Programmatically pressing a UITabBar button in Xcode

Question

Sorry for the newbie question. I have a UITabBar in my main window view as well as an array of UINavigationControllers for each Tab. The structure is similar to the iPod a

Answer 1

alternatively...

[self.parentViewController.tabBarController setSelectedIndex:3];

Answer 2

I wanted to do something similar but for XCode 6.4 iOS (8.4) setSelectedIndex by itself won't do it.

Add the view controllers of the tab bar to a list and then use something like the following in some function and then call it:

FirstViewController *firstVC = [[self viewControllers] objectAtIndex:0];
[self.selectedViewController.view removeFromSuperview]
[self.view insertSubview:firstVC.view belowSubview:self.tabBar];
[self.tabBar setSelectedItem:self.firstTabBarItem];
self.selectedViewController = firstVC;

You might have similar code already inside your didSelectedItem..

- (void)tabBar:(UITabBar *)tabBar didSelectItem:(UITabBarItem *)item {

   if (item == self.firstTabBarItem) 
      // Right here
    }
    else if ...
}

Answer 3

[myTabBarController setSelectedIndex:index]

EDIT: Answering the part 2 question from the comment:

You can define a method in AppDelegate for switching to a different tab.

And you can get hold of appdelegate from anywhere and send a message.. something like:

 MyAppDelegate *appDelegate = (MyAppDelegate*) [[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate];
 [appDelegate SwitchToTab:index]

Answer 4

I'd like to reply to Prakash, but can't figure out how. Maybe I'm blocked until my score goes up.

Anyhow, I hope this helps someone:

I was doing what Prakash said, and nothing was happening. It's because to get a pointer to my app delegate, I was doing this:

AppDelegate_Phone *appDelegate = [[AppDelegate_Phone alloc] init];

When I should have been doing this:

AppDelegate_Phone *appDelegate = (AppDelegate_Phone *) [[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate];

Newbie mistake.

Answer 5

For this, You just need to take UITabBar controller -

.h File -

UITabBarController *_pTabBarController;
@property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet  UITabBarController *_pTabBarController;

.m File -
// synthesize it 
@synthesize  _pTabBarController;    

At initial load 

// You can  write one function to add tabBar - 

// As you have already mentioned you have created an array , if not 

_pTabBarController = [[UITabBarController alloc] init];
    NSMutableArray *localViewControllersArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:4];
    UINavigationController *theNavigationController;

    _pController = [[Controller alloc] initStart];  
    _pController.tabBarItem.tag = 1;
    _pController.title = @"Baranches";
    theNavigationController = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:_pController];
    theNavigationController.tabBarItem.tag = 1;
    theNavigationController.tabBarItem.image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"icon_branches.png"];
    [localViewControllersArray addObject:theNavigationController];
    [theNavigationController release];

than you can set index as per your needs

self._pTabBarController.selectedIndex = 0; // as per your requirements

Answer 6

[self.parentViewController.tabBarController setSelectedIndex:3];

Selected the index for me but it just highlighted the navbarcontroller's index as the active index, but while it highlighted that index it was actually on a different viewcontroller than was suggested by the tabbarmenu item.

Just wanted to add that I used this from my view controller, and it performed like someone actually pressed the menuitem; from code:

UITabBarController *MyTabController = (UITabBarController *)((AppDelegate*) [[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate]).window.rootViewController;
[MyTabController setSelectedIndex:1];

Thank you for this post/answers it helped out a lot in my project.