Programmatically build / navigate a Navigation Controller

Question

Before:

My App is based on indepent view controllers. I can switch from one to another by replacing the root view controller on the application delegate:

Answer 1

In applicationDidFinishLoading in App delegate:

UINavigationController *navController = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:rootViewController];

[window makeKeyAndVisible];
[window addSubview:navController.view];

That will instantiate the navigation controller and add it to the window as a view.

Now, in your rootViewController class (lets say its called FirstViewController) you can do this:

- (void)clickedAButton:(id)selector {
  SecondViewController *nextViewController = [[SecondViewController alloc] initWithNibName:nil bundle:nil];
  // and push it onto the 'navigation stack'
  [self.navigationController pushNavigationController:nextViewController animated:YES];
  // and release
  [nextViewController release];
}

And in your SecondViewController you can navigate back through the stack using:

- (void)clickedAnotherButton:(id)selector {
  // goes back to the last view controller in the stack
  [self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:YES];
}

So for you it would go:

Set up navigation controller in the app delegate with Brand as the root view controller User chooses their brand and you pushViewController:animated: the Model view controller. Then the user chooses their model and you pushViewController:animated: the Color view controller. Similarly the user chooses a color and you push the Pippo view controller. Now, if the user presses back (or you call popViewControllerAnimated:) it will go back to the Color view controller in the same state as when the user left it to go to the Pippo controller.