Twitter-esque UITabBarController?

Question

I\'d like to make an app that uses a UITabBarController that is similar to the one in the Twitter app for iPhone and iPod touch. (Blue light for unread and sliding arrow for

Answer 1

BCTabBarController is what I based my custom twitter style tab-bar on and it works in iOS 4 and 5: http://pastebin.me/f9a876a6ad785cb0b2b7ad98b1024847

Each tab view controller should implement the following method for the tabs image:

- (NSString *)iconImageName {
    return @"homeTabIconImage.png";
}

(In the App delegate) you would initialize the tab bar controller like so:

self.tabBarController = [[[JHTabBarController alloc] init] autorelease];
self.tabBarController.delegate = self;
self.tabBarController.viewControllers = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
                                         [[[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:[[[iPhoneHomeViewController alloc] init] autorelease]] autorelease],
                                         [[[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:[[[iPhoneAboutUsViewController alloc] init] autorelease]] autorelease],
                                         [[[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:[[[iPhoneContactInfoViewController alloc] init] autorelease]] autorelease],
                                         [[[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:[[[iPhoneMapUsViewController alloc] init] autorelease]] autorelease],
                                         [[[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:[[[iPhoneCreditsViewController alloc] init] autorelease]] autorelease],
                                             nil];

Optionally, you can use a custom background image for each tabs view controller with this method:

- (UIImage *)tabBarController:(JHTabBarController *)tabBarController backgroundImageForTabAtIndex:(NSInteger)index {
    NSString *bgImagefilePath;
    switch (index) {
        case 0:
            bgImagefilePath = @"homeBG.png";
            break;
        case 1:
            bgImagefilePath = @"aboutBG.png";
            break;
        case 2:
            bgImagefilePath = @"contactBG.png";
            break;
        case 3:
            bgImagefilePath = @"mapBG.png";
            break;
        case 4:
            bgImagefilePath = @"creditsBG.png";
            break;
        default:
            bgImagefilePath = @"homeBG.png";
            break;
    }
    return [UIImage imageNamed:bgImagefilePath];
}

The arrow at the top of the tab bar slides across to the tab that is selected just like the twitter tab bar.

Some screenshots: