iPhone -- adding a button to a navigation bar created when the user selects a tab in the moreNavigationController

Question

My tab bar has ten tabs. Six of these are therefore shoved into the "More" tab. Several of them do not have UINavigationControllers. I.e, the tab is controlled by a UIViewController subclass that is not a navigation controller.

When the user selects one of these, the appropriate view controller come sup, with a UINavigationBar at the top.

I want to add a button to that navigation bar. How can I do that?

Thanks.

Answer 1

There are two ways to go about it.

1. Just use a UINavigationController for each tab, with your view controller in it. But it sounds like you don't want to do this, so:

2. Put a UINavigationBar in using Interface Builder.
   You can then drag in UIBarButtonItems and configure them to your liking, also in IB.

Answer 2

Well, if you want to do this programmatically, then I would suggest replacing each of your viewControllers in your UITabBar with UINavigationControllers that house the respective view controllers.

So, your old code looks something like this:

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application {
  UITabBarController *tbc = [[[UITabBarController alloc]init]autorelease];
  [window addSubview:tbc.view];
  UIViewController *mapVC = [[[UIViewController alloc] init]autorelease];
  NSArray *tabViewControllerArray = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:self.mapVC, nil];
  tbc.viewControllers = tabViewControllerArray;
}

New code should be:

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application {
  UITabBarController *tbc = [[[UITabBarController alloc]init]autorelease];
  [window addSubview:tbc.view];
  UIViewController *mapVC = [[[UIViewController alloc] init]autorelease];
  // add the viewController to a UINavigationController
  UINavigationController *mapNav = [[[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:mapVC]autorelease];
  // put the nav controller in the array instead
  NSArray *tabViewControllerArray = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:mapNav, nil];
  tbc.viewControllers = tabViewControllerArray;

  // this code adds a right button to the mapBav navigationBar
  // this uses a custom view, but you could use a standard UIBarButtonItem too 
  NSArray *items = [NSArray arrayWithObjects: [UIImage imageNamed:@"flag-icon.png"], nil];
  UISegmentedControl *tableControl = [[[UISegmentedControl alloc] initWithItems:items]autorelease];
  tableControl.segmentedControlStyle = UISegmentedControlStyleBar;
  UIBarButtonItem *segmentBarItem = [[[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithCustomView:tableControl] autorelease];
  self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = segmentBarItem;
}