Objective-c Nested VIewControllers - objective-c

Question

i would like to create an App whit a structure similar to the native application "Phone" of the iPhone. I will be more precise, the phone application have a tabBar that contains:"Favorites" , "Recents", "Contact", "Keypad" and "Voice Mail".
When we enter in the tab contacts we can see a navigation bar and a tableView.
I would like to have a similar structure but i'm questioning myself about which is the best and most correct way to do it?
I was thinking to start a single view application than use the view controller that is create automatically as a TabbedViewController then i would create another subclass of another viewController and i used it as my NavViewController.
I would have something like
[myTabBar.view addSubview:myNavController];
but how can i set those instance? once i have the automatically created ViewController and i create a SecondviewController how can i set them as the TabViewController and my NavViewController ?

Answer 1

If you're using storyboards, just add a tab bar controller to your storyboard. Then select one of the tab bar's child scenes and then choose "Embed In" - "Navigation Controller" from the Xcode "Editor" menu. If you repeat that process for whichever tabs you want to have navigation controllers. In this screen snapshot, I've added a navigation controller to the first and third tabs, but not the second.
Hopefully this illustrates the idea.
If you're determined to do this with NIBs, the easiest way to get started is create a new project with the Tabbed Application template (and obviously, at the next screen, uncheck "Use Storyboards"):
Then open up the app delegate .m file and replace the default didFinishLaunchingWithOptions that looks like:
- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
self.window = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds]];
// Override point for customization after application launch.
UIViewController *viewController1 = [[FirstViewController alloc] initWithNibName:#"FirstViewController" bundle:nil];
UIViewController *viewController2 = [[SecondViewController alloc] initWithNibName:#"SecondViewController" bundle:nil];
self.tabBarController = [[UITabBarController alloc] init];
self.tabBarController.viewControllers = #[viewController1, viewController2];
self.window.rootViewController = self.tabBarController;
[self.window makeKeyAndVisible];
return YES;
}
with one that creates a separate navigation controller for each tab for which you want a navigation bar (in this case, I'm adding it to the first one only, but it illustrates the idea):
- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
self.window = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds]];
// Override point for customization after application launch.
UIViewController *viewController1 = [[FirstViewController alloc] initWithNibName:#"FirstViewController" bundle:nil];
UINavigationController *navigationController1 = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:viewController1];
UIViewController *viewController2 = [[SecondViewController alloc] initWithNibName:#"SecondViewController" bundle:nil];
self.tabBarController = [[UITabBarController alloc] init];
self.tabBarController.viewControllers = #[navigationController1, viewController2]; // was #[viewController1, viewController2];
self.window.rootViewController = self.tabBarController;
[self.window makeKeyAndVisible];
return YES;
}
This a relatively easy way to start a NIB-based tabbed application. You can then customize from there.
Personally, I struggle to imagine why someone would use NIBs rather than storyboards (unless you're trying to support iOS 4), but hopefully this illustrates both techniques.