UISplitViewController programmatically without nib/xib

Question

I usually create my projects without IB-stuff. The first thing I do is to strip off all references to xibs, outlets updated plist, etc and so forth. No problems, works great

Answer 1

Oldish thread, but thought I'd spare reader time + grief when the above technique fails to produce a UISplitViewController that responds correctly to device orientation change events. You'll need to:

1. Ensure all subordinate views respond properly in shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation. Nothing new here.

2. Rather than add the UISplitViewController's view to the main window,

   [window addSubview:splitViewController.view];   // don't do this
   

   instead set the main window's root controller to the UISplitViewController:

   [self.window setRootViewController:(UIViewController*)splitViewController];  // that's the ticket
   

Adding the splitviewcontroller's view as a subview of the main window (barely) allows it to co-present with sibling views, but it doesn't fly with UISplitViewController's intended use case. A UISplitViewController is a highlander view; there can only be one.