React-Native: Dismiss/Exit React-Native View back to Native - ios

Question

I have an existing app that I am working on integrating React-Native for a portion of it. I am
having trouble understanding how to 'exit' react-native and get back to a native view.
Here's some code:
// Main objective-c code that bootstraps the react-native view. This view is loaded as a modal view.
MainViewController.m:
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
RCTRootView *rootView = [[RCTRootView alloc] initWithBundleURL:jsCodeLocation moduleName:#"IndexApp" initialProperties:props launchOptions:nil];
rootView.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, self.view.bounds.size.width, self.view.bounds.size.height-49);
[self.view addSubview:rootView];
}
My initial react views are such:
render() {
return (
<Navigator
style={styles.container}
...
I have a right-nav button on the Navigator that I would like to "dismiss" the react view and the underlying MainViewController native view.
I have tried a callback to MainViewController from the react view like so, but without avail:
RCT_EXPORT_METHOD(dismiss:(NSString *)name location:(NSString *)location)
{
NSLog(#"dismiss...");
// these don't do anything
//[self dismissViewControllerAnimated:YES completion:nil];
//[self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:YES];
// anything with _rootView doesn't do anything, i.e. _rootView removeFromSuperview];
}
Any help with an approach to 'exit' the react-native view and get back into native views would be appreciated.

Answer 1

The only way I've found this works is this
The gist of it is:
Create a NotificationManager class in Obj-C and expose it as React Module
In the ViewController register for a notification which when receives triggers [self dismissViewController..]

Answer 2

You need to run the pop or dismiss on the main thread:
RCT_EXPORT_METHOD(dismiss:(NSString *)name location:(NSString *)location)
{
NSLog(#"dismiss...");
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
[self dismissViewControllerAnimated:YES completion:nil];
// use pop instead if this view controller was pushed onto a navigation controller
//[self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:YES];
}
}

Answer 3

NOTE: THIS DOESN"T WORK - I've left this here as an example of what doesn't work. Check my other answer for an approach that works.
If you present MainViewController this way, popViewController: should work
NSURL *jsCodeLocation = [NSURL URLWithString:#"http://localhost:8081/index.ios.bundle?platform=ios&dev=true"];
RCTRootView *reactView = [[RCTRootView alloc] initWithBundleURL:jsCodeLocation
moduleName:#"SimpleApp"
initialProperties:nil
launchOptions:nil];
MainViewController *rootViewController = [MainViewController new];
rootViewController.view = reactView;
[[self navigationController] pushViewController:rootViewController animated:YES];