Best iPhone app approach for project

I'm building an iPhone app and I'm sort of confused about which approach should I choose for views and controllers.

I would like to have a tabbar at the bottom with three options. I would also like to have a main view displayed when the app shows (along with the tabbar) but I don't want this view to be part of the tabbar options.

So, when the app begins, the tabbar has no option selected but the main view displayed. When a tabbar options is selected, in its top bar it should display a back button to the main view. When the back button is pressed, the main view display again with no tabbar option selected.

Which approach should I choose?

Hope it make开发者_StackOverflows sense.

Thanks.

I understand what you're trying to do, but you shouldn't do that. I don't like that design at all. You should have one navigation controller for each tab.

You should probably read Apple's Human Interface Guidelines as it's possible they would reject your App if they thought such an implementation with a TabBarController was confusing.

As an alternative, you could possibly have the "main view" as you call it accessible with a button in the Navigation bar at the top and then add that to all three tabs. Not necessarily a better design but you probably wouldn't be breaking the guidelines.

A better alternative might be to use a UIToolBar at the bottom instead of the Tab bar which has the three buttons spawning your views modally which can then be dismissed as you suggest.

Remember though, your App's users have built up a knowledge of how App's are generally supposed to navigate, feel and control so you should think carefully before deciding to go against that.

Firstly, I think you should reconsider giving your Main View it's own tab. That way it's a no-brainer for the user to return to that screen. BUT, if you STILL don't like that idea, read on...

The UITabBarController has the unfortunate side effect of not being able to be removed once created (even if you delay it's creation by instantiating it programmatically).

SO...

Option 1: Make your MainView a modalPresentation sub-view, displaying it ON TOP of one of the views in your tab bar (hiding the tabs until you're ready to show them again).

Option 2: Give a subview of your first tab a...

mySubViewController.hidesBottomBarWhenPushed=YES;

This will make the UITabBarController disappear temporarily (just on that view, until you're ready to show the tabs again).

Both options seem kinda messy to me, but they are possible. Depends on how well you execute them, I suppose.

Hope this helps!

You could add the main view as another tab.

OR

You present the main view modally when the app starts over the tab bar views.

The first option would be used more if the view holds the same kind of content as the tabs, for example if the app was an online store, the tabs would be Categories, Search and Recently Added, with what you call the "main view" being the Home page (showing offers or something). (So all the views/tabs would be showing products on the store)

The second option would be more if the content of the main view is different to the tabs. Keeping with the online store example, if the tabs were Categories, Search and Recently added and what you call the "main view" being a login/logout screen. (so the tabs would be showing products, but the modal view ("main view") being more admin related, and it's main purpose not being to display products.