Creating a Custom Tab Bar

Sometimes the standard iOS tab bar just doesn't have the look or functionality you need for your app. In this case, you need to create a custom tab bar from scratch.

Step 1: Setup your Storyboard

• Add a UIViewController to storyboard to function as your main tab bar ViewController.
• Add UIView to serve as the bar part of the Tab Bar.
• Add UIButtons for each tab.
  • Configure their default and selected images.
  • Set the tag value of each button starting with 0 for the first button, 1 for the second and so on.
• Add a UIView that fills the screen above the tabBar. This will serve as our content view.
• Add UIViewControllers that correspond to each tab. (5 tabs = 5 ViewControllers)
• Give each UIViewController a unique Storyboard ID.
• Add what ever content you want in each ViewController. (We will be pulling in the content from particular ViewController when it's respective tab is tapped.)

Step 2: Hook up IBOutlets

• Create an outlet for the contentView by ctrl + drag

Creating an array of buttons will help us easily keep track of what button is getting pushed based on the tag or index of the button.

• Create an IBOutlet array named, buttons to hold your tab bar buttons.
  • @IBOutlet var buttons: [UIButton]!
  • ctrl + drag outlets from all your buttons to the array.

Step 3: Create Your Instance Variables (global variables)

• Define variables to hold each ViewController associated with a tab.

var homeViewController: UIViewController!
var searchViewController: UIViewController!
var accountViewController: UIViewController!
var trendingViewController: UIViewController!

We will use an array to hold all are ViewControllers. That way, we can simply pluck out any particular ViewController we want based on the button that was pushed.

• Define a variable for an array to hold the ViewControllers named, viewControllers.

var viewControllers: [UIViewController]!

• Define a variable to keep track of the tab button that is selected. Set it to an initial value of 0. We will link the button's tag value to this variable. So an initial value of 0 will reference our first button.

var selectedIndex: Int = 0

Step 4: Link your ViewController Variables to the ViewControllers in the Storyboard.

Remember, all the ViewControllers we create in the Storyboard don't actually exist, until we set up a link to them somehow, like a segue. For our custom tab bar, we won't be using segues, so we will have to instantiate them when our main tab bar ViewController first loads.

• Within the ViewDidLoad() method, access the main Storyboard through code.

let storyboard = UIStoryboard(name: "Main", bundle: nil)

• Next, instantiate each ViewController by referencing storyboard and the particular ViewController's Storyboard ID

homeViewController = storyboard.instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier("HomeViewController")

Step 5 Create a Shared Action for the Buttons.

Since we will be keeping track of which button was tapped, all the buttons can share the same action method.

• ctrl + drag from your first button to the TabBarViewController to create an action.
  • Name it something like didPressTab.
  • Change the Type from AnyObject to UIButton (that way we can access special properties only buttons have)
  • ctrl + drag from every other button to the same didPressTab so they are all sharing.