prepareForSegue when embedding Tab Bar Controller into Navigation Controller - swift

Question

I currently have a navigation controller setup like this:
and my prepareForSegue, that passes data between the initial view (Login View Controller) and the Navigation controller looks like such:
override func prepareForSegue(segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: AnyObject?) {
super.prepareForSegue(segue, sender: sender)
let navVc = segue.destinationViewController as! UINavigationController // 1
let chatVc = navVc.viewControllers.first as! ChatViewController // 2
chatVc.senderId = userID // 3
chatVc.senderDisplayName = "" // 4
}
However, when I try to embed in a Tab Bar controller (to add more pages/functionality to my app) like this...
...and run my application, my program crashes at the line let navVc = segue.destinationViewController as! UINavigationController
I know that the problem is that after my initial view, it goes to the tab bar which is type UITabBarController rather than UINavigationController however if I change it, my data does not go to the view that I want it to go to...it is kind of confusing.
Please let me know if you have any ideas how to implement this, or if you have any questions feel free to ask me for clarification.
Thanks!
P.s. The error that I am receiving in the console is:
Could not cast value of type 'UITabBarController' (0x10b8e48b0) to 'UINavigationController' (0x10b8e4860).

Answer 1

Try this:
Start by casting destinationViewController to UITabBarController and then using the viewControllers property to access the first viewController in the tabBarController:
override func prepareForSegue(segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: AnyObject?) {
let tabVc = segue.destinationViewController as! UITabBarController
let navVc = tabVc.viewControllers!.first as! UINavigationController
let chatVc = navVc.viewControllers.first as! ChatViewController
chatVc.senderId = userID
chatVc.senderDisplayName = ""
}

Answer 2

In the CS193p class, Paul Hegarty shows the uses of extensions to deal with Navigation Controller segues (Lecture 8: 23'). The UIViewController extension introduces a new computed property: contentViewController available to all UIViewControllers (and subclasses).
The code I posted below was adapted to work with TabBarViewControllers as well.
When you are attempting to cast your navigation controller as your ChatViewController, the segue.destinationController.contentViewController will recursively return the ChatViewController.
class LoginViewController: UIViewController {
/* ... */
override func prepareForSegue(segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: AnyObject?) {
if let chatVc = segue.destinationViewController.contentViewController as? ChatViewController {
chatVc.senderId = userID
chatVc.senderDisplayName = ""
}
}
}
extension UIViewController {
var contentViewController: UIViewController {
if let navcon = self as? UINavigationController {
return navcon.visibleViewController ?? self
} else if let tabcon = self as? UITabBarController {
return tabcon.selectedViewController ?? self
} else {
return self
}
}
}

Answer 3

A clean way of doing this would be that right after you log in, you use something like:
let controller = self.storyboard?.instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier("setthisisyourstoryboard") as! UITabBarController // This would instantiate the TabBarController.
let navInstance = controller[0] as! UINavigationController // This would instantiate the navigationController, that is placed at 0th index in the array of all view controllers that are child to TabBarController, since you only have one child, you can use 0 as index
if navInstance.viewControllers[0] is YourClassName { // YouClassName is the name of the class right next to the navigation view controller, and it is also the only child of navigation Controller(0 index)
// You can also send some data here (for example the sender id)
(navInstance.viewControllers[0] as! YourClassName).someProperty = Value
}
// This line would present the tabBar controller, that would ultimately reach the end of the stack. I have used this approach in many apps, it works great!
self.presentViewController(controller, animated: true, completion: nil)
You can delete the segue after this and set storyboard id for the tabbarcontroller.
I like to do it this way because it is more natural. What I mean is the UITabBarController is mostly a parent to View Controllers, I don't like the idea of setting a UITabBarController as a child to UIView Controller.
Maybe there is nothing wrong with it, but I don't prefer it.

Answer 4

Here. it's working pretty fine for me:
override func prepare(for segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: Any?) {
if let tabVC = segue.destination as? UITabBarController {
if let navVC = tabVC.viewControllers!.first as? UINavigationController {
if let nextVC = navVC.viewControllers.first as? NextVC {
nextVC.varName = "works like a charm"
}
}
}
}
NextVC is your target VC which you want to send your variable into.