Topic : How to use TabBar in viewbase application

To use a tab bar without UITabBarController, you'll need to implement some of the controller functionality in your own code:

1) In IB, add a tab bar to your content view and add as many tab items as you want;
2) Ctrl-drag from the tab bar to the view controller (e.g. File's Owner), to connect the delegate outlet of the tab bar to the controller;
3) Select each tab bar item and set its Tag number in the Attributes Inspector: 1, 2, 3, ...
4) in Xcode, open the @interface file for the controller class and adopt the UITabBarDelegate Protocol:

@interface BarTestViewController : UIViewController <UITabBarDelegate> {
}
@end

5) In the @implementation for the controller class add this delegate method:

- (void)tabBar:(UITabBar *)tabBar didSelectItem:(UITabBarItem *)item {
	NSLog(@"didSelectItem: %d", item.tag);
}

6) Test the app to make sure the selection of each tab item is correctly logged in the Console. E.g.:

[Session started at 2009-07-31 01:11:18 -0700.]
2009-07-31 01:11:22.770 BarTest[22339:20b] didSelectItem: 1
2009-07-31 01:11:25.930 BarTest[22339:20b] didSelectItem: 2
2009-07-31 01:11:27.274 BarTest[22339:20b] didSelectItem: 3

Once your tab bar is working, you'll need to add more xibs and the code to switch the view based on the tab item selected.

Make a new view controller subclass for each tab. Also add one more View XIB file (New File->iPhone OS->User Interfaces) for each tab. Change the Class of each File's Owner to the corresponding subclass and connect each view to the File's Owner view outlet. Also size each view to account for the bar (you can use Simulated Metrics in the attribute inspector to do this).

To the @interface of the top view controller add an IBOutlet for the tab bar along with ivars for each of the new view controllers. Also add a view controller ivar named currentViewController which you can use to keep track of the currently selected controller:

@property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UITabBar *myTabBar; // <-- connect to the tab bar in IB
@property (nonatomic, retain) UIViewController *tab1ViewController;
@property (nonatomic, retain) UIViewController *tab2ViewController;
@property (nonatomic, assign) UIViewController *currentViewController;

When you switch views, use insertSubview:belowSubview: to keep the tab bar visible. E.g. this code could be in a switch statement in tabBar:didSelectItem::

		case 2:
			if (tab2ViewController == nil) {
				self.tab2ViewController =
					[[Tab2ViewController alloc] initWithNibName:Tab2View bundle:nil];
			}
			[self.view insertSubview:tab2ViewController.view belowSubview:myTabBar];
			if (currentViewController != nil)
				[currentViewController.view removeFromSuperview];
			currentViewController = tab2ViewController;			
			break;

The above should get you started in the right direction. Is there enough here so you can code the rest by yourself?

- Ray 

MacBook   Mac OS X (10.5.5)     

MUsman

 
Posts: 145 
From: Pakistan
Registered: Feb 11, 2009

Re: How to use TabBar in viewbase application 
Posted: Jul 31, 2009 5:00 AM    in response to: RayNewbie

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thankz dude. 
this worked for me.
Muhammad Usman Aleem 

  iPhone OS 3.0     

ssalminen

Posts: 5 
From: Helsinki, Finland
Registered: Dec 8, 2009

Re: How to use TabBar in viewbase application 
Posted: Dec 8, 2009 1:33 PM    in response to: RayNewbie

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Thank you very much raynewbie, you rock!

I posted complete example here. Use 
svn co http://pymbian.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/pymbian/stuff/testtab_raynewbie/ to check it out.

It has following structure:

AppDelegate
- testtabViewController: UIViewController
--  tabviewtest: UIViewController <UITabBarDelegate> (this uses your sample code)
--- UITabBar
---- Item1: UITabBarItem
---- Item2: UITabBarItem

I also added that you specify the starting tab when tab bar is shown in first time. Seehttp://pymbian.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/pymbian/stuff/testtab_raynewbie/Classes/tabviewtest.m

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];
    [myTabBar setSelectedItem:[myTabBar.items objectAtIndex:0]];
    [self activateTab:1]; // this is same as your didSelectItem at post above
}

I hope this is not too kludge version, and keeps working on future version of iPhone SDK.

Message was edited by: ssalminen

Message was edited by: ssalminen 

      

RayNewbie

Posts: 2,317 
From: Watsonville, CA
Registered: Aug 15, 2008

Re: How to use TabBar in viewbase application 
Posted: Dec 8, 2009 8:32 PM    in response to: ssalminen

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Thanks so much for letting me know that code was useful to you!! It looks like you did a nice job of turning the outline into a complete sample app. Maybe the project could be titled "Tab Bar Controller Lite": For use when limited tab bar functionality is acceptable in exchange for the ability to place the controller below the root.

I hang out here primarily because I enjoy teaching (and of course learning a lot in the process!). I don't often know whether my instructions or sample code were useful to anyone besides the owner of the context. It's an honor to see what you built from my example at your site.

- Ray 

MacBook   Mac OS X (10.5.5)     

tim_d

 
Posts: 10 
From: Sheffield, UK
Registered: Sep 17, 2006

Re: How to use TabBar in viewbase application 
Posted: Mar 23, 2010 3:34 PM    in response to: RayNewbie

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Thanks for posting this - it's took me the best part of a day hacking around trying to get a tabbar inside a navigation controller, and this code had it sorted in 20 mins! 

15" Unibody MBP / 24" iMac   Mac OS X (10.6.2)     

RayNewbie

Posts: 2,317 
From: Watsonville, CA
Registered: Aug 15, 2008

Re: How to use TabBar in viewbase application 
Posted: Mar 23, 2010 5:34 PM    in response to: tim_d

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You're very welcome, Tim!! I really appreciate your taking a moment to let me know. In fact, these days it's great to find some of my code that didn't become obsolete in 8 months. I think that might be close to 5 dog years, 10 computer years, and maybe 40 Apple years.

All the best,
Ray 

iMac   Mac OS X (10.5.8)     

inbaebae

Posts: 1 
From: CA
Registered: Apr 14, 2010

Re: How to use TabBar in viewbase application 
Posted: Apr 14, 2010 3:13 PM    in response to: RayNewbie

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Hello Everyone,

This thread has been super helpful for coding a part of my application. 
So basically, the entire application is navigation based. 
The home screen is a table view with a list of sub applications with each cell loading the home screen view of a sub application. 

I have used the examples above to create one of the sub application as a UIViewController, with a tab bar below the view. For each tab, I have a seperate class (UIViewController) that represents each tab's view. All of these is very similar to the example project code posted above.

Now, for one of the tab views it contains a search bar and a tableview. I have the searching and displaying of the results in the cell's of the tableview all working currently. The problem is, when I click on the cell, I want to be able to push the new view on top of the current view (search bar, table view) with the tab bar below. This is the method that I have implemented below which is called when clicking on a cell in the tableview. However, nothing changes when I click on the cell. I feel the problem is that I have to do something along the lines similar to the activatetab method implemented in the example. 

• (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {

NSLog(@"Cell clicked!"); 
UIViewController *newView = [[tab1DetailView alloc] initWithNibName:@"tab1DetailView" bundle:nil];

[self.navigationController pushViewController:newView animated:YES];

}

I will explain three following classes..

tab1ViewController //the view controller for the first tab
tab1DetailView //the detailed view for a search result. 
CRMViewController //the sub app which is the sub application loading the main view with the tab bar, view and nav bar at the top. 

I am not sure if this is clear enough but if someone could lead me in the right direction, that would be much appreciated! If something needs to described in a clearer fashion, I can do that as well. Thank you!