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We're a university department developing an app for internal distribution through Apple's Developer Enterprise Program (it won't be in the App Store). It will contain "subapps" for things like directory lookup, clinic addresses and phone numbers, etc. We've designed it with a Springboard-like main page with icons that will invoke the separate subapps (similar to Facebook and many university apps that we've reviewed).

I've created the main icon grid page using a UINavigationController so that it has a UIViewController structure where I can return to the main page by popping all view controllers off the stack:

popToViewController:[[self.navigationController viewControllers] objectAtIndex:0]

We'd like to be able to use a UITabBarController in some of the subapps, but are running into the restriction in combining view controller interfaces that a navigation controller should not incorporate a tab bar controller. This restriction makes sense in that a tab bar controller is designed to remain persistent throughout an app.

However, for our purposes the "app" is really each separate "subapp" that should be able to basically begin with a clean slate. By using a UINavigationController at the outset, we've thrown away our ability to have a subapp with a UITabBarController. Apple's design recommendations work well for apps that are designed to do a tightly coupled set of related things, but it's important to us to package multiple sub-apps in one app for ease of internal distribution and use.

Is there a better way to incorporate a view controller into the main Springboard-like page that will allow me to load either a UINavigationController or UITabBarController for sub apps? I know this isn't what modal view controllers were designed for, would the use of one of these be a possibility on the main page for launching sub-apps?

Brad Larson
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madcitydon
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1 Answers1

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I would not use a UINavigationController for the springboard. When the user chooses a subapp, present the subapp's view controller (which in some cases will be a UITabBarController) either manually using view transition animations, or as a modal view.

You can have a top-level application delegate method like returnToSpringboard that switches the view back to the springboard (again, either manually or by calling dismissModalViewController).

Alternatively, if you really want to use a navigation stack as your springboard hierarchy, take a look at Tab bar controller inside a navigation controller, or sharing a navigation root view.

Community
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Daniel Dickison
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