TabBarController rotation problems

Question

All week I have been searching SO for a solution to my unique problem, but nothing has worked for me yet. I have a TabBarController that has 6 tabs. iOS automatically create

Answer 1

Changing the orientation of a UITabBarController

While there are dozens of maybe and try this for this problem, the main issue reside in the careful design of each UINavigationController, a proper response to supportedInterfaceOrientations in the UITabBarController, and some code to enforce the desired orientation.

In all likelihood, this may just be an iOS bug, since once rotated, the UINavBarController and all embedded UINavigationController behave correctly.

The following statement is not true. Tab bar controllers do rotate.

TabBarControllers can't rotate

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Setup orientation for each UINavigationController

Landscape example:

class HorizontalNavigationController: UINavigationController {
    override var supportedInterfaceOrientations : UIInterfaceOrientationMask {
        return .landscape
    }
}

Portrait example:

class VerticalNavigationController: UINavigationController {
    override var supportedInterfaceOrientations : UIInterfaceOrientationMask {
        return .portrait
    }
}

Defer TabBarController orientation to selected view controller

class TabBarController: UITabBarController {
    override var supportedInterfaceOrientations : UIInterfaceOrientationMask {
        if let selectedViewController = selectedViewController {
            return selectedViewController.supportedInterfaceOrientations
        }
        return .allButUpsideDown
    }
}

Enforce the interface orientation change

This is the contentious aspect of UITabBarController. Somehow, the orientation change does not happen like it would in a UINavigationController, and needs a nudge.

To do so with the fewest amount of code, use an Object and subclass it into a TabBarControllerDelegate. You can do most of the work in Interface Builder.

class TabBarControllerDelegate: NSObject, UITabBarControllerDelegate {
    func tabBarController(_ tabBarController: UITabBarController, didSelect viewController: UIViewController) {
        let orientedViewController = UIViewController()

        tabBarController.present(orientedViewController, animated: false) { () -> Void in
            tabBarController.dismiss(animated: false, completion: { () -> Void in
            })
        }
    }
}

Storyboard Structure

Using a Storyboard helps visualize the structure of the application as well as the relationship between all classes.

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► Find this solution on GitHub and additional details on Swift Recipes.