UINavigation Controller subclass and push Segues - ios

Question

I've been looking this up for a while now, it might have a simple answer:
According to the Apple docs, past ios6, we can subclass UINavigationController. How do we perform a segue from identifier when it prevents anything that isn't a UINavigationController. Mainly:
uncaught exception 'NSGenericException', reason: 'Could not find a
navigation controllerfor segue 'profileSegue'. Push segues can only
be used when the source controller is managed by an instance of
UINavigationController.
I'm using JaSidePanels and my center panel (navigation) needed to be subclasses for a delegate as there is a menu on the left panel that I want to switch the views when clicked.
#interface CenterViewController : UINavigationController <MenuDelegate>
Basically, since this object is a CenterViewController at runtime, is there a way to cast it to its superclass? I've tried [self superclass] but that didn't work (same error).
I need to call this code in the CenterViewController. Is it possible to move it to UINavigationController?
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
RootViewController *rootViewController = (RootViewController *)[[[[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate] window] rootViewController];
MenuViewController *leftViewController = (MenuViewController *)rootViewController.leftPanel;
// Store a reference to the center view controller in the left view controller's delegate property
leftViewController.menuDelegate = self;
[super viewDidLoad];
}
- (void) MenuItemSelected: (NSString*) item
{
if ([item isEqualToString:#"Home"]) {
//These would throw the error since we're not technically a "UINavigationController"
//[self performSegueWithIdentifier: #"mapViewController" sender: nil];
} else if ([item isEqualToString:#"Profile"]) {
//[self performSegueWithIdentifier: #"profileSegue" sender: self];
}
}
EDIT:
More information with pictures.
I'm curious as to how navigation controllers should work with side panels. I've looked at many other plugins for sidepanels and here is an example. Even though it works, why does it have 2 nav controllers?
Here is our current setup:
So basically, am I thinking about this wrong in the sense that I want to push a new VC to the existing NavVC? Would it be better to push a new NavVC when a menu button is pressed? What would happen when we go into a subview from the Maps view. Would the menu be accessible via sliding?

Answer 1

If you look carefully at the message you will see that your problem isn't caused by subclassing UINavigationController it is because you are executing the segue against your (subclassed) UINavigationController. Push segues are executed against a UIViewController that is embedded in or managed by a UINavigationController, with the system then finding the managing UINavigationController via the view controller's navigationController property in order to execute the push.
The message you have received says
...Push segues can only
be used when the source controller is managed by an instance of
UINavigationController
In your case the source controller is an instance of UINavigationController, it isn't managed by a UINavigationController.
You haven't said exactly how your app navigation works, but I have a suspicion that a UINavigationController isn't the right tool to use anyway. If you are using the side menus to allow the user to select the central content in a random way (i.e. the user could select the first option then the fifth and then go back to the first) then you should probably just have a central view into which you present the selected view. Pushing views onto a UINavigationController will end up with a large 'stack' of views unless you pop the current view controller before pushing the new one, which is even more complicated and not the visual effect you are looking for.
You can still achieve the 'push' style transition but you will need to use a custom segue. If it were me I would probably push from the left if the user selected a menu item that was closer to the top than the current option and from the right if the new item was closer to the bottom than the current, but again I am making assumptions on how your app navigation works.
UPDATE
Yes, I think you are on the right track with the section of your updated question. Navigation controllers are for navigating a series of related views in a hierarchical manner - think of the Settings app - you select "general" or "wall paper" or whatever - each of these then has a series of views that you can navigate through; up and down a stack.
In your app it looks like home, profile and settings should each be navigation controllers. Your root view would then just be a view. Your menu would select which view controller to present in the root view - this is like a tab bar controller, except your menu takes the place of a tab bar.
You can allocate your home, profile & settings view controllers in your appDelegate and store them to properties of the appDelegate. Then you can use something like this:
- (void) MenuItemSelected: (NSString*) item
{
myappDelegate *app=(myappDelegate *)[UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate;
[delegate.currentViewController removeFromParentViewController];
UIViewController *newController;
if ([item isEqualToString:#"Home"]) {
newController=app.homeViewController;
} else if ([item isEqualToString:#"Profile"]) {
newController=app.profileViewController;
}
if (app.currentViewController != newController)
{
[app.currentViewController removeFromParentViewController];
[app.rootViewController addChildViewController:newController];
app.currentViewController = newController;
}