Question

I have a Master-Detail application for iPad. I am using storyboard. When the user selects a cell in MasterViewcontroller, data is displayed in another table (UITableViewController). When the user selects a cell in the second table, I want to display the related information in the DetailViewController. The second table displays a list of documents (PDF, XLS, etc). So, when the user selects abc.pdf, I want the PDF document to be displayed (in read-only mode) in the Detailviewcontroller.

I have found several samples which do this directly from the MasterViewcontroller to the detailviewcontroller. But I am not able to achieve this from the second table. The navigation looks like this:

Table1 (parent data)
    |
    V
Table2 (child data, which as I said is a list of documents)
    |
    V
Detailview (display the selected document in read-only mode)

Answer 1

Storyboard or NIBs?

Assuming storyboard,

• define a segue from your second master tableview to the new details screen that will show the PDF; the segue should probably be a “replace” segue that replaces the detail screen;
• give that segue a unique identifier;
• in the tableView:didSelectRowAtIndexPath method, perform the segue using that identifier;
• in your new details view controller that shows the PDF, define a property with the name of the PDF to be opened; in viewDidLoad of that controller, have it open up the PDF for viewing; and
• in your prepareForSegue of the master view controller, set the property of the new view controller based upon what row of your table was selected.

If not storyboard, the process is similar, but rather than a segue and a prepareForSegue, you’d manually alloc/initWithNibName in didSelectRowAtIndexPath, you’d set the value of the pdf name property in your new controller, and then you’d transition the details screen to it via pushViewController or presentViewController, as you see fit.