Act on click of a button on the Nav Bar for moreNa

Question

Okay, here is my issue: My app has a display of categories in the tab bar at the bottom of the iPhoneOS screen. This only allows 5 categories before it presents the MORE button. I have over 25 (please do not answer this by saying: "Rethink your application...etc" -- that was rudely said before. They are food, drink, etc categories and cannot be changed). I want to allow the user to put their favorites on the home page. The Apple moreNavigationController editing system only allows 20 tab bar items to be rearranged due to space constraints on the editing page. This is not enough so i need to implement my own Editing screen. I set the rightBarButtonItem to nil and created my own. Using NSLog, i can see the "click" happens when clicking the EDIT button, but I cannot push using pushViewController. Nothing happens. I think it has something to do with the navigationController I am addressing...but i am not sure. ps: This all happens in my App Delegate which DOES act as both UITabBarControllerDelegate & UINavigationControllerDelegate.

I tried to do the following:

 - ( void )navigationController:( UINavigationController * )navigationController_local willShowViewController:( UIViewController * )viewController_local animated:( BOOL )animated
{

    UIViewController * currentController = navigationController_local.visibleViewController;
    UIViewController * nextController = viewController_local;

 // Do whatever here.
 NSLog(@"Nav contoller willShowViewController fired\n'%@'\n'%@'\nThere are currently: %d views on the stack\n",currentController,nextController,[self.navigationController.viewControllers count]);

 if ( [nextController isKindOfClass:NSClassFromString(@"UIMoreListController")])
 {
  UINavigationBar *morenavbar = navigationController_local.navigationBar;
  UINavigationItem *morenavitem = morenavbar.topItem;
  morenavitem.rightBarButtonItem = nil;
  NSLog(@"Is a UIMoreListController\n");

  UIBarButtonItem *editTabBarButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc]
             initWithTitle:@"Edit"
             style:UIBarButtonItemStylePlain
             target:self
             action:@selector(editTabBar:)];

  morenavitem.rightBarButtonItem = editTabBarButton;
  [editTabBarButton release];
 }


}

This works to place an EDIT button at the top right of the screen -- mimicking Apple's look and feel... but when that button is clicked, you cannot exit the darn moreNavigationController.

I have tried many things. UIAlerts work, etc...but pushing (or popping -- even popping to root view) a view controller on the stack does not.

- (void) editTabBar:(id)sender {
 NSLog(@"clicked edit tabbar\n");
 NSLog(@"Total count of controllers: %d\n",[self.navigationController.viewControllers count]);

 TabBarViewController *tabBarViewController2 = [[TabBarViewController alloc] initWithNibName:@"TabBarView" bundle:nil];
  tabBarViewController2.navigationItem.title=@"Edit Tab Bar";
  [self.navigationController pushViewController:tabBarViewController2 animated:YES];
  [tabBarViewController2 release];

NSLog(@"finished edit tabbar\n");

}

If you click the edit button on the moreNavigationController's display page, you get the log entries like expected AND (this is strange) the views on the stack climbs -- but no page change occurs. I marked it down to not using the correct navigation controller...but I am lost on how to find which one TO use.

this is a weird one too. In the edit function if i just do this:

- (void) editTabBar:(id)sender {
self.tabBarController.selectedIndex = 0;
}

It DOES take me home (to tabbarcontroller 0)

BUT doing this:

 - (void) editTabBar:(id)sender {
    [self.navigationController popToRootViewControllerAnimated:YES];
    }

does not work.

Does the moreNavigationController have some special quality that screws with the rest of the system?

Answer 1

I would try reimplementing the whole "More" functionality from scratch. In other words, store the four home tabs in your user defaults and add a dummy fifth tab that switches to your own complete reimplementation of the more view controller stack.

You could even write a lightweight subclass of UITabBarController that handled this for you.

Answer 2

UITabBarController is evil, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if MoreController had some special properties, too.

I have had success intercepting the More Controller in shouldSelectViewController to change the data source; you may be able to find some workaround there.

PS I am inclined to agree that you could consider redesigning your app so that you didn't need an unlimited number of viewControllers attached to the tab bar just to select categories; you might have better luck using a tool bar with a single, scrollable, custom view in it. If that's really the best way of picking categories for your app, of course.