How to push a View in a NavigationController which is containing in another tab in a TabBarController? - iphone

Question

I have a TabBarController with 2 tabs, in one is a MapView and in the other one a simple TableView in a NavigationController. Both display Data from the same source. If any Data in the table is tapped, I add a DetailViewController to the NavigationController and show more details. Now on the MapView I also want to open this DetailViewController when the Data is tapped in the map. What's the best way to do this? I tried some with Notification but this doesn't work well because the TableViewController is finished loading (and registered as an observer) after the Notification is sent.
Here's my code:
MapViewController:
- (IBAction)goToNearestEvent:(id)sender {
if (currentNearestEvent) {
[[self tabBarController] setSelectedIndex:1];
NSDictionary *noteInfo = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:currentNearestEvent, #"event", nil];
NSNotification *note = [NSNotification notificationWithName:#"loadDetailViewForEvent" object:self userInfo:noteInfo];
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotification:note];
[noteInfo release];
}
}
TableViewController:
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
NSNotificationCenter *nc = [NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter];
[nc addObserver:self
selector:#selector(loadDetailViewForEvent:)
name:#"loadDetailViewForEvent"
object:nil];
}
- (void)loadDetailViewForEvent:(NSNotification *)note {
Event *e = [[note userInfo] objectForKey:#"event"];
[self loadEventDetailViewWithEvent:e];
}
So I'm very new to iOS / Cocoa programming. Maybe my approach is the wrong choice. So I hope anybody could tell me how to solve such things the right way.
I forgot to declare my structure clearly:
- UITabBarController
- MapView (1)
- NavigationControllerContainer
- NavigationControllerView (2)
- TableView
I want to push a new View from the MapView (1) to the NavigationControllerView (2).

Answer 1

If you're going to use notifications, the fix is to force the second tab to be "created" before it's displayed.
Something like:
UIViewController *otherController = [[[self tabBarController] viewControllers] objectAtIndex:1];
otherController.view; // this is magic;
// it causes Apple to load the view,
// run viewDidLoad etc,
// for the other controller
[[self tabBarController] setSelectedIndex:1];

Answer 2

I don't have access to my code, but I did something similar to:
[[self.tabBarController.viewControllers objectAtIndex:1] pushViewController:detailView animated:YES];
Give this a try and let me know.

Answer 3

I think the observer/notification pattern is the right one. However, you normally want "controllers" to observe "model" objects.
I would create a Model object that contains the selected Event.
When each viewController is loaded, it looks at the "Model" object and directs itself to the selected event.
When any of the viewControllers changes the selected event, it does so in the Model, and then the notification propagates to the other(s) controllers.