Question

I’m confused. I have a navigation controller with a BarItem which opens a first view. After some work is done, I want this view to disappear and I want a second view to open.

• root view: navigation controller
• first view: activity indicator, where some data is put together
• second view: MFMailComposeViewController

In the root view, the BarItem runs these lines to open the first view:

    IndicatorViewController *indicator = [[IndicatorViewController alloc] initWithNibName:@"IndicatorViewController" bundle:nil];

    indicator.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
    self.modalPresentationStyle = UIModalPresentationCurrentContext;
    [self presentModalViewController:indicator animated:YES];

The first view (IndicatorViewController) does some work and finally runs

[self dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES];

This works fine. But – how do I open the second view?

I tried this:

I open the second view. After closing the second view, my first view pops up again (since it is still there) and get’s dismissed at this point. This code is placed in the first view:

- (void) viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated {
    static BOOL firstTime = YES;
    if (firstTime) {
        //do stuff that takes some time (that's why I show the indicator)
        MailViewController *controller = [[MailViewController alloc] init];

        if (controller) 
           [self presentModalViewController:controller animated:YES]; 
        firstTime = NO;
    } else {
        [self dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES];
    }    
}

Since the first view pops up again, the user can see the indicator one more time, after the second view is closed – and that is not what I want.

What am I missing here? What would be the better way to do this?

Answer 1

I would do something like this. Make a navigationController, and make the first view as the root controller. Then do something like this:

FirstView.m

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];
    [self.navigationController setNavigationBarHidden:YES];
}

- (void) nextView { // however you get to your next view, button/action/etc.
    UIViewController *screen = [self.storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:@"yourIdentifier"];
    [self.navigationController pushViewController:screen animated:YES];
}

Then in the second view:

SecondView.m
- (void) nextView { // however you get to your next view, button/action/etc.
    UIViewController *screen = [self.storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:@"yourIdentifier"];
    [self.navigationController pushViewController:screen animated:YES];
}

And finally in the rootview:

RootView.m
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];
    NSArray *navStack = [NSArray arrayWithObject:self];
    self.navigationController.viewControllers = navStack;
    [self.navigationController setNavigationBarHidden:NO];
}

This will make your RootView the new rootview of the NavigationController.

self.navigationController.viewControllers

is the array with all the ViewControllers that are on the navcontrollers stack. The first object is the rootcontroller. If we replace the whole array with our own array, it knows only one item. You CAN go back by dismissing if that’s what you want though. This isn’t the prettiest way of doing it, but it’s not the worst either.