Change tab on custom UIView - ios

Question

I basically just need to change tabs when the user taps a button on my custom UIView
This is my UIView implementation
#implementation CustomMenuView
- (id)initWithFrame:(CGRect)frame
{
self = [super initWithFrame:frame];
if (self) {
UIButton *searchButton = [[UIButton alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, 135.0, 40.0)];
searchButton.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
[searchButton setTitleColor:[UIColor blackColor] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
searchButton.titleLabel.font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:15];
[searchButton setTitle:#"Search" forState:UIControlStateNormal];
searchButton.tag = 0;
[searchButton addTarget:self action:#selector(menuItemTapped:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
[self addSubview:searchButton];
}
return self;
}
-(void)menuItemTapped:(UIButton*)sender{
self.tabBarController.selectedIndex = sender.tag;
}
And my ViewController class:
UIView *menuView;
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];
CGFloat height = [UIScreen mainScreen].bounds.size.height;
menuView = [[CustomMenuView alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 60, 135, height)];
[self.view addSubview:menuView];
}
This crashes because the UIView does not have a reference to the tabBarController. How do I call a method on my custom view's parent or what is the best approach to solve this?

Answer 1

To the best of my knowledge, you could use the delegate pattern here. So you create a protocol named CustomMenuViewDelegate and declare a weak property on CustomMenuView of this type. When the menuItemTapped: method is called you call a method on the CustomMenuViewDelegate property. You can make your ViewController conform to the delegate protocol and set is as the delegate in the viewDidLoad method.

Answer 2

I ended up deciding to use local notifications like this:
On my custom UIView
-(void)menuItemTapped:(UIButton*)sender{
NSDictionary* userInfo = #{#"tab": #(sender.tag)};
NSNotificationCenter* nc = [NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter];
[nc postNotificationName:#"MenuItemSelected" object:self userInfo:userInfo];
UIViewController class
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
selector:#selector(receiveMenuItemSelectedNotification:)
name:#"MenuItemSelected"
object:nil];
}
-(void) receiveMenuItemSelectedNotification:(NSNotification*)notification
{
if ([notification.name isEqualToString:#"MenuItemSelected"])
{
NSDictionary* userInfo = notification.userInfo;
NSNumber* tab = (NSNumber*)userInfo[#"tab"];
NSLog (#"Successfully received test notification! %i", tab.intValue);
self.tabBarController.selectedIndex = tab.intValue;
}
}
- (void)viewDidUnload
{
[super viewDidUnload];
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self name:#"MenuItemSelected" object:nil];
}