Create UITabBarController programmatically

In this Swift code example, you will learn how to create UITabBarController programmatically.

• We will first create two View Controllers which will be Tab 1 and Tab 2,
• and then we will create one more View Controller which will serve as UITabBarController and will hold the two tabs. When a user taps on tab 1, TabOneViewController will be loaded. When a user taps on tab 2, TabTwoViewController will be loaded.

Create ViewController For Tab 1

Below is a little code example in Swift that creates a new UIViewController that will be loaded when the user taps on a Tab 1.

import UIKit
class TabOneViewController: UIViewController {
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        // Do any additional setup after loading the view.
        self.view.backgroundColor = UIColor.blue
        self.title = "Tab 1"
    }
    override func didReceiveMemoryWarning() {
        super.didReceiveMemoryWarning()
        // Dispose of any resources that can be recreated.
    }
 
}

Create ViewController for Tab 2

When the user taps on Tab 2, the TabTwoViewController will be loaded. Below is a code example that creates a new UIViewController that will be loaded when the user taps on Tab 1.

import UIKit
class TabTwoViewController: UIViewController {
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        
        // Do any additional setup after loading the view.
        self.view.backgroundColor = UIColor.red
        self.title = "Tab 2"
    }
    
    override func didReceiveMemoryWarning() {
        super.didReceiveMemoryWarning()
        // Dispose of any resources that can be recreated.
    }
}

Create UITabBarController

The following UIViewController will hold Tab 1 and Tab 2 and will implement the method didSelectViewController to handle an event when one of the tabs is selected.

import UIKit
class ViewController: UITabBarController, UITabBarControllerDelegate {
    
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        
        //Assign self for delegate for that ViewController can respond to UITabBarControllerDelegate methods
        self.delegate = self
        
    }
    
    override func viewWillAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
        super.viewWillAppear(animated)
        
        // Create Tab one
        let tabOne = TabOneViewController()
        let tabOneBarItem = UITabBarItem(title: "Tab 1", image: UIImage(named: "defaultImage.png"), selectedImage: UIImage(named: "selectedImage.png"))
        
        tabOne.tabBarItem = tabOneBarItem
        
        
        // Create Tab two
        let tabTwo = TabTwoViewController()
        let tabTwoBarItem2 = UITabBarItem(title: "Tab 2", image: UIImage(named: "defaultImage2.png"), selectedImage: UIImage(named: "selectedImage2.png"))
        
        tabTwo.tabBarItem = tabTwoBarItem2
        
        
        self.viewControllers = [tabOne, tabTwo]
    }
    
    // UITabBarControllerDelegate method
    func tabBarController(_ tabBarController: UITabBarController, didSelect viewController: UIViewController) {
        print("Selected \(viewController.title!)")
    }
}

For more Swift code examples and tutorials, please check the Swift Code Examples page on this website.