I am looking for the best way to implement a UISearchBar on the top of the screen for all the tabs in my TabBarController. I want the SearchBar to be consistent throughout all tabs (i.e. same placeholder text, same search text even after switching tabs).
Is there a way to do this besides passing data to the selected tab each time the user switches tabs? I was thinking of making a singleton UISearchBar and adding it as a subview each time the user changes tabs. I have my doubts about this approach though.
Thanks ahead of time.
You can make one baseviewcontroller. In that you can add your UISearchBar. After that you can inherit your each tab's ViewController from that baseviewcontroller. So, in each tab of your UITabBarController you will get that UISearchBar.
I've been struggling with that too until I tried something and it turned out it's very simple !
All you need to do is to add UISearchBar and a Container View in one UIViewController and then from that Container View set the segue to your UITabBarController and here you go ! One search bar across all the tabs and the solution will also help in separating the logic of the search functionality from the tabs functionality as you will not be forced to implement a search view across all your tabs.
Here I created a view controller with 1 UIView containing a search bar and an account icon and also containing a Container View (The blue part) which will hold out TabBarController
You have to implement search bar in each view controller of tabbar.
Add UISearchbar in all the views.
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I have a rootViewController that is a UITabBarController. A UIToolBar is present in that controller since it has a SearchBar that is global to the app. In certain tabs, there should be specific UIBarButtonItems, or UISegmentedControl, along with the searchBar. In other tabs, there should be nothing in the toolBar, just a title.
What is a good way to lay out the view? Currently based on what tab is selected, the main toolBar from the rootViewController is either used as it is, have a UISegmentedControl added to it, hidden completely and replaced with another viewController that has its own toolbar, etc. To me, I'm thinking that each viewController that is present in its own tab can have its own ToolBar, and reference the global functionality, vs hiding/showing different toolbars.
sorry if this is a convoluted question. Just wondering if people had experience with this. Thanks.
The short answer is that there isn't really a good way to do this. If you're using a tab bar controller, the tab bar will always be visible along the bottom of your screen. Presumably each tab is a UINavigationController with a navigation bar at the top. There's not an appropriate place to put toolbar buttons in this layout.
A better design could be to abandon the UITabBarController and use a UINavigationController as your root view controller. Instead of tabs, you can have a table view with an item for each view of your application. Then you'll have room for a toolbar at the bottom of the screen. In fact, UINavigationController supports having a toolbar at the bottom. You just override the toolbarItems property to return the items that should appear in each of the child view controllers. You'll just need to set toolbarHidden to NO on the UINavigationController, and you're good to go.
I have implemented the search bar for the table in the first tab and this works fine and filters fine, however, with the same code and the xib linked up all the same etc on the second tab it no longer displays the search bar. Is there a simple reason to this?
Separate out the UISearchBar into its own class and then call it from the multiple views. It is not meant to be reinstantiated for each view controller.
Yes, there is a simple reason—the search bar is a subview of your main view, so when that view gets swiped off screen, it disappears with that view. To fix this, you'll have to add the search bar to the view that holds your tab bar controller—you'll probably have to put it in MainWindow.xib. You can still connect it to your tab bar controller if you need to—just add a reference to in the XIB.
I have setup a tab bar application with four tabs on the bottom (as set inside IB) Three of them are UIViews and one of them is a UITableView, and the empty shell of an app switches between tabs fine.
Now, being that I have no experience with tab bars, I am not sure where my logic for the view controllers goes. I am used to setting up a ViewController for each view, is that the case in a tab bar? Does each tab need a separately programmed viewcontroller? If not, how can I link my logic to the correct tab's view?
Please help. Thanks!
A UITabBarController manages an array of UIViewController objects. These in turn manage the UIViews that are visible to the user.
So yes, you need to create a separate UIViewController for each view that you want the UITabBarController to manage.
I guess I'm just really looking for some advice on how to approach my problem.
So far I have an application with a navigationcontroller that has a table view.
Every cell in the table has a text field and image and a disclosure button.
This is sort of my main menu option navigation screen.
When a user clicks a disclosure button I would like to go to a sub view of a tab view controller. The tab view will show different content depending on what cell is selected.
I'm guessing it would have something to do with the accessoryButtonTappedForRowWithIndexPath but after that I'm a little lost.
I've only ever experienced tab controllers from an example in a book where the tabbar controller was dragged onto a window in interface builder.
I'd like to try and pin down a direction to set to work to
I would highly recommend re-thinking your use of the tab bar here. The tab bar is intended to be a top-level control for navigating logically separate parts of your applications. Normal use would be tabs that contain navigation controllers that drill into detail within the navigation.
You may consider changing to use a toolbar rather than a tab bar. The toolbar is intended to change for the context of your current view. You can define the toolbar items in the view for the current navigation bar very easily.
All that said, if you are still set on using tab bar, I would keep the tab bar at the top level of your application and use setViewControllers:animated: to change the tabs when necessary. Again, I think this will end up producing a pretty confusing UI however.
I am trying to make a program with three subviews after the title screen. Two of the views are just standard nib files with UIViewController subclassed to control them, and the third is a Tab Bar view. I can't seem to get the tab bar items to display though. I walked through the Tab bar chapter in "Beginning iPhone Development" which adds the Tab Bar Controller right off the bat as a subview of Window in the app delegate and that works fine. What I want to do though is load up my rootView controller after the third section was chosen from the title screen and then add a Tab Bar view to that. Every time I do this though I get a blank Tab Bar with no tab bar items.
Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated seeing as I've been working at this for a few days now.
Thanks
You can't push a tab bar controller to a navigation controller, which I assume is what you're trying to do. However, you can use a plain UITabBar and implement your own view switching in a UIViewController subclass (rather than a UITabBarController). See this related question.