JFATabBarController

UITabBarController is a handy control for building user interfaces, but it has an annoying limitation: if there are more than five tabs, a "More" button replaces the fifth tab. The user might not understand what "More" means or the fact that it hides additional controllers. JFATabBarController is a pluggable replacement for UITabBarController that eliminates this limitation. The user of this control can access an arbitrary number of controllers simply by swiping left on the tab bar. By default, JFATabBarController displays an exciting animation when changing tabs.

For a video of JFATabBarController in action, see here or here (includes music).

Installation and Use

To demo JFATabBarController, just clone the repository, double-click JFATabBarController.xcodeproj, and run on an iPhone or iPad simulator or device.

Here are the steps to use JFATabBarController in your app. These instructions assume familiarity with use of UITabBarController.

Add JFATabBarController.h, JFATabBarController.m, JFAArrowView.m, and JFAArrowView.h to your project. Alternatively, add pod 'JFATabBarController' to your Podfile and do a pod install.
If you do not already have a UITabBarController in your storyboard, add one.
Change the class of this UITabBarController to JFATabBarController by selecting it, opening the Utilities pane, showing the Identity inspector, and changing the class to JFATabBarController.
If you have not done so already, create a "relationship segue - view controller" from the JFATabBarController to each view controller you want accessible from the tab bar.
For each view controller accessible from the tab bar, either set the name and image of the tab-bar item or change the identifier to a system item like "Favorites" or "Bookmarks".

Constants

There are two constants of interest in JFATabBarController.m.

MAX_TAB_COUNT is the maximum number of tab-bar items to show at once. You are not limited to UITabBarController’s five.

TAB_ANIMATION_DURATION is the duration of the tab-changing animation. The larger the number, the longer the duration. Set this to 0.0 to prevent animation.

Notes

JFATabBarController has been tested on iPhone SE, iPhone X, iPhone 🎾, iPhone 🎾 Max, iPad XR, and iPad Pro.

Because the app for which JFATabBarController was created, Immigration, has no need for UITabBarController’s localization, badge, or accessibility features, JFATabBarController does not currently support them. The app may require these features at some point, and JFATabBarController will support them then. Pull requests are welcome.

Creator

Josh Adams

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2014 Josh Adams

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.