View on Top of UITabBar

Question

Similar to what the Spotify or Apple Music app does when a song is playing, it places a custom view on top of the UITabBar:

Solutions I\'ve tried:

1. UITa

Answer 1

This is actually very easy if you subclass UITabBarController and add your view programmatically. Using this technique automatically supports rotation and size changes of the tab bar, regardless of which version you are on.

class CustomTabBarController: UITabBarController {
  override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()

    //...do some of your custom setup work
    // add a container view above the tabBar
    let containerView = UIView()
    containerView.backgroundColor = .red
    view.addSubview(containerView)
    containerView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
    containerView.leftAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.leftAnchor).isActive = true
    containerView.rightAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.rightAnchor).isActive = true

    // anchor your view right above the tabBar
    containerView.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: tabBar.topAnchor).isActive = true

    containerView.heightAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: 50).isActive = true
  }
}