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iphoneipaduser-interfaceuisplitviewcontrollerappstore-approval

Best way to switch between UISplitViewController and other view controllers?

I'm authoring an iPad app. One of the screens in the app is perfectly suited to using a UISplitViewController. However, the top level of the app is a main menu, which I don't want to use a UISplitViewController for. This presents a problem, because Apple state that:

  1. UISplitViewController should be the top level view controller in the app, i.e. its view should be added as the subview of UIWindow

  2. if used, UISplitViewController should be there for the lifetime of the app -- i.e. don't remove its view from UIWindow and put another in place, or vice versa

Having read around and experimented, it seems to only viable option to satisfy Apple's requirements and our own is to use modal dialogs. So our app has a UISplitViewController at the root level (i.e. its view added as the subview of UIWindow), and to show our main menu, we push it as a full-screen modal dialog onto the UISplitViewController. Then by dismissing the main menu view controller modal dialog, we can actually show our split view.

This strategy seems to work fine. But it begs the questions:

1) Is there any better way of structuring this, without modals, that also meets all the requirements mentioned? It seems a bit odd having the main UI appear by virtue of being pushed as a modal dialog. (Modals are supposed to be for focused user tasks.)

2) Am I at risk of app store rejection because of my approach? This modal strategy is probably 'misusing' modal dialogs, as per Apple's human interface guidelines. But what other choice have they given me? Would they know that I'm doing this, anyway?

Solution

  • Touche! Ran in to the same issue and solved it the same way using modals. In my case it was a login view and then the main menu as well to be shown before the splitview. I used the same strategy as thought out by you. I (as well as several other knowledgeable iOS folks I spoke to) could not find a better way out. Works fine for me. User never notices the modal anyway. Present them so. And yes I can also tell you that there are quite a few apps doing the same under the hood tricks on the App store. :) On another note, do let me know if you figure a better way out somehow someway sometime :)