Question

I’m having some problems because I don’t know how it can be done. Someone help me please.

Problem:

I have a project with a UIViewController class with created all time when I create a new project in Xcode. In this viewController, I have a xib file for designing in Xcode.

What I need is to create some views and design them in Interface Builder like this:

But I need these views to be UIViewControllers, not UIViews.

The project should look like:

So I don’t know how I can do this in IB but I can do it from source code in ViewController.m

tab  = [[TabBarController alloc] initWithNibName:@"mytestview" bundle:nil];
    [tab.view setFrame:CGRectMake(100, 100, 400, 600)];
    [self.view addSubview:tab.view];

But it’s not my views it’s a different object, and if I want to change position or size I must do it from code. How I can do same things in Interface Builder?

Answer 1

Let’s consider following example based on Master-Detailed Application for iPhone only.

So, add new view controller in newly created project in Xcode:

I called it NewInsideViewController. Create it without xib:

Open DetailViewController.xib. Drag View Controller and View(*) objects from library to Objects area like this (I changed view’s color to LightGray):

Choose this View Controller and change its Class from UIViewController to NewInsideController at the Identity Inspector:

Assign our View(*) to NewInsideController as a view:

Now all main actions in IB finished. We need to create instance of NewInsideController in our DetailViewController. You can do it by hand, but Xcode has a nice feature – drag-n-drop 😉

I called this property as myNewInsideController and DetailViewController.h looks like this:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#import "NewInsideController.h"

@interface DetailViewController : UIViewController

@property (strong, nonatomic) id detailItem;
@property (strong, nonatomic) IBOutlet NewInsideController *myNewInsideController;

@property (strong, nonatomic) IBOutlet UILabel *detailDescriptionLabel;
@end

Well, now our NewInsideController ready to work and manage its view. Let’s add button and action to that view in order to verify this:

Write some code in IBAction in NewInsideController.

- (IBAction)insideButtonClick:(id)sender {
    float rPart = arc4random()%100/100.0f;
    float gPart = arc4random()%100/100.0f;    
    self.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor colorWithRed:rPart green:gPart blue:0.5f alpha:1.0f];
}

Run program.