalViewController:viewcontroller animated:YES];
                }else if ([GKLocalPlayer localPlayer].authenticated)
                {
                    //do some stuff
                }
            })];
        }
        else
        {
            [localPlayer authenticateWithCompletionHandler:^(NSError *error){
                if(localPlayer.isAuthenticated)
                {
                    //Peform Additionl Tasks for the authenticated player.
                }
            }];
        }
    }

}
...

Since I've built the game using CCLayers instead of UIViewControllers, what alternatives do I have? Am I correct in assuming that CCLayers don't call use supportedInterfaceOrientations or shouldAutorotate?

Or am I supposed be changing this code somehow to fix the problem:

// Create a Navigation Controller with the Director
navController_ = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:director_];
navController_.navigationBarHidden = YES;

Answer 1

This frustrated me for awhile too. After digging around for awhile on the 'Net I found a couple of sources and some worked with iOS 6, some with iOS5, but I had to make some modifications so that it worked the way I wanted on both iOS5 and iOS6. This is the code I am using, it works on my iPhone using 5.1 and 6. Note that the Game Center login still comes up in portrait orientation, there doesn't appear to be anything you can do about that. But the rest of the game will remain in landscape mode.

1. enable portrait mode as a supported orientation in your build settings (info.plist).
2. Create a new subclass of UINavigationController. Name this class whatever makes sense to you.
3. In your AppDelegate, include your new custom UINavigationController header file.
4. In your App Delegate, comment out the original call and instead call your custom class.

That should do the trick. Here is the code from my custom class:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@interface CustomNavigationViewController : UINavigationController

-(UIInterfaceOrientation) getCurrentOrientation;

@end

And the implementation file:

#import "CustomNavigationViewController.h"

@interface CustomNavigationViewController ()

@end

@implementation CustomNavigationViewController

- (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil
{
    self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil];
    if (self) {
        // Custom initialization
    }
    return self;
}

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];
    // Do any additional setup after loading the view.
}

- (void)didReceiveMemoryWarning
{
    [super didReceiveMemoryWarning];
    // Dispose of any resources that can be recreated.
}

// This is required to allow GameCenter to login in portrait mode, but only allow landscape mode for the rest of the game play/
// Arrrgg!

-(BOOL) shouldAutorotate {
    return YES;
}

-(NSUInteger) supportedInterfaceOrientations {
    return UIInterfaceOrientationMaskLandscape;
}

-(UIInterfaceOrientation) preferredInterfaceOrientationForPresentation {
    return UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeRight; // or left if you prefer
}

-(NSUInteger) application:(UIApplication *)application supportedInterfaceOrientationsForWindow:(UIWindow *)window {
    if (UI_USER_INTERFACE_IDIOM() == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPad)
        return UIInterfaceOrientationMaskLandscape;
    else {
        return UIInterfaceOrientationMaskAllButUpsideDown;
    }
}

-(BOOL) shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation {
    return [[UIDevice currentDevice] orientation] != UIInterfaceOrientationPortrait;
}

-(UIInterfaceOrientation) getCurrentOrientation {
    return [[UIDevice currentDevice] orientation];
}

@end

Note that last method getCurrentOrientation isn't required I just put that in there in case I wanted to determine what the current orientation is.

The custom class is called in AppDelegate.m like this: (comment out the original code)

navController = [[CustomNavigationViewController alloc] initWithRootViewController:director];
window.rootViewController = navController;
navController.navigationBarHidden = YES;
[window makeKeyAndVisible];

Hope this helps.