How do I add a Navigation Bar to a UITableViewController in Interface Builder?

Question

Interface builder does not let me click and drag a Navigation Bar onto a Table View Controller!!! It is super frustrating.

All I want is a table view with an edit bu

Answer 1

Why in the world you can't drag a navigationItem into a .xib file with File's Owner set to a subclass of UIViewController and hook the navigationItem up to the UIViewController's navigationItem outlet is beyond me. It seems like a real hole in IB / XCode integration. Because you can certainly drag an instance of ViewController to a xib file, and drag a navigationItem into the ViewController, and then set the title and barbuttonitems that way.

So if you want to define your UITableViewController subclass object's navigation bar in IB, you have to create your TableVC object in a xib file (not the one .xib file that contains the tableview for your UITableViewController, though!). You then either hook the TableVC object up to be an outlet of another object (like your application delegate), which works if you need just one instance of your TVC throughout the lifetime of your app, or if you want to dynamically create instances of your TableVC in code you load this extra .xib file manually via loadNibNamed:owner:options method of the NSBundle class.