Multiple Navigation Bar colours for a complex storyboard - ios

Question

I have 48 view controllers in my storyboard / project. I wish to have 2 different types of Navigation Bar designs.
Style 1 is a navigation bar and a status bar that is white and grey (colours not important to the question)
Style 2 is a navigation bar without a status bar. This is black.
I have set style 1 in the app delegate and set style 2 within one of the views. To a point this works and style 2 overwrites style 1. However, when I navigate away from the view, style 2 continues to override.
I could set each view controller explicitly but with 48 views and 4 or 5 lines of code to define the style is seems inefficient. If I later choose to change the style I then have 48 instances of code to edit.
My major experience is with PHP and if I had this situation I would make an include statement to reference style1 or style2 as needed.
I have tried to create a function in Swift to call the desired design but I cannot get it work as it doesn't reference the UIViewController in the same way you would when adding it directly. I have only been coding for Swift / Xcode for 3 months so it could my lack of knowledge.
I would like to find a solution that on each view I can call something like below (PseudoCode)
override func viewWillAppear(animated: Bool) {
navBarStyle1() or navBarStyle2()
}
I have not included my code to adjust the colours as I feel this is not needed for the answer.
What would be the best way to manage this efficiently? Is there an equivalent to a PHP include? If the solution is a function, could you provide an example? Or may be the solution is something different?
As requested, here is one of my view controllers:
import UIKit
class DeleteMatchViewController: UIViewController {
var idPass = ""
// OUTLETS
#IBOutlet weak var errorMessage: UILabel!
#IBOutlet weak var information: UILabel!
// ACTIONS
#IBAction func deleteMatch(sender: UIBarButtonItem) {
// connect and delete from server
// delete from core data
// load from core data
let urlParameters = "removed for privacy"
let status = sendSeverV2("\(apiUrl)/removedforprivacy.php", parameters: urlParameters)
if status == "OK"
{
// DELETESINGLE firstname|David
myDatabase("Matches", theCommand: "DELETESINGLE", theQuery: "userid|\(idPass)")
myDatabase("Messages", theCommand: "DELETEMULTIPLE", theQuery: "people|\(userId)-\(idPass)")
myDatabase("Messagesunsent", theCommand: "DELETEMULTIPLE", theQuery: "people|\(userId)-\(idPass)")
// core data
loadMatchesFromCoreData()
// segue to matches table
performSegueWithIdentifier("jumpMatches", sender: nil)
}
if status == "Error"
{
errorMessage.text = "Connection error"
}
if status == "Security"
{
errorMessage.text = "Authentication error"
authError = "yes"
}
}
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
// Do any additional setup after loading the view.
}
override func viewWillAppear(animated: Bool) {
self.navigationController?.navigationBarHidden = false
self.tabBarController?.tabBar.hidden = true
errorMessage.text = ""
information.text = "If you delete this match all messages will be erased and only a future mutual match will all you to contact them again."
}
}

Answer 1

A little OOP can go a long way here.
First, let's make some base view controllers:
class GrayStatusBarViewController: UIViewController {
override func viewWillAppear(animated: Bool) {
super.viewWillAppear(animated)
// set up the appearance
}
}
class BlackStatusBarViewController: UIViewController {
override func viewWillAppear(animated: Bool) {
super.viewWillAppear(animated)
// set up the appearance
}
}
Now, we can make one of these for every appearance we want, and we can move any shared behavior into these base classes we want. It probably makes sense for your app to have a BaseViewController which the two classes I just posted inherit from (rather than inheriting from UIViewController directly).
Then, all you have to do is make your pile of view controllers inherit from the correct controller based on theme.
class DeleteMatchViewController: GrayStatusBarViewController {
override func viewWillAppear(animated: Bool) {
super.viewWillAppear(animated) // <-- this is super important
// the rest of the view will appear code for this VC
}
}
Alternatively, you can encapsulate the appearance logic in methods in a class like I previously mentioned, the BaseViewContoller, something like this:
class BaseViewController: UIViewController {
func setUpGrayStatusBar() {
// write that logic
}
func setUpBlackStatusBar() {
// write that logic
}
// etc, as many of these as you want
}
And now, you inherit from this class and call the appropriate method:
class DeleteMatchViewController: BaseViewController {
override func viewWillAppear(animated: Bool) {
super.viewWillAppear(animated)
setUpGrayStatusBar()
}
}
When it comes to the run time performance of your application, neither of these solutions is any different from simply copy & pasting the same code into all of your individual view controllers. Just because you didn't paste it in more than one place doesn't mean it doesn't run more than once.