Changing Tint / Background color of UITabBar

Question

The UINavigationBar and UISearchBar both have a tintColor property that allows you to change the tint color (surprising, I know) of both of those items. I want to do the same thing to the UITabBar in my application, but have found now way to change it from the default black color. Any ideas?

Answer 1

iOS 5 has added some new appearance methods for customising the look of most UI elements.

You can target every instance of a UITabBar in your app by using the appearance proxy.

For iOS 5 + 6:

[[UITabBar appearance] setTintColor:[UIColor redColor]];

For iOS 7 and above, please use the following:

[[UITabBar appearance] setBarTintColor:[UIColor redColor]];

Using the appearance proxy will change any tab bar instance throughout the app. For a specific instance, use one of the new properties on that class:

UIColor *tintColor; // iOS 5+6
UIColor *barTintColor; // iOS 7+
UIColor *selectedImageTintColor;
UIImage *backgroundImage;
UIImage *selectionIndicatorImage;

Answer 2

When you just use addSubview your buttons will lose clickability, so instead of

[[self tabBar] addSubview:v];

use:

[[self tabBar] insertSubview:v atIndex:0];

Answer 3

I have been able to make it work by subclassing a UITabBarController and using private classes:

@interface UITabBarController (private)
- (UITabBar *)tabBar;
@end

@implementation CustomUITabBarController


- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];

    CGRect frame = CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, self.view.bounds.size.width, 48);
    UIView *v = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:frame];
    [v setBackgroundColor:kMainColor];
    [v setAlpha:0.5];
    [[self tabBar] addSubview:v];
    [v release];

}
@end

Answer 4

[v setBackgroundColor ColorwithRed: Green: Blue: ];

Answer 5

On iOS 7:

[[UITabBar appearance] setBarTintColor:[UIColor colorWithRed:(38.0/255.0) green:(38.0/255.0) blue:(38.0/255.0) alpha:1.0]];

I also recommend setting first depending on your visual desires:

[[UITabBar appearance] setBarStyle:UIBarStyleBlack];

The bar style puts a subtle separator between your view content and your tab bar.

Answer 6

Swift 3 using appearance from your AppDelegate do the following:

UITabBar.appearance().barTintColor = your_color