What is the best way to change my UIViewController to a UINavigationController

Question

Hi,

I just realised that my 'root' viewController should have been a UINavigationController. Now I want to change this to be a UINavigationController instead and just curious what my best option would be. I built this view and all other views using IB if that makes a different.

I'm mostly worried that I would have to do a lot of copy/pasting and recoding to get everything right or will be it be as easy as manually editing my controller and change the extension to UINavigationController.

Thanks

Answer 1

Something like this? http://starterstep.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/changing-a-uinavigationcontroller%E2%80%99s-root-view-controller/

Answer 2

You can instantiate a trivial not-subclassed UINavigationController and give it your original UIViewController as its root controller, like:

YourRootViewController *rootViewController = [[YourRootViewController] initHoweverYouInitIt];
UINavigationController *navController = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:rootViewController];

and maybe an [rootViewController release];, depending on how you are going to manage memory.

Answer 3

UINavigationController has an 'is-a' relationship with UIViewController, so you should be able to change its class type in Interface Builder with no additional changes.

Answer 4

You do not convert an existing view controller into a navigation controller.

Even though UINavigationController is a subclass of UIViewController, it's task is the management of other view controllers, not the management of views themselves. You don't swap them out one for the other. Instead, you set UIViewControllers to be controlled by the nav.

To add a nav to a project in IB, open the xib and drag over a UINavigationController. Then set the navigation controller's rootControlller property to the existing UIViewController.

And you're done.