UIViewController Title attribute in Storyboard

Question

I am setting the title field of a UIViewController via Interface Builder/Storyboard :

This view controller is nested in a UINavigationController which in turn is nested within a UITabBarController . When I run the app, I my navigation item has no title, neither does the tab bar item.

If I explicitly set the view controller's navigation item's title, and also it's tab bar item's title in interface builder, then it works just fine.

I am wondering:

a)If I am not using Storyboard but just regular xibs , setting the title of a view controller implicitly sets the navigation items' title as well as the tab bar item's title. But it's not the same storyboard . Is this the intended behaviour?

b) What is then the purpose of the view controller's title (in Storyboard )? it seems to have no effect.

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can set the title of the UINavigationBar in Storyboard by double clicking the actual navigationBar and typing in a title right there. This only sets the title for the UINavigationBar .

Setting the title in code offers some different possibilities.

self.title = @"Your title"; will set the title of a navigationBar and also cause the title to cascade down to a UITabBarItem, if present.

self.navigationItem.title = @"Your title"; will only set the title of the navigationBar, assuming a UINavigationController is present, and NOT affect a UITabBarItem.

self.navigationController.title = @"Your title"; will set the title of a UITabBarItem but NOT the UINavigationBar.

Answer 2

Step 1

If you're looking at a Xib in Xcode's Interface Builder, take a look in the "Document Outline" panel (second panel from the left). Expand the view controller you're working with until you find an icon labelled: Navigation Item.

Step 2

If you then highlight the Navigation Item and open up the Utilities panel (the farthest on the right), and click the Attributes Inspector, you'll see where you can set the title of the view controller. This is the way to do it in Interface Builder, rather than doing it through code.

Answer 3

I ran into this issue this morning. Here are the stabs I took and the final workaround.

This correctly logs the child view controller's title as set in the storyboard, but has no effect on what's being presented:

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];

    NSLog(@"Title: %@", self.title);
}

This has no effect; the title still doesn't show (probably doing an "if (![_title isEqualToString:title]){}" user the hood:

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];
    self.title = [self.title copy];
}

This causes the title to be set correctly:

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];
    NSString *title = self.title;
    self.title = nil;
    self.title = title;
}

My guess is that the UINavigationController is pulling the title for the view being presented before it has been loaded from the storyboard, but then doesn't start listening for changes until after the property has been set. I don't use storyboards or nibs very often, however, so it's quite possible there's a magic checkbox for this hidden somewhere that I've missed.

In any case, it looks like you can either do the self.navigationItem.title = self.title dance, or the above, as a workaround and still maintain your titles in IB.

Apples docs for this are kinda clear:

The navigation controller updates the middle of the navigation bar as follows:

• If the new top-level view controller has a custom title view, the navigation bar displays that view in place of the default title view. To specify a custom title view, set the titleView property of the view controller's navigation item.

• If no custom title view is set, the navigation bar displays a label containing the view controller's default title. The string for this label is usually obtained from the title property of the view controller itself. If you want to display a different title than the one associated with the view controller, set the title property of the view controller's navigation item instead.

Emphasis mine.

Answer 4

I just ran into the same problem. I don't understand why it's not working... It might be on purpose or just be a bug.

To change the title in interface builder, you can click on the navigation item directly and change the title there:

Answer 5

Everything else on this page failed. For now, this worked, in code, in viewDidLoad:

NSString* text = @"My page title";
UIFont* font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:20.0];
const CGSize SIZE = [text sizeWithAttributes:@{NSFontAttributeName:font}];
UILabel *label = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, SIZE.width, SIZE.height)];
label.text = text;
label.textColor = UIColor.blackColor;
self.navigationItem.titleView = label;

Answer 6

If you have UINavigationItem present, then you must use the navigation item title in the storyboard. If you don't have a navigation item for a view controller, then the UINavigationController will use the view controller's title property.

Example :

In your storyboard, if you have a navigation item the navigation controller doesn't need to read the view controller's title. Even if the title field is empty for this navigation item.

Remove the navigation item (if you can, you won't be able to do it for the root view controller but you will for the others) and your title will be correctly loaded

Answer 7

I think it works as designed although we expect another behaviour. If you print the title property in - (void)viewDidLoad it will be the same value that you set in story board so I see no reason of this not working unless Apple's choice.

Answer 8

a) If I am not using Storyboard but just regular xibs, setting the title of a view controller implicitly sets the navigation items' title as well as the tab bar item's title. But it's not the same storyboard. Is this the intended behavior?

I believe this is the intended behavior. I think that the purpose of the title attribute of a view controller is more of a property that can be used at the developer's discretion perhaps for distinguishing between controllers.

Another reason for this change I think is that your navigation item's title may need to be different than the tab bar title, since the tab bar title cannot be nearly as long as the navigation title.

b) What is then the purpose of the view controller's title (in Storyboard)? it seems to have no effect.

I think I mentioned this in my first paragraph. I think that the title attribute of a controller is a property that the developer can use perhaps for distinguishing between controllers.

Answer 9

I tried all of the above methods, even tried manually adding a navigation bar but to no avail.

So this is what worked for me.

Remove any navigation bar item you manually added to the view controller and add this to your viewDidLoad method

self.navigationController.navigationBar.topItem.title = @"My Title";

or

self.navigationController.topViewController.title = @"My Title";

Answer 10

在我的情况下，我解决这个问题：

    [self.tabBarController.navigationItem setTitle:@"My Title"];