how to determine which tabbar index is my view controller

Question

Can somebody please tell me how I can determine which tabbar index a view controller is at.

to simplify - I can jump to a tabBarItem at the moment by hardcoding its index.

self.tabBarController.selectedIndex = 3;

However, should the user customize the tab bar items, there is a possibility the viewController at number 3 isn't the one that the user will want as it has been moved. How can I determine where it has moved to so I can select the correct one.

Any help please.

Thanks,

Lee

Answer 1

Use the self.tabBarController.selectedViewController property.

UPDATE : To get the index of a specific viewController, use:

NSUInteger index = [self.tabBarController.viewControllers indexOfObjectIdenticalTo:specificViewController];

Answer 2

You can get the list of controllers in the UITabBar and compare by pointer value. For example, a view controller that is in a UITabBar can figure out it's location like this:

int loc = 0;
for (UIViewController *vc  in [self.tabBarController viewControllers]){
    if (vc == self.navigationController || vc == self){
        break;
    }
    loc++;
}
if (loc == [[self.tabBarController viewControllers] count])
     NSLog(@"Could not find me!");
else
     NSLog(@"Im in tab:% d",loc);

Answer 3

ok, so I had no luck with any of any of the answers successfully - but I did sort it so thought I would explain how I did it incase there is someone else who gets stuck attempting to do what I did.

each tabBarItem on my tab bar controller was assigned a tag that started with 0 and say ended with 8. (can be done in IB also)

make sure delegate for tabBarController etc is all set and inplement the following delegate method:

- (void)tabBarController:(UITabBarController *)theTabBarController didEndCustomizingViewControllers:(NSArray *)viewControllers changed:(BOOL)changed {

NSInteger count = self.tabBarController.viewControllers.count;
NSMutableArray *tabOrderArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:count];


for (UINavigationController *viewController in viewControllers)
{
    NSInteger tag = viewController.tabBarItem.tag;
    [tabOrderArray addObject:[NSNumber numberWithInteger:tag]];
}

[prefs setObject:tabOrderArray forKey:@"tabOrder"];
[prefs synchronize]; // optional
[tabOrderArray release];

}

(note i use navControllers ontop of ViewControllers in my app hence that for loop)

so now what i was able to do was simply do a check if there was an array in prefs with a new tab bar order

NSArray * tabBarOrder = [prefs objectForKey:@"tabOrder"];


if(tabBarOrder) { ... }

if there was a tab bar order i could get index of the VC i wanted with '[tabBarOrder indexOfObjectIdenticalTo:[NSNumber numberWithInt:theViewsTagImAfter]];

and if there was no array in prefs you can safely assume it hasn't moved and is where is.

**

Any one feel free to destroy how I have done this should you feel you could have accomplished this in a sleeker way. however, this works and the other suggestions didnt.