How to set iPhone tab bar icon in code?

Question

I am using the same ViewController for several different views.

When instantiating the ViewController for a specific view, is there an easy way to specify the tab bar icon via code?

Answer 1

yourViewController.tabBarItem = [[UITabBarItem alloc]
initWithTitle:NSLocalizedString(@"Name", @"Name")
image:[UIImage imageNamed:@"tab_ yourViewController.png"]
tag:3];

The viewControllers are added to the tab bar, so the image and names should be set before the tab bar becomes visible (appDelegate if they are there on app start for instance). After that, you could use the above code to change the icon and text from the loadView or viewDidAppear within that viewController.

Answer 2

Yes. Your UITabBar has a property called items, which is an array of UITabBarItems for each tab bar item. You can create a UITabBarItem using the –initWithTitle:image:tag: constructor to use your own image, or the –initWithTabBarSystemItem:tag: constructor to use a system image.