How can I make a navigation controller load its root view controller when it is loaded offscreen?

Question

I use ECSlidingViewController for a side-drawer effect in my application. When my initial view loads, there is a hidden view controller with an MKMapView behind the visible view. Needing to segue from map annotations, I had to embed my map view controller in a navigation controller. Now that the hidden view controller is a navigation controller and not a map view so my map initializes only after the navigation controller comes on screen. So my map's viewDidLoad, which sets the region, is called before the map view's CLLocationManager delegate has time to respond with a location.

I need to have my nav controller and root view controller be instantiated synchronously. I would just manually segue, but I would guess the 'rootViewController' relationship segue has implementation details that I would be bypassing.

Answer 1

This was actually pretty simple, and has nothing to do with segues.

I was expecting a rootViewController property on UINavigationController objects while overlooking the @property UIViewController* topViewController.

So in my top (visible) navigation controller's viewWillAppear:

// Load the map's navigation controller from storyboard
MyMapNavigationController* mapNavigation = [self.storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:mapNavigtionIdentifier];

// ECSlidingViewController API to set hidden view controllers
self.slidingViewController.underRightViewController = mapNavigation;

// Grab root view controller
MyMapController* map = mapNavigation.topViewController;

// Slightly hacky magic
[map view]; //lazily instantiated property will initialize view and controller when called.