Instead of push segue how to replace view controller (or remove from navigation stack)?

Alexander Farber picture Alexander Farber · Jan 28, 2014 · Viewed 84k times · Source

I have a small iPhone app, which uses a navigation controller to display 3 views (here fullscreen):

Xcode screenshot

First it displays a list of social networks (Facebook, Google+, etc.):

list screenshot

Then it displays an OAuth dialog asking for credentials:

login screenshot

And (after that, in same UIWebView) for permissions:

permissions screenshot

Finally it displays the last view controller with user details (in the real app this will be the menu, where the multiplayer game can be started):

details screenshot

This all works well, but I have a problem, when the user wants to go back and select another social network:

The user touches the back button and instead of being displayed the first view, is displayed the second one, asking for OAuth credentials/permissions again.

What can I do here? Xcode 5.0.2 shows a very limited choice for segues - push, modal (which I can't use, because it obscures navigation bar needed for my game) and custom.

I am an iOS programming newbie, but earlier I have developed an Adobe AIR mobile app and there it was possible to 1) replace view instead of pushing and 2) remove an unneeded view from navigation stack.

How to do the same in a native app please?

Answer

ima747 picture ima747 · Oct 21, 2014

To expand on the various segues above, this is my solution. It has the following advantages:

  • Can work anywhere in the view stack, not just the top view (not sure if this is realistically ever needed or even technically possible to trigger, but hey it's in there).
  • It doesn't cause a pop OR transition to the previous view controller before displaying the replacement, it just displays the new controller with a natural transition, with the back navigation being to the same back navigation of the source controller.

Segue Code:

- (void)perform {
    // Grab Variables for readability
    UIViewController *sourceViewController = (UIViewController*)[self sourceViewController];
    UIViewController *destinationController = (UIViewController*)[self destinationViewController];
    UINavigationController *navigationController = sourceViewController.navigationController;

    // Get a changeable copy of the stack
    NSMutableArray *controllerStack = [NSMutableArray arrayWithArray:navigationController.viewControllers];
    // Replace the source controller with the destination controller, wherever the source may be
    [controllerStack replaceObjectAtIndex:[controllerStack indexOfObject:sourceViewController] withObject:destinationController];

    // Assign the updated stack with animation
    [navigationController setViewControllers:controllerStack animated:YES];
}