How to change a viewcontroller of a slidemenu? - ios

Question

I have 2 separate VC-s that each need to be displayed to the user depending on a state of the app. This is how I create my original slidemenu in AppDelegate, it works as intended:
let mainVC = MainNavVC.create()!
let leftMenuVC = LeftMenuVC.create()!
slideMenuController = SlideMenuController(mainViewController: mainVC, leftMenuViewController: leftMenuVC)
self.window?.rootViewController = slideMenuController
self.window?.makeKeyAndVisible()
But when I try to change the leftMenuVC the screen goes black, the menu button just stops working and tapGesture still shows the wrong menu. Here is a code I call to change the slidemenu:
let appDelegate = UIApplication.shared.delegate as! AppDelegate
appDelegate.slideMenuController?.leftViewController = AnotherLeftMenuVC.create()!
appDelegate.window?.rootViewController = appDelegate.slideMenuController
I also tried an alternative approach to change the leftMenuVC:
let appDelegate = UIApplication.shared.delegate as! AppDelegate
appDelegate.slideMenuController = SlideMenuController(mainViewController: MainNavVC.sharedInst!,
leftMenuViewController: AnotherLeftMenuVC.create()!)
appDelegate.window?.rootViewController = appDelegate.slideMenuController
appDelegate.window?.makeKeyAndVisible()
This will turn my screen black but tapGesture will at least show the correct leftMenu.
How to make this work ?

Answer 1

You can try this trick. I tested it in your library's sample project. This works but it's up to you to clean the code and make the unwrapping optionals and castings safer.
Basically the trick is to embed your leftController or rightController into a UINavigationController. And access such navigationController using the way you're trying to access the slideMenuController in the AppDelegate. And then replace the viewControllers of that navigationController.
In the viewDidLoad() of the MainViewController (I'm talking about the sample project, you should be familiar with this or relate your mainController here). I have this block of code that will be executed in 5 seconds ;) I use this approach when testing something, just to save time for the sake of demo.
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
self.tableView.registerCellNib(DataTableViewCell.self)
DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + .seconds(5)) {
let appDel = UIApplication.shared.delegate as! AppDelegate
let storyboard = UIStoryboard(name: "Main", bundle: nil)
let rightViewController = storyboard.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "RightViewController") as! RightViewController
((appDel.window?.rootViewController as! ExSlideMenuController).leftViewController as! UINavigationController).viewControllers = [rightViewController]
}
}
and in the appDelegate, I embed the controller into a navigationController:
let slideMenuController = SlideMenuController(mainViewController:nvc, leftMenuViewController: UINavigationController(rootViewController: leftViewController), rightMenuViewController: rightViewController)
This should help you out.