RSS Table View with Tab Bar Code Error

Question

I created an iphone app with a navigation controller that has a table view which displays an rss feed. My client wants it able to display multiple rss feeds through a tab bar. I have attempted several times and have messed up. If anyone could help me with this it would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Hi Guy, and welcome to the Dev Forum!
I would recommend starting as follows:
1) Start a new project with the Tab Bar Application template;
2) Open MainWindow.xib and select Window->Document from the IB menu to make sure the xib window (the icon winow) is visible;
3) Locate the "View Mode" switch in the upper-left corner of the xib window and make sure it's in the Center position to display a 2-column table showing the view hierarchy as a tree of small icons to the left;
4) Expand the Tab Bar Controller branch, then delete (select and Edit->Delete) each of the two view controllers under the Tab Bar Controller. The only child of that controller should now be the Tab Bar;
5) Open the Library window (Tools->Library), drag a Navigation Controller into the xib window and drop it when it's on top of the Tab Bar Controller icon;
6) Repeat step 5 until you have as many nav controllers (one for each RSS feed) as you want (for this example, assume 4 RSS feeds);
7) The Tab Bar Controller should now have 5 children: the Tab Bar plus the 4 nav controllers; if not, drag the nav controllers until each of their icons is shown indented under the Tab Bar Controller just as the Tab Bar is;
8) Expand the first Navigation Controller branch, and expand it's Root View Controller; you should now see that root controller's Navigation Item;
9) Select the nav item, open the Attributes Inspector (Cmd-1), and change the Title to "RSS 1 Root";
10) Repeat 8-9 for the remaining 3 nav controller branches, so the root views will be labeled "RSS 2 Root", ... "RSS 4 Root" respectively;
11) Save the xib, return to Xcode, and click "Build and Go". The project should build and run without any warnings or errors. If not, return to step 1 and try to see where things went wrong.
Let us know if you need more help after you get the above skeleton app working. The next step will be to change the class of the "RSS 1 Root" controller to the class of the first table controller in your original project, and to add that controller's xib (you can delete FirstViewController.h/.m and SecondView.xib by selecting each in the Groups & Files tree of the Xcode project window and selecting Edit->Delete).
Please avoid the temptation to merge the above steps into your original project. In my experience, moving each of your files into the new skeleton, and testing at each buildable stage will reduce the chances for error while making it easier to spot any incompatibilities in your old code. The process shouldn't involve touching any of your XML parse or table display code, but you may need to override some additional table view controller methods such as viewWillAppear:
Btw, in case this hasn't been discussed yet, be aware you'll face a major decision soon: When tabbing to feed no. 2, what happens on the return to feed no. 1? If the user will return to the same detail view that was last displayed, you might need lots more memory and there will be lots more to go wrong. If the user will return to the home menu, the whole project will be much simpler. Estimate your effort accordingly.
Also be prepared for your client to say something like this during beta: "Oh... one or two of the links in feed no. 3 might be a mp3 or mp4 next month. That won't be a problem, will it?".
Hope that helps!
\- Ray