Back button title truncated after restoring state navigation controller

Question

I have run into some odd behavior of UIBarButtonItem/UINavigationBar when I attempt to restore the state of a UINavigationController between launches.

The below code snippet shows how I restore the state of a navigation controller. This code snippet is executed in the viewDidLoad method.

NSUserDefaults *ud = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
if ([ud objectForKey:HBStateRestorationQuoteSelection]) {
    NSInteger index = [ud integerForKey:HBStateRestorationQuoteSelection];

    // Fetch Quote
    NSDictionary *quote = [self.quotes objectAtIndex:index];

    // Initialize Quote View Controller
    HBQuoteViewController *vc = [[HBQuoteViewController alloc] initWithNibName:@"HBQuoteViewController" bundle:[NSBundle mainBundle]];
    vc.quote = quote;

    // Push Quote View Controller Onto Navigation Stack
    [self.navigationController pushViewController:vc animated:NO];
}

The result is that the back button title is truncated for some reason. This behavior is not present when the navigation controller is used in a normal fashion.

Note that the truncation is not due to the size of the title in the navigation bar. As I mentioned before, the title of the back bar button is displayed normal when I don't use this state restoration logic.

I also tried putting the restoration code in the viewWillAppear method or changing the title of the back bar button by creating a custom back bar button, but none of these approaches solve the problem.

enter image description here

David H David H · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-22T14:08:02

I suspect the problem is due to pushing the controller before the parent has a view showing. I believe you may have some success with the following although its a bit of work.

when you are going to restore state, then hide the navigation bar in the root view controller, and present the launch image instead of your normal content.
when the root view controller gets "viewDidAppear", then use a dispatch block on the main queue, and push other controllers, also configured to hide the navigation bar and showing the launch image.
when you get to the view controller that is SUPPOSE to be shown, at that point show the real view and enable showing the Navigation bar.

This is a compressed way of doing more or less what the system is doing, always having the parent view at least get to "viewDidAppear" before pushing another view.

Back button title truncated after restoring state navigation controller

1 Answers