Change UITabBar height

I use UITabBarController as a root view and app supports iOS 6 and above. Project class hierarchy is as below.

UITabBarController
  - tab1
    - UINavigationController
      - UIViewController
      - UIViewController
      .
      .
  - tab2
    - UINavigationController
      - UIViewController
      - UIViewController
      .
      .
      .
  - tab3
    - UIViewController
  - tab4
    - UIViewController

I used below code to change height of UITabBar in one of the UIViewControllers (which is inside UINavigationController) in above hierarchy.

CGRect tabbarFrame = self.tabBarController.tabBar.frame;
tabbarFrame.size.height += 60;
self.tabBarController.tabBar.frame = tabbarFrame;

But its not changing the height. UITabBar is displayed with default height. Though logging its value prints changed value as shown below.

<UITabBar: 0xb528f60; frame = (0 431; 320 109); autoresize = W+TM; layer = <CALayer: 0xb529080>>

How can I change UITabBar's height to achieve something like this:?

Solution 1:

I faced this issue and I was able to solve it.

You have to add following code to your subclass of UITabBarController class.

const CGFloat kBarHeight = 80;

- (void)viewWillLayoutSubviews {
    [super viewWillLayoutSubviews];

    CGRect tabFrame = self.tabBar.frame; //self.TabBar is IBOutlet of your TabBar
    tabFrame.size.height = kBarHeight;
    tabFrame.origin.y = self.view.frame.size.height - kBarHeight;
    self.tabBar.frame = tabFrame;
}

Swift:

override func viewWillLayoutSubviews() {
    super.viewWillLayoutSubviews()

    tabBar.frame.size.height = kBarHeight
    tabBar.frame.origin.y = view.frame.height - kBarHeight
}

Solution 2:

For iOS 8.2, Xcode 6.2 Swift language:

Create a "DNMainTabVC.swift" (DeveloperNameMainTabViewController.swift file) for your UITabBarController (of type UITabBarController) and connect it to your storyboard VC.

Add the following lines:

override func viewWillLayoutSubviews() {
    var tabFrame = self.tabBar.frame
    // - 40 is editable , the default value is 49 px, below lowers the tabbar and above increases the tab bar size
    tabFrame.size.height = 40
    tabFrame.origin.y = self.view.frame.size.height - 40
    self.tabBar.frame = tabFrame
}

This worked for me.

Solution 3:

Swift3.0, Swift 4.0 compatible

Pre-iPhone X default tab bar height: 49pt

iPhone X default tab bar height: 83pt

A universal solution supporting every iOS device including iPhone X screen size would look like this:

1. Capture UITabBar's default height:

   fileprivate lazy var defaultTabBarHeight = { tabBar.frame.size.height }()
   

2. Adjust UITabBar's height:

       override func viewWillLayoutSubviews() {
           super.viewWillLayoutSubviews()
   
           let newTabBarHeight = defaultTabBarHeight + 16.0
   
           var newFrame = tabBar.frame
           newFrame.size.height = newTabBarHeight
           newFrame.origin.y = view.frame.size.height - newTabBarHeight
   
           tabBar.frame = newFrame
       }