title: IOS Issue Accessing Class Properties
body: <p>I have a view that is loaded as a subview programmatically.  The view has a three properties defined in the .h and synthesized in the .m.  The view is loaded by creating an object of the view in the parent controller and then calling it's initialization function.  In the initialization function I set a number of values to the their respective properties.  For some reason I am not able to access the properties outside of the initialization function.  My first thought was that the properties were defined incorrectly but after messing around with their strong and weak attributes nothing changed.</p>
  
  <p>The UIView's .h</p>
  
  <pre><code>#import &lt;UIKit/UIKit.h&gt;
  #import &lt;QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h&gt;
  #import &lt;Parse/Parse.h&gt;
  
  @protocol subViewDelegate
  - (void)photoFromSubview:(NSInteger *)imageId;
  - (void)downloadData;
  @end
  
  @interface ImageViewer : UIView
  
  @property (nonatomic, assign) id &lt;subViewDelegate&gt; delegate;
  //three properties
  @property (nonatomic, copy) UIImage *mainImage;
  @property (nonatomic, copy) UIViewController *parentView;
  @property (nonatomic) NSInteger imageId;
  
  - (void)removeImageViewer;
  - (void)captureImage:(id)sender;
  - (void)uploadPhoto:(id)sender;
  - (UIImage *)addBackground;
  
  - (ImageViewer *)loadImageIntoViewer:(UIViewController *)superView imageToLoad:(UIImage *)imageToLoad imageId:(NSInteger *)imageId;
  
  @end
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The relevant functions in the UIViews .m</p>
  
  <pre><code>//implementation of the properties 
  #import "ImageViewer.h"
  #import "SpinnerView.h"
  
  @implementation ImageViewer : UIView
  {
  
  }
  
  @synthesize mainImage = _mainImage;
  @synthesize parentView = _parentView;
  @synthesize imageId = _imageId;
  
  - (id)initWithFrame:(CGRect)frame
  {
      self = [super initWithFrame:frame];
      if (self)
      {
  
      }
      return self;
  }
  
  //initialization function
  - (ImageViewer *)loadImageIntoViewer:(UIViewController *)superView imageToLoad:(UIImage *)imageToLoad imageId:(NSInteger *)imageId
  {
      //create a new view with the same frame size as the superView
      ImageViewer *imageViewer = [[ImageViewer alloc] initWithFrame:superView.view.bounds];
      imageViewer.delegate = superView;
  
      //three properties assigning values 
      _mainImage = imageToLoad;
      _parentView = superView;
      _imageId = imageId;
  
      //if something's gone wrong, abort!
      if(!imageViewer)
      {
          return nil;
      }
  
      //add all components and functionalities to the program
      //when I use _mainImage bellow it works with the correct value 
      UIImageView *background = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:[imageViewer addBackground]];
      background.alpha = 0.85;
      [imageViewer addSubview:background];
      [imageViewer addSubview:[imageViewer addImageToView:_mainImage superView:superView.view]];
      [imageViewer addSubview:[imageViewer addButtonToView:(superView.view.bounds.origin.x + 10.0) yPos:(superView.view.bounds.origin.x + 10.0) buttonAction:@selector(back:) buttonTitle:@"Back"]];
      [imageViewer addSubview:[imageViewer addButtonToView:(superView.view.bounds.origin.x + 10.0) yPos:((superView.view.center.y/2) + 270.0) buttonAction:@selector(captureImage:) buttonTitle:@"Camera"]];
      [imageViewer addSubview:[imageViewer addButtonToView:(superView.view.bounds.origin.x + 105.0) yPos:((superView.view.center.y/2) + 270.0) buttonAction:@selector(uploadPhoto:) buttonTitle:@"Upload"]];
      [superView.view addSubview:imageViewer];
  
      return imageViewer;
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The above code allows you to access the values assigned to _mainImage, _parentView and _imageId.  But when I try to access them through a private function defined in the .m the return the initialized value as can be seen below.</p>
  
  <pre><code>- (void)uploadPhoto:(id)sender
  {
     //These all return as empty or uninitialized
     NSLog(@"%@", _mainImage);
     NSLog(@"%d", _imageId);
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Why is this? Am I defining the properties incorrectly in the .h or is it because self doesn't refer to the instance of ImageView defined in loadImageIntoViewer?  How can I fix this?</p>