To Be Creative: The easier way to create Tabbed Bar in iPhone

08 October 2011

The easier way to create Tabbed Bar in iPhone

I see the easier way to create a UITabBar in iPhone, is through the Controller.

Only create the View yourself, if you want to customize it, otherwise, don't go that way!

Suppose we have a button that we click to open a TabBar with two UITabBarItems, as usual , we push the next controller to the UINavigationConroller ... but this time we will push a UITabBarController..

Here's the code with inline comments:

	// create UITabBarController (with its UITabBar view)
	UITabBarController* tabController = [[UITabBarController alloc]init];

	// create a ref for the first child VC
	Tab1ViewContoller* tabVC = [[Tab1ViewContoller alloc]initWithNibName:@"Tab1ViewContoller" bundle:nil];
	tabVC.title = @"Tab1 VC"; // the VC title is used also as the title for UITabBarItem in the UITabBar contoller by the above UITabBarController

	// create a ref for the second child VC
	Tab2ViewContoller* tabVC2 = [[Tab2ViewContoller alloc]initWithNibName:@"Tab2ViewContoller" bundle:nil];
	tabVC2.title = @"tab2 VC";

	/* to cusomize the UITabBarItem for each child view controller, set the tabBarItem property of the VC /
	// Optional
	property of the VC **/
	// Optional
	UITabBarItem* tabBarItem1 = [[[UITabBarItem alloc]initWithTitle:nil image:
	[UIImage imageNamed:@"icons-word-processor.es"] tag:1] autorelease];
	UITabBarItem* tabBarItem2 = [[[UITabBarItem alloc]initWithTitle:@"tab2 item" image:nil tag:2] autorelease];

	tabVC.tabBarItem = tabBarItem1;
	tabVC2.tabBarItem = tabBarItem2;

	//


	// create array of ViewContollers to be added to the UITabBarController
	NSArray* viewControllers = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:tabVC, tabVC2, nil];
	[tabController setViewControllers:viewControllers animated:YES];

	// push the UITabBarConrollers (that contains the reference to the 2 VCs to the navigationConroller
	[self.navigationController pushViewController:tabController animated:YES];

	//release objects in mem
	[tabVC2 release];
	[tabVC release];
	[tabController release];