# .navigationBarTitle not working

**URL:** <https://forums.kodeco.com/t/navigationbartitle-not-working/90878>\
**Category:** iOS Apprentice\
**Created:** [December 9, 2019, 4:14pm UTC](https://forums.kodeco.com/t/navigationbartitle-not-working/90878 "2019-12-09T16:14:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![oaklazza](https://assets.chunter.kodeco.com/user_avatar/forums.kodeco.com/oaklazza/32/81494_2.png) [@oaklazza](https://forums.kodeco.com/u/oaklazza)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 4:14pm UTC](https://forums.kodeco.com/t/navigationbartitle-not-working/90878/1 "2019-12-09T16:14:40Z")

</div>

Hi,

This code from the 8th Edition of iOS Apprentice, page 290, is not producing a title in the navigation:

```
struct ContentView: View {
    var body: some View {
        NavigationView {
            List {
                Text("Walk the dog")
                Text("brush my teeth")
                Text("learn ios development")
                Text("soccer practice")
                Text("eat ice cream")
            }
        }
        .navigationBarTitle("Checklist")
    }
}

```

I’ve checked and rechecked the code against the tutorial, to no avail.

Any ideas?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![accordionguy](https://assets.chunter.kodeco.com/user_avatar/forums.kodeco.com/accordionguy/32/109981_2.png) [@accordionguy](https://forums.kodeco.com/u/accordionguy)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 4:20pm UTC](https://forums.kodeco.com/t/navigationbartitle-not-working/90878/2 "2019-12-09T16:20:16Z")

</div>

Hey there! I just saw your question — let me give it a look and get back to you later today.

— Joey

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![oaklazza](https://assets.chunter.kodeco.com/user_avatar/forums.kodeco.com/oaklazza/32/81494_2.png) [@oaklazza](https://forums.kodeco.com/u/oaklazza)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 4:23pm UTC](https://forums.kodeco.com/t/navigationbartitle-not-working/90878/3 "2019-12-09T16:23:01Z")

</div>

Thank you @accordionguy – I just realized my error:

I applied .navigationBarTitle to the Navigation View and not the List element.

So I see what I did wrong, but I’m still curious why the title would “belong” the the list and not the navigation element. It seems odd.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![oaklazza](https://assets.chunter.kodeco.com/user_avatar/forums.kodeco.com/oaklazza/32/81494_2.png) [@oaklazza](https://forums.kodeco.com/u/oaklazza)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 4:26pm UTC](https://forums.kodeco.com/t/navigationbartitle-not-working/90878/4 "2019-12-09T16:26:11Z")

</div>

…on further reflection I see the logic. The “title” belongs to the list, not the view. I guess I see how that makes sense.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![accordionguy](https://assets.chunter.kodeco.com/user_avatar/forums.kodeco.com/accordionguy/32/109981_2.png) [@accordionguy](https://forums.kodeco.com/u/accordionguy)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 4:57am UTC](https://forums.kodeco.com/t/navigationbartitle-not-working/90878/5 "2019-12-10T04:57:28Z")

</div>

Hello, @oaklazza!

**A commenting trick that I use**  
You’ve stumbled into one of the tricky things about building user interfaces with SwiftUI: figuring out which view you’ve attached a method call to.

I didn’t want to clutter the code in the book or confuse people, but I sometimes find myself adding comments to the closing braces of views, so I know which closing brace belongs to which view, like this:

```
var body: some View {
    NavigationView {
        List {
            Text("Walk the dog")
            Text("Brush my teeth")
            Text("Learn iOS development")
            Text("Soccer practice")
            Text("Eat ice cream")
        } // List
        .navigationBarTitle("Checklist")
    } // NavigationView
}

```

I find that adding these comments, especially when the view starts getting complicated, makes it easier to figure out which view I’m working with. In the code above, it’s a lot easier to see that the call to `navigationBarTitle()` is attached to the `List` and not the `NavigationView`.

(I may have to add this trick to the update of the book!)

**Why the title belongs to the `List` and not the `NavigationView`**

Take a look at [this graphic](http://www.globalnerdy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/navigationview-and-list.jpg). It’s a screenshot of the app, with the `NavigationView` and the `List` highlighted.

The `NavigationView` is an invisible container that lets you create views that the user can navigate between. You’ll eventually use it to jump from a list view to another view that shows the details of the list item that the user tapped on, and the `NavigationView` will automatically provide a “Back” button to return to the list view with you having to write any code!

Since navigating between screens involves changing the view inside the `NavigationView`, it’s up to the view inside the `NavigationView` to set the title that appears in the navigation bar.

Hope this helps! If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask away.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![oaklazza](https://assets.chunter.kodeco.com/user_avatar/forums.kodeco.com/oaklazza/32/81494_2.png) [@oaklazza](https://forums.kodeco.com/u/oaklazza)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 1:42pm UTC](https://forums.kodeco.com/t/navigationbartitle-not-working/90878/6 "2019-12-10T13:42:12Z")

</div>

Thank you @accordionguy for that great explanation and the commenting-the-close-tag suggestion as well.

And the book is great – fits my learning style perfectly.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.raywenderlich.com/community/forum-assets/noun-game-ghost-878668.png) [@system](https://forums.kodeco.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2020, 8:14am UTC](https://forums.kodeco.com/t/navigationbartitle-not-working/90878/8 "2020-05-24T08:14:41Z")

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