How to change color for tab bar non selected icon in swift?

Question

How to change color for tab bar non selected icon and text? I found this answer (How to change inactive icon/text color on tab bar?), but can't implement it for swift.

Answer 1

iOS 10

class TabBarVC: UITabBarController {

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        // make unselected icons white
        self.tabBar.unselectedItemTintColor = UIColor.white
    }
}

Answer 2

In iOS 11 you can set the property directly at UIToolBar in storyboard:

unselectedItemTintColor | Color | [desired color]

Xcode print

Answer 3

The below sets the defaults for all UITabBarItem's, you can add it to your AppDelegate. It will change your text color.

UITabBarItem.appearance().setTitleTextAttributes({NSForegroundColorAttributeName: UIColor.blackColor()}, forState:.Selected)
UITabBarItem.appearance().setTitleTextAttributes({NSForegroundColorAttributeName: UIColor.whiteColor()}, forState:.Normal)

For changing the icon' color you can either set the image for the given state where your image already have the good color.

self.tabBarItem.selectedImage = [[UIImage imageNamed:@"selectedImage"]
imageWithRenderingMode:UIImageRenderingModeAlwaysOriginal];

self.tabBarItem.image = [[UIImage imageNamed:@"notSelectedImage"] 
imageWithRenderingMode:UIImageRenderingModeAlwaysOriginal];

Or you can do it this way :

Add an extension to UIImage class (from this answer) :

extension UIImage {
func imageWithColor(color1: UIColor) -> UIImage {
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(self.size, false, self.scale)

    let context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext() as CGContextRef
    CGContextTranslateCTM(context, 0, self.size.height)
    CGContextScaleCTM(context, 1.0, -1.0);
    CGContextSetBlendMode(context, kCGBlendModeNormal)

    let rect = CGRectMake(0, 0, self.size.width, self.size.height) as CGRect
    CGContextClipToMask(context, rect, self.CGImage)
    color1.setFill()
    CGContextFillRect(context, rect)

    let newImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext() as UIImage
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext()

    return newImage
}
}

And in your viewDidLoad :

for item in self.tabBar.items as [UITabBarItem] {
    if let image = item.image {
        item.image = image.imageWithColor(UIColor.blackColor()).imageWithRenderingMode(.AlwaysOriginal)
    }
}

Answer 4

Swift 4+

UITabBar.appearance().unselectedItemTintColor = UIColor.green

Use this code in appDelegate's didFinishLaunchingWithOptions method.

Answer 5

Complementing @BoilingLime's answer, here it goes the second alternative's UIImage extension in Swift 3:

extension UIImage {
func imageWithColor(color1: UIColor) -> UIImage {
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(self.size, false, self.scale)

    let context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()! as CGContext
    context.translateBy(x: 0, y: self.size.height)
    context.scaleBy(x: 1.0, y: -1.0);
    context.setBlendMode(CGBlendMode.normal)

    let rect = CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: self.size.width, height: self.size.height)
    context.clip(to: rect, mask: self.cgImage!)
    color1.setFill()
    context.fill(rect)

    let newImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()! as UIImage
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext()

    return newImage
}
}

Answer 6

If you are looking for an iOS 11 swift 4 solution, do something like this in the appDelegate. This is changing all the unselected tab bar items to black.

    func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplicationLaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {
    // Override point for customization after application launch.

    UITabBar.appearance().unselectedItemTintColor = UIColor(displayP3Red: 0, green: 0, blue: 0, alpha: 1)

    return true
}