Home/ Questions/Q 3664828
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-19T01:41:27+00:00

Summary From a conceptual point of view, should one be working with UIViewController subclasses

  • 0

Summary

From a conceptual point of view, should one be working with UIViewController subclasses and their Nibs, even if you’re not using the UINavigationController?

Scenario

The application I’m trying to develop has no UINavigationController. I’m mostly looking at elements in one particular UIScrollView implementation, and if there’s at all a ‘next level of navigation’, it merely alters the appearance of a small element to show more details. The detail views of the elements (different elements spawn different views) are laid out in Interface Builder, for which I opted to create new UIViewController subclasses with corresponding XIB files.

Doubt

While exploring the different ways I could have these instances animate into view, I come across a lot of solutions using the UINavigationController. The UIViewController itself already seems to be geared towards the synergy. There’s a self.navigationController, and lot’s of examples online of how to push and pop with and without animation.

Question

So what I’m wondering right now is "did I do the right thing?" Googling an answer to that question only brought me to more specific implementation examples, so I decided to post this.

Should I have restrained myself in using XCode’s "new file" template for UIViewController subclasses with XIB? Or should I have implemented a UINavigationController in my app, even if there’s no screenfulls of navigation going on?

I’d be much obliged for enlightenment.
Cheers,
Eric-Paul.

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    UIViewController is a useful tool. It offers memory management things, anchor points for interface rotation and lots more. If needed, they can be pushed to a navigation controller (if not now, maybe later), could be a page of a tab bar controller, or behave well in popovers on iPad.

    They come cheap and I don’t see a reason not to use them. And your code needs to go somewhere anyway. Don’t flood the application delegate or the view.

    • 0