Tab Bar with Large Icons

Question

I am wondering if there is a way to accomplish a tab bar with only large icons, I have attached an image below for reference. I am not interested in creating my own tab bar controller, and managing the view controllers myself.

Answer 1

Here is my solution, i created a class which is a subclass of UITabBarController .

CustomTabBarController.h

@interface CustomTabBarController : UITabBarController<UITabBarControllerDelegate>
@property (strong, nonatomic) IBOutlet UITabBar *tabBar;
@end

CustomTabBarController.m

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    CGRect tabBarFrame = self.tabBar.frame ;
    tabBarFrame.origin.y -= kOrigin;
    tabBarFrame.size.height = kTabBarHeight;
    self.tabBar.frame = tabBarFrame;
    self.tabBarController.delegate = self;
    /* Tab Bar Background */

    UIImage *tabBarBackgroundImage = [UIImage imageNamed:@"tabBarBackgroundImage.png"];
    [[UITabBar appearance] setBackgroundImage:tabBarBackgroundImage];

    /* Tab Bar Item */
    UIButton *surveyButton = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom];
    [surveyButton addTarget:self action:@selector(surveyButtonDidSelect) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
    surveyButton.tag = surveyButtonTag;
    [surveyButton setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"someimage.png"] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
    CGRect surveyButtonFrame = surveyButton.frame ;
    surveyButtonFrame.origin.x = /*Proper value in your case */;
    surveyButtonFrame.origin.y = /*Proper value in your case */;
    surveyButtonFrame.size.height = /*Proper value in your case */ ;
    surveyButtonFrame.size.width =/*Proper value in your case */;
    surveyButton.frame = surveyButtonFrame;
    [self.tabBar addSubview:surveyButton];

    UIButton *statusButton = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom];
    statusButton.tag = statusButtonTag;
    [statusButton addTarget:self action:@selector(statusButtonDidSelect) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
    [statusButton setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"someimage.png"] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
    CGRect statusButtonFrame = statusButton.frame ;
    statusButtonFrame.origin.x = /*Proper value in your case */;
    statusButtonFrame.origin.y = /*Proper value in your case */;
    statusButtonFrame.size.height = /*Proper value in your case */;
    statusButtonFrame.size.width = /*Proper value in your case */;
    statusButton.frame = statusButtonFrame;
    [self.tabBar addSubview:statusButton];
}

-(void)surveyButtonDidSelect
{
    self.selectedIndex = 0 ;
}
-(void)statusButtonDidSelect
{
    self.selectedIndex = 1;
}

It's working for me,and i got no problem. Hope, it helps.

Answer 2

To add to @limon's answer, if you want to change the height of the custom UITabBar, I found from another SO answer, sorry do not remember web link reference, the following code did the trick and locked it at the bottom as well, where I found with @limon's code the UITabBar was not position flush at bottom out of the box with his code:

override func viewWillLayoutSubviews() {
    //UITabBar Height
    var tabFrame: CGRect = self.tabBar.frame
    tabFrame.size.height = 75
    tabFrame.origin.y = self.view.frame.size.height - 75
    self.tabBar.frame = tabFrame
}

Obviously you want to remove the similar code from limon's answer or maybe move his entire code snippet to viewWillLayoutSubviews I didn't try that, I called his code in my viewDidLoad

Answer 3

The max size for the image in a tab bar on an iPhone 5/iPhone 4 is 96 x 64 so you are somewhat limited there without rolling your own. Though in your example image those may fit in the constraints.