Question

I have a project that is a tab-bar controller. Each tab usually has a UINavigationController. The problem I have is this: I need a new tab with alot of navigation (roughly 30 navigation items grouped into 4-8 groups. Problem: My navigation bar is already full (can’t use the navigation controller (or bar). What I need is navigation below the navigation bar (which has a global search bar and other global icons filling it). How can I implement this best?

What I have now: I have created a UIScrollView just under the navigation bar to serve as my “hand-rolled” navigation bar. It’s a scrollView because I don’t know (going forward) how many “groupings” of navigation items I will have (currently only 4). Each of these groups is represented by a UIButton, some of which should immediately present a view, and others which present a popover with further navigation items, which when selected will present a view.

Problem: I want a “content view” under my navigation view mentioned above, where I can present content based on the user’s navigation choices. I have to support iOS 5.0, so I can’t use the storyboard container view (unfortunately). I will have 3 types (maybe more later) of content views I will present, that I would like to create as individual view controllers and then push the appropriate one as it’s selected in my navigation mentioned. Is there a 3rd party navigation controller I can use? Do I have to “roll my own”? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Here is a “slapped-together” picture of what I need to achieve:

Answer 1

I would make what you’re calling the content view a subview of your main view, and use it as the view to which you will add a childViewController’s view. If you haven’t already read up on custom container controllers, you should do so, but the basic way of using them is like this.

The controller’s whose view you show in your question would be the custom container controller. You could load up an initial controller in the viewDidLoad method, then switch the controller in your subview (I’m calling it self.containerView) in response to the user choosing something from your scroll bar:

- (void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated {
    [super viewDidAppear:animated];
    UIViewController *initial = [self.storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:@"InitialVC"];
    [self addChildViewController:initial];
    [initial.view.frame = self.containerView.bounds];
    [self.containerView addSubview:initial.view];
    self.currentController = initial;
}

-(void)switchToNewViewController:(UIViewController *) cont {
    [self addChildViewController:cont];
    cont.view.frame = self.containerView.bounds;
    [self moveToNewController:cont ];
}

-(void)moveToNewController:(UIViewController *) newController {
    [self.currentController willMoveToParentViewController:nil];
    [self transitionFromViewController:self.currentController toViewController:newController duration:.6 options:UIViewAnimationOptionTransitionFlipFromLeft animations:^{}
         completion:^(BOOL finished) {
             [self.currentController removeFromParentViewController];
             [newController didMoveToParentViewController:self];
             self.currentController = newController;
         }];
}

This should give you the basic idea. I took this from one of my test projects, so it will probably need a little tweaking.