Pushing view controller onto view control in tab controller - ios

Question

So I have a tab bar controller that holds a search view and a profile view. When I click on one of the cells in the search view I want to go to another view controller, still have my tab s on the bottom and maintain the user's ability to click a back button to go back to the main view.
I've achieved the back button part, but I haven't achieved the maintaing tabs part.
This is what I've tried -
-(void)displayCardController{
if(self.userProfile == nil){
[self.tabBarController setViewControllers:#[self.searchViewController, self.loginViewController]];
[self.searchViewController.navigationController pushViewController:self.searchViewController.detailController animated:YES];
} else {
[self.tabBarController setViewControllers:#[self.searchViewController, self.profileViewController]];
[self.searchViewController.navigationController pushViewController:self.searchViewController.detailController animated:YES];
}
}
The idea is - set the tab to have my controllers, and then push what I want to be on top. That doesn't work.
How do I achieve this?

Answer 1

It looks like the problem is that your first tab controller child, self.searchViewController, has a navigation controller. If you want to be able to push onto this controller while still staying inside the tab controller, you need the search view controller (or whatever is the first tab controller child) to be a navigation controller.
Note that its navigation bar can be hidden, so it won't look like a navigation controller, but when you push, you can show the nav bar and so give the user a clear way to get back.
Alternatively, use a different interface. What I do, for example, when I have two tabs and one of them needs to change temporarily, on the iPhone, is use a presented view controller: instead of push/pop, I use use present/dismiss. On the iPhone, this hides the tab bar, but we return to the same place when we're done so the interface is clear. (On the iPad, a presented view inside a tab bar controller does not have to hide the tab bar.)