Instantiate and Present a viewController in Swift

Issue

I started taking a look on the Swift Programming Language, and somehow I am not able to correctly type the initialization of a UIViewController from a specific UIStoryboard.

In Objective-C I simply write:

UIStoryboard *storyboard = [UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:@"StoryboardName" bundle:nil];
UIViewController *viewController = [storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:@"ViewControllerID"];
[self presentViewController:viewController animated:YES completion:nil];

Can anyone help me on how to achieve this on Swift?

This answer was last revised for Swift 5.4 and iOS 14.5 SDK.

---

It's all a matter of new syntax and slightly revised APIs. The underlying functionality of UIKit hasn't changed. This is true for a vast majority of iOS SDK frameworks.

let storyboard = UIStoryboard(name: "myStoryboardName", bundle: nil)
let vc = storyboard.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "myVCID")
self.present(vc, animated: true)

Make sure to set myVCID inside the storyboard, under "Storyboard ID."

For people using @akashivskyy's answer to instantiate UIViewController and are having the exception:

> fatal error: use of unimplemented initializer 'init(coder:)' for class

Quick tip:

Manually implement required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) at your destination UIViewController that you are trying to instantiate

required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
    super.init(coder: aDecoder)
}

If you need more description please refer to my answer here

This link has both the implementations:

Swift:

let viewController:UIViewController = UIStoryboard(name: "Main", bundle: nil).instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier("ViewController") as UIViewController
self.presentViewController(viewController, animated: false, completion: nil)

Objective C

UIViewController *viewController = [[UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:@"MainStoryboard" bundle:nil] instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:@"ViewController"];

This link has code for initiating viewcontroller in the same storyboard

/*
 Helper to Switch the View based on StoryBoard
 @param StoryBoard ID  as String
*/
func switchToViewController(identifier: String) {
    let viewController = self.storyboard?.instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier(identifier) as! UIViewController
    self.navigationController?.setViewControllers([viewController], animated: false)
   
}

akashivskyy's answer works just fine! But, in case you have some trouble returning from the presented view controller, this alternative can be helpful. It worked for me!

Swift:

let storyboard = UIStoryboard(name: "MyStoryboardName", bundle: nil)
let vc = storyboard.instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier("someViewController") as! UIViewController
// Alternative way to present the new view controller
self.navigationController?.showViewController(vc, sender: nil)

Obj-C:

UIStoryboard *storyboard = [UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:@"MyStoryboardName" bundle:nil];
UIViewController *vc = [storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:@"someViewController"];
[self.navigationController showViewController:vc sender:nil];

Swift 4.2 updated code is

let storyboard = UIStoryboard(name: "StoryboardNameHere", bundle: nil)
let controller = storyboard.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "ViewControllerNameHere")
self.present(controller, animated: true, completion: nil)

// "Main" is name of .storybord file "
let mainStoryboard: UIStoryboard = UIStoryboard(name: "Main", bundle: nil)
// "MiniGameView" is the ID given to the ViewController in the interfacebuilder
// MiniGameViewController is the CLASS name of the ViewController.swift file acosiated to the ViewController
var setViewController = mainStoryboard.instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier("MiniGameView") as MiniGameViewController
var rootViewController = self.window!.rootViewController
rootViewController?.presentViewController(setViewController, animated: false, completion: nil)

This worked fine for me when i put it in AppDelegate

If you want to present it modally, you should have something like bellow:

let vc = self.storyboard!.instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier("YourViewControllerID")
self.showDetailViewController(vc as! YourViewControllerClassName, sender: self)

I would like to suggest a much cleaner way. This will be useful when we have multiple storyboards

1.Create a structure with all your storyboards

struct Storyboard {
      static let main = "Main"
      static let login = "login"
      static let profile = "profile" 
      static let home = "home"
    }

2. Create a UIStoryboard extension like this

extension UIStoryboard {
  @nonobjc class var main: UIStoryboard {
    return UIStoryboard(name: Storyboard.main, bundle: nil)
  }
  @nonobjc class var journey: UIStoryboard {
    return UIStoryboard(name: Storyboard.login, bundle: nil)
  }
  @nonobjc class var quiz: UIStoryboard {
    return UIStoryboard(name: Storyboard.profile, bundle: nil)
  }
  @nonobjc class var home: UIStoryboard {
    return UIStoryboard(name: Storyboard.home, bundle: nil)
  }
}

Give the storyboard identifier as the class name, and use the below code to instantiate

let loginVc = UIStoryboard.login.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "\(LoginViewController.self)") as! LoginViewController

Swift 3

let settingStoryboard : UIStoryboard = UIStoryboard(name: "SettingViewController", bundle: nil)
let settingVC = settingStoryboard.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "SettingViewController") as! SettingViewController
self.present(settingVC, animated: true, completion: {
    
})

No matter what I tried, it just wouldn't work for me - no errors, but no new view controller on my screen either. Don't know why, but wrapping it in timeout function finally made it work:

DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 0.0) {
    let storyboard = UIStoryboard(name: "Main", bundle: nil)
    let controller = storyboard.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "TabletViewController")
    self.present(controller, animated: true, completion: nil)
}

Swift 4:

    let storyboard = UIStoryboard(name: "Main", bundle: nil)
    let yourVC: YourVC = storyboard.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "YourVC") as! YourVC

If you have a Viewcontroller not using any storyboard/Xib, you can push to this particular VC like below call :

 let vcInstance : UIViewController   = yourViewController()
 self.present(vcInstance, animated: true, completion: nil)

I know it's an old thread, but I think the current solution (using hardcoded string identifier for given view controller) is very prone to errors.

I've created a build time script (which you can access here), which will create a compiler safe way for accessing and instantiating view controllers from all storyboard within the given project.

For example, view controller named vc1 in Main.storyboard will be instantiated like so:

let vc: UIViewController = R.storyboard.Main.vc1^  // where the '^' character initialize the controller

Swift 5

let vc = self.storyboard!.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "CVIdentifier")
self.present(vc, animated: true, completion: nil)

I created a library that will handle this much more easier with better syntax:

https://github.com/Jasperav/Storyboardable

Just change Storyboard.swift and let the ViewControllers conform to Storyboardable.

guard let vc = storyboard?.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "add") else { return }
        vc.modalPresentationStyle = .fullScreen
        present(vc, animated: true, completion: nil)