Subclass a custom UIViewController (with xib) to add additional behaviour - ios

Question

Here's the deal: I'm using the DEFacebookComposeViewController which is a custom subclass of a UIViewController. This subclass is using an xib to setup the user interface.
Now I want to add some additional GUI elements to DEFacebookComposeViewController so I figured I would create a subclass named something like MySubclassDEFacebookComposeViewController : DEFacebookComposeViewController and create a xib.
However the xib MySubclassDEFacebookComposeViewController.xib is not showing any of the GUI elements from DEFacebookComposeViewController.xib which I thought it would do since it's a subclass of that class.
So basically I'm just wondering what is the correct approach in adding new elements to a subclassed UIViewController and xib?

Answer 1

Copy the DEFacebookComposeViewController.xib and rename it to MySubclassDEFacebookComposeViewController.xib and edit it to your likings.
A UIViewController will look by default for a nib/xib with the same name (even without the controller part at the end) when created
From the docu of UIViewController:
If you use a nib file to store your view controller’s view, it is
recommended that you specify that nib file explicitly when
initializing your view controller. However, if you do not specify a
nib name, and do not override the loadView method in your custom
subclass, the view controller searches for a nib file using other
means. Specifically, it looks for a nib file with an appropriate name
(without the .nib extension) and loads that nib file whenever its view
is requested. Specifically, it looks (in order) for a nib file with
one of the following names:
If the view controller class name ends with the word “Controller”, as
in MyViewController, it looks for a nib file whose name matches the
class name without the word “Controller”, as in MyView.nib. It looks
for a nib file whose name matches the name of the view controller
class. For example, if the class name is MyViewController, it looks
for a MyViewController.nib file.
So you need to specify the nib you want to use or name it after the view controller. Since you want to add/modify the old nib you need a copy of it.
This is assuming that DEFacebookComposeViewController.xib does not have any IBOutlets by default. If it has you can modify the existing nib in viewDidLoad. Adding more subViews can always be accomplished aften the view is loaded regardless if there are IBOutlets.