Programmatically detect Tab Bar or TabView height in SwiftUI

Question

I have a SwiftUI app that will have a floating podcast player, similar to the Apple Music player that sits just above the Tab Bar and persists across all tabs and views whil

Answer 1

As bridge to UIKit is officially allowed and documented, it is possible to read needed information from there when needed.

Here is possible approach to read tab bar height directly from UITabBar

// Helper bridge to UIViewController to access enclosing UITabBarController
// and thus its UITabBar
struct TabBarAccessor: UIViewControllerRepresentable {
    var callback: (UITabBar) -> Void
    private let proxyController = ViewController()

    func makeUIViewController(context: UIViewControllerRepresentableContext<TabBarAccessor>) ->
                              UIViewController {
        proxyController.callback = callback
        return proxyController
    }

    func updateUIViewController(_ uiViewController: UIViewController, context: UIViewControllerRepresentableContext<TabBarAccessor>) {
    }

    typealias UIViewControllerType = UIViewController

    private class ViewController: UIViewController {
        var callback: (UITabBar) -> Void = { _ in }

        override func viewWillAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
            super.viewWillAppear(animated)
            if let tabBar = self.tabBarController {
                self.callback(tabBar.tabBar)
            }
        }
    }
}

// Demo SwiftUI view of usage
struct TestTabBar: View {
    var body: some View {
        TabView {
            Text("First View")
                .background(TabBarAccessor { tabBar in
                    print(">> TabBar height: \(tabBar.bounds.height)")
                    // !! use as needed, in calculations, @State, etc.
                })
                .tabItem { Image(systemName: "1.circle") }
                .tag(0)
            Text("Second View")
                .tabItem { Image(systemName: "2.circle") }
                .tag(1)
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

It seems, that you need to know the maximal size of player (size of space above tab bar), not height of tab bar self.

Using GeometryReader and PreferenceKey are the handy tool for that

import Combine

struct Size: PreferenceKey {

    typealias Value = [CGRect]
    static var defaultValue: [CGRect] = []
    static func reduce(value: inout [CGRect], nextValue: () -> [CGRect]) {
        value.append(contentsOf: nextValue())
    }
}

struct HomeView: View {
    let txt: String
    var body: some View {
        GeometryReader { proxy in
            Text(self.txt).preference(key: Size.self, value: [proxy.frame(in: CoordinateSpace.global)])
        }
    }
}


struct ContentView: View {
    @State var playerFrame = CGRect.zero
    var body: some View {

        TabView {
            HomeView(txt: "Hello").tabItem {
                Image(systemName: "house")
                Text("A")
            }.border(Color.green).tag(1)

            HomeView(txt: "World!").tabItem {
                Image(systemName: "house")
                Text("B")
            }.border(Color.red).tag(2)

            HomeView(txt: "Bla bla").tabItem {
                Image(systemName: "house")
                Text("C")
            }.border(Color.blue).tag(3)
        }
        .onPreferenceChange(Size.self, perform: { (v) in
            self.playerFrame = v.last ?? .zero
            print(self.playerFrame)
        })
            .overlay(
                Color.yellow.opacity(0.2)
            .frame(width: playerFrame.width, height: playerFrame.height)
            .position(x: playerFrame.width / 2, y: playerFrame.height / 2)
        )
    }
}

struct ContentView_Previews: PreviewProvider {
    static var previews: some View {
        ContentView()
    }
}

In the example I reduce the size with .padding() on yellow transparent rectangle, to be sure no part could be hidden (out of screen)

Even the height of tab bar could be calculated, if necessary, but I am not able to imagine for what.