A few IBOutlets pointing to nil - ios

Question

After a long while I've finally started working with Objective-C again, on my only complete app so far. The goal is to eventually refactor for ARC and possibly storyboards, but for the time being I'm polishing the iOS 4.x target. I am quite rusty, so bar with me if this is a stupid question.
I have a button in my main view that triggers the showAction method. The method is as follows:
- (void)showAbout
{
AboutViewController *aboutView = [[[AboutViewController alloc] init] autorelease];
if (UI_USER_INTERFACE_IDIOM() == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPad)
{
aboutView.modalPresentationStyle = UIModalPresentationFormSheet;
}
else
{
aboutView.modalTransitionStyle = UIModalTransitionStyleFlipHorizontal;
}
[self presentModalViewController:aboutView animated:YES];
}
The AboutViewController class has this .h:
#interface AboutViewController : UIViewController <UIActionSheetDelegate, MFMailComposeViewControllerDelegate> {
}
- (IBAction)dismiss:(UIButton *)sender;
- (IBAction)feedback:(UIButton *)sender;
#property (retain) IBOutlet UIButton *dismissButton;
#property (retain) IBOutlet UIButton *feedbackButton;
#property (retain) IBOutlet UIImageView *background;
#property (retain) IBOutlet UITextView *textView;
#end
and everything has been connected properly in the .xib file (the same one for iPhone and iPad). The actions are triggered as expected, and the outlets are accessible, but only on iPhone. When running on iPad, only textView is properly initialized, and all the rest points to nil.
In the .m I have tried this:
#implementation AboutViewController
#synthesize dismissButton = _dismissButton;
#synthesize feedbackButton = _feedbackButton;
#synthesize background = _background;
#synthesize textView = _textView;
// ...
- (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
[super viewWillAppear:animated];
NSLog(#"obj self.dismiss: %#", self.dismissButton);
NSLog(#"frame dismiss: %#", NSStringFromCGRect(self.dismissButton.frame));
}
On iPhone I get this:
2012-02-08 22:51:00.341 myapp[17290:207] obj self.dismiss: <UIButton: 0x70281d0; frame = (180 410; 120 30); opaque = NO; autoresize = LM+W+RM+TM; layer = <CALayer: 0x7028260>>
2012-02-08 22:51:00.342 myapp[17290:207] frame dismiss: {{180, 410}, {120, 30}}
On iPad, instead, I get this:
2012-02-08 22:51:40.428 myapp[17320:207] obj self.dismiss: (null)
2012-02-08 22:51:40.428 myapp[17320:207] frame dismiss: {{0, 0}, {0, 0}}
There is nothing else that happens depending on the UI Idiom, and I'm really confused about this. It's as if on the iPad the outlets for anything other than textView are not set, even though they are correctly linked up in the .xib file. In viewWillAppear, self.textView is working as expected also on iPad. I also tried doing this in viewDidLoad, which should be called before viewWillAppear if I'm not mistaken, and even in the dismiss: method, but they are just never available.
The reason I need to access the buttons' frames is that the about view is relatively complex and fails to reposition its subviews automatically. The only thing I need to do is make the buttons wider on the larger modal view on iPad.
Any hints would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Did you ever have a separate .xibs for iPad and iPhone? If so you might have the same issue I had. That is until #AliSoftware dropped some knowledge on me:
UIView in nib is nil on iPad, and not nil on iPhone
Essentially you need to:
Delete the Build Products Directory
Delete your app from all your simulators
Build and Run
I believe the problem is that a ghost .xib for iPad was hanging around causing issues. Truly wiping the apps clean did the trick. Good luck!