Add a line as a selection indicator to a UITabbarItem in Swift

Question

I wanna use a thick line at the bottom of a UITabbarItems as a selection indicator. Due to the fact that the App must work on different phone sizes, I cannot use a image as selection indicator. That's why I think I have to use Swift to do this. (The line has to be 1/3 of page width).

I tried to use UITabBarItem.appearance() but without success.

Answer 1

You can do it with add custom image, that will be created in your code, to selectionIndicatorImage on your UITabBar object. For example you can create extension for UIImage class like this:

extension UIImage {
    func createSelectionIndicator(color: UIColor, size: CGSize, lineWidth: CGFloat) -> UIImage {
        UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(size, false, 0)
        color.setFill()
        UIRectFill(CGRectMake(0, size.height - lineWidth, size.width, lineWidth))
        let image = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
        UIGraphicsEndImageContext()
        return image
    }
}

And call it in your first loaded ViewController like this:

class FirstViewController: UIViewController {

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        let tabBar = self.tabBarController!.tabBar
        tabBar.selectionIndicatorImage = UIImage().createSelectionIndicator(UIColor.blueColor(), size: CGSizeMake(tabBar.frame.width/CGFloat(tabBar.items!.count), tabBar.frame.height), lineWidth: 2.0)
    }

    override func didReceiveMemoryWarning() {
        super.didReceiveMemoryWarning()
        // Dispose of any resources that can be recreated.
    }
}

In this case result will be like this:

Answer 2

Swift 3:

extension UIImage {
    func createSelectionIndicator(color: UIColor, size: CGSize, lineHeight: CGFloat) -> UIImage {
        UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(size, false, 0)
        color.setFill()
        UIRectFill(CGRect(origin: CGPoint(x: 0,y :size.height - lineHeight), size: CGSize(width: size.width, height: lineHeight)))
        let image = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
        UIGraphicsEndImageContext()
        return image!
    }
}

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    let tabBar = self.tabBarController!.tabBar
    tabBar.selectionIndicatorImage = UIImage().createSelectionIndicator(color: UIColor.blue, size: CGSize(width: tabBar.frame.width/CGFloat(tabBar.items!.count), height: tabBar.frame.height), lineHeight: 2.0)
}

Answer 3

I solved my problem.

Features of this tiny code snippet:

• width is dynamic
• it is animated

• it is a lot more customizable for future features

  class FirstViewController: UIViewController {
  
  let rectShape = CAShapeLayer()
  let indicatorHeight: CGFloat = 5
  var indicatorWidth: CGFloat!
  let indicatorBottomMargin: CGFloat = 2
  let indicatorLeftMargin: CGFloat = 2
  
  override func viewDidLoad() {
      super.viewDidLoad()
  
      // setup tabbar indicator
      rectShape.fillColor = UIColor.redColor().CGColor
      indicatorWidth = view.bounds.maxX / 2 // count of items
      self.tabBarController!.view.layer.addSublayer(rectShape)
      self.tabBarController?.delegate = self
  
      // initial position
      updateTabbarIndicatorBySelectedTabIndex(0)
  }
  
  func updateTabbarIndicatorBySelectedTabIndex(index: Int) -> Void
  {
      let updatedBounds = CGRect( x: CGFloat(index) * (indicatorWidth + indicatorLeftMargin),
                                  y: view.bounds.maxY - indicatorHeight,
                                  width: indicatorWidth - indicatorLeftMargin,
                                  height: indicatorHeight)
  
      let path = CGPathCreateMutable()
      CGPathAddRect(path, nil, updatedBounds)
      rectShape.path = path
  }
  }
  
  extension FirstViewController: UITabBarControllerDelegate {
  
  func tabBarController(tabBarController: UITabBarController, didSelectViewController viewController: UIViewController) {
      updateTabbarIndicatorBySelectedTabIndex(tabBarController.selectedIndex)
  }
  }
  

Answer 4

Swift 4.x
Xcode 10.x

extension UIImage {
    func createSelectionIndicator(color: UIColor, size: CGSize, lineWidth: CGFloat) -> UIImage {
        UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(size, false, 0)
        color.setFill()
        UIRectFill(CGRect(x: 0, y: size.height - lineWidth, width: size.width, height: lineWidth))
        let image = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
        UIGraphicsEndImageContext()
        return image!
    }
}

Use

tabBar.selectionIndicatorImage = UIImage().createSelectionIndicator(color: BLUE, size: CGSize(width: tabBar.frame.width/CGFloat(tabBar.items!.count), height:  tabBar.frame.height), lineWidth: 2.0)