Access view controller without re-initializing - ios

Question

Essentially I'm working with 3 view controllers.
Main view which starts a download. (Webview based which passes the download).
Modal download controller. (Tab based).
Downloader (HCDownload).
In the main view my download gets passed like so:
//Fire download
[activeDL downloadURL:fileURL userInfo:nil];
[self presentViewController:vc animated:YES completion:nil];
activeDL is initialized in viewDidLoad:
activeDL = [[HCDownloadViewController alloc] init];
If I removed the presentViewController, it still downloads, which is fine. Then i tap my Downloads button, it brings up the controller which defines the tabs like so:
center = [[CenterViewController alloc] init];
activeDL = [[HCDownloadViewController alloc] init];
completedDL = [[DownloadsViewController alloc] init];
activeDL.tabBarItem = [[UITabBarItem alloc] initWithTitle:#"Active Downloads"
image:nil //[UIImage imageNamed:#"view1"]
tag:1];
completedDL.tabBarItem = [[UITabBarItem alloc] initWithTitle:#"Completed Downloads"
image:nil //[UIImage imageNamed:#"view3"]
tag:2];
[self setViewControllers:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:activeDL, completedDL, nil]];
However, it is not passing the current active download. I don't know if it's a initialization problem, or my tab issue of showing the current download.
From his github, he suggests to get the current number of downloads is to call: dlvc.numberOfDownloads which for me would be
[activeDL numberOfDownloads].
I call this in the the Downloader viewWillAppear but nothing shows.
Does anybody has any suggestions or have worked with this controller?
Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

When you call:
activeDL = [[HCDownloadViewController alloc] init];
You are creating a new download controller, which has its own internal downloads array. This library, as written, has no way to pass this information from one HCDownloadViewController object to another.
Tying downloads to VC's like this will cause problems -- I recommend you rewrite this code to split that apart.
To hack around it, try to create just one HCDownloadViewController object and pass it around.

Answer 2

Ok so with the last comment of the other answer, "Make activeDL a member variable instead of a local variable.", got me Googling and with some tinkering and bug fixing along the way I managed to get it all up and running perfect.
I declared it all in my AppDelegate.
AppDelegate.h
#interface SharedDownloader : HCDownloadViewController <HCDownloadViewControllerDelegate>
+ (id)downloadingView;
#end
AppDelegate.m
static HCDownloadViewController *active;
#implementation SharedDownloader
+ (id)downloadingView {
if (active == nil)
active = [[HCDownloadViewController alloc] init];
return active;
}
#end
Calling to the class for downloading in my main view controller:
-(id)init{
activeDL = [SharedDownloader downloadingView];
return self;
}
//Spot where I fire the download
if (navigationAction.navigationType == WKNavigationTypeLinkActivated) {
//More code here
[activeDL downloadURL:fileURL userInfo:nil];
}
Lastly in my tab bar controller:
-(id)init {
activeDL = [SharedDownloader downloadingView];
return self;
}
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
activeDL.tabBarItem = [[UITabBarItem alloc] initWithTitle:#"Active Downloads" image:nil] tag:2];
}
I believe that's all of it. In any case, thanks to Lou Franco for pointing me in the right direction.