iPhone IOS5 Storyboard, how to load a UIViewController with a custom .xib file?

Question

I have some UIViewControllers from my old iOS4 project, they are using .xib, created in interface builder.

My new project, built for iOS5, uses storyboards.

I'm trying to add a UIViewController to the storyboard, but have it use a custom XIB that I already have. I've set the controller's identity in the indentity inspector (in interface builder), but am not sure how to ask that controller to load a custom .xib.

Any help is appreciated!

PS. Up to date I was able to get around this by creating a "wrapper" class for the storyboard purposes, and have that class have another UIViewController. But this kinda defeats the whole point of a storyboard.

score 19 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 02 '12 at 22:28

19

You could copy the contents of the xib into the storyboard and then instantiate it using:

- (id)instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:(NSString *)identifier

after setting the identifier on it. If you need the instance of the storyboard you can get it this way:

[UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:@"MainStoryboard" bundle:nil];

answered Jan 02 '12 at 22:28

Philippe Sabourin

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Isn't it simpler to just copy .xib contents to his main storyboard file? – LordTwaroog Jan 02 '12 at 23:15
Yeah that's what I was telling him to do. Note that you can also get the storyboard from any UIViewController from the storyboard property. – Philippe Sabourin Jan 02 '12 at 23:19
After messing with wrappers and the order of viewDidLoad kind of crap, I'm happy to just copy the interface over and manually hook it up, even though this is what I was hoping to avoid. – Alex Stone Jan 03 '12 at 01:16

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:51

Mike K's answer is false.

While mixing XIBs and Storyboards doesn't really solve Alex's problem, it is quite possible to do within the same project.

See: https://stackoverflow.com/a/8516479/1309238 re: loading a second storyboard.

I'm not sure if including a "Main Storyboard" in your Target Summary is advisable if you plan to do this, but if you've loaded a XIB instead of a storyboard to begin with, you can modify the code linked above to load the storyboard after the XIB.

I'm not sure if you can jump into the middle of a storyboard from a XIB, which may have been what Mike meant.

score -12 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 03 '12 at 15:00

-12

You cannot mix xibs and storyboards in your project -- it's one of the other, I'm afraid.

edited Jan 03 '12 at 15:00

Ivan

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answered Jan 02 '12 at 22:18

Mike K

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This is false. You can have xibs and storyboards. – olivaresF Jun 25 '12 at 05:32

iPhone IOS5 Storyboard, how to load a UIViewController with a custom .xib file?

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