How to reliably place built-in UINavigationController UIToolbar on top of iPad view

Question

I am trying to use the UINavigationController object's built-in UIToolbar object in my iPad application, but I want it to be displayed on top of the view instead of the bottom, which is where it defaults.

I am also hiding the UINavigationController object's Navigation Bar.

In order to make this work, I had to write the following code:

navigationController.navigationBarHidden = YES;
navigationController.toolbarHidden = NO;
navigationController.toolbar.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 768, 44);

This solution works with one exception: when the application Enters Background and Becomes Active again, the Toolbar is always repositioned on the bottom of the view.

I've tried moving the code from viewDidLoad to viewDidAppear:animated, and it still behaves this way.

First, is there any better way to approach this, and if not, how can I stop the Toolbar from being repositioned?

I've also instead decided to use my own UIToolbar object and add it to each view via a custom Base UIViewController class' viewDidLoad. However, this causes the Toolbar to animate when each view is pushed or popped because it is actually part of the view, which just seems "hokey".

Any ideas on possible solutions?

Thanks everyone!

Answer 1

It says in the documentation under UINavigationController's toolbar property that:

Access to this toolbar is provided solely for clients that want to present an action sheet from the toolbar. You should not modify the UIToolbar object directly.

This is sort of hackish, but you could make a UIToolbar yourself and add it directly to the window (i.e. over the navigation controller.)