How to add a right button to a UINavigationController?

Question

I am trying to add a refresh button to the top bar of a navigation controller with no success.

Here is the header:

@interface PropertyViewController : UINavigationController {

}

Here is how I am trying to add it:

- (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil {
    if (self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil]) {
        UIBarButtonItem *anotherButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"Show" style:UIBarButtonItemStylePlain
                                          target:self action:@selector(refreshPropertyList:)];      
        self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = anotherButton;
    }
    return self;
}

Answer 1

Try doing it in viewDidLoad. Generally you should defer anything you can until that point anyway, when a UIViewController is inited it still might be quite a while before it displays, no point in doing work early and tying up memory.

- (void)viewDidLoad {
  [super viewDidLoad];

  UIBarButtonItem *anotherButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"Show" style:UIBarButtonItemStylePlain target:self action:@selector(refreshPropertyList:)];          
  self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = anotherButton;
  // exclude the following in ARC projects...
  [anotherButton release];
}

As to why it isn't working currently, I can't say with 100% certainty without seeing more code, but a lot of stuff happens between init and the view loading, and you may be doing something that causes the navigationItem to reset in between.