Adding custom view above tab bar controller/navigation controller?

Question

I tried the following code, in an attempt to get the custom view displaying above the tab bar controller (which happens to have a navigation controller within all of it's tabs).

The problem is that it overlays on top of the navigation bar, and I want the navigation bar to be moved down.

I tried setting the frame of the tab bar controller, but that didn't move it at all.

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{    
    // Override point for customization after application launch.
    // Add the tab bar controller's current view as a subview of the window
    //self.tabBarController.view.frame = CGRectMake(0, 62, 320, 320);
    self.window.rootViewController = self.tabBarController;

    [self.window makeKeyAndVisible];

    // setting up the header view
    self.headerView = [[HeaderView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 20, 320, 42)];
    [self.window addSubview:self.headerView];

    // setting up facebook stuff
    AgentSingleton *agentSingleton = [AgentSingleton sharedSingleton];
    agentSingleton.facebook = [[Facebook alloc] initWithAppId:APP_ID];

    return YES;
}

Any ideas?

Solution 1

There isn't really any good way to do this. The various subviews of UINavigationController and UITabBarController are both private, and trying to mess with them is likely to not work correctly. And Apple doesn't give us the tools to create "container" view controllers, so you can't easily embed the UINavigationController/UITabBarController inside another view controller or recreate UINavigationController/UITabBarController yourself.

Your best bet is probably to go ahead and try to create your own "container" view controller, and deal with some things not working right. In particular, the contained view controller's parentViewController will return nil, and therefore various other things on the contained view controller or its sub-controllers will be broken (e.g. the interfaceOrientation property will be wrong, presentModalViewController:animated: might not work right). Other things may be broken too.

Or you could wait until some future version of iOS actually has support for us to create container view controllers (if ever), and then support only that version and up.

Solution 2

Add the view to the tabBarController View itself:

[self.tabBarController.view addSubview:yourView];

Solution 3

You could simple addSubview to window:

[self.view.window addSubview:myView];

Solution 4

I had the same problem and ended up doing something like this:

newView.frame = tabBarController.tabBar.frame
tabBarController.view.addSubview(newView)

Adding the view to the tabBarController and using the frame of the current tabbar as the position of the new view did the trick.

Solution 5

For those who are looking to add a view, or in my case an indicator view over the tab bar view, here is the code snipet on GitHub with very easy implementation.

Preview

Github gist

https://gist.github.com/egzonpllana/cc5538f388d8a530e7c393e7344e57a5

View more solutions

Comments

[xil3]

Vertically above the rest of the content.

[xil3]

I got it placed at the top, but at the moment it's covering the navigation controller. I need to push down the tab bar controller somehow...

[dwbrito]

Use a modalViewController on which the background view is the topmost view on the current view controller (something like view.superview.superview.superview until its nil)

[lewis]

For me, self.view.window was null so adding a subview has no effect.

[Leo Dabus]

@Lewis42 Not saying that this is the correct approach but inside viewDidLoad method window property will always be nil. This need to be done inside viewDidAppear method.

[Cheng Yang Chen]

You saved my day!

[infinity_coding7]

Thanks, Xcode 11.2.1 iOS 13.1 still works, the slight change is the first line, the newly added view could cover the full screen (including the tab bar) self.newView.frame = self.tabBarController?.view.frame ?? CGRect.zero

[ShadeToD]

Could you show how did u add this IndicatorView to the UITabBarController? Should I use default addSubview method on that controller? I found one issue with that use case. When you push new viewController then this view will disappear when u will go back to the main tabbarcontroller.

[Egzon P.]

Hi ShadeToD, did you tried the way I have suggested, it's working fine for me. See github link at the "// How to use"

[ShadeToD]

Yes I have tried your code and there is issue with this added view when you hide tabbar or when hidesBottomBarWhenPushed is set to true.

[Egzon P.]

Yes, that can happen.. A quick solution would be to add/remove the tabBar indicator view on viewWillAppear/viewWillDissapper.