Change the title in a UITabBarController

Question

I've been trying to change the title of my tab with the following code,

- (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil
{
    self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil];

    if (self) {

        self.title = @"City Search";
        self.tabBarItem = [[UITabBarItem alloc] initWithTabBarSystemItem:UITabBarSystemItemSearch tag:1];
    }

    delegate = (AWSAppDelegate *)[[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate];

    return self;
}

That gives me a iOS native search icon and test. but what I want to do is add my own title, and I tried doing the following,

- (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil
{
    self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil];

    if (self) {

        self.tabBarItem = [[UITabBarItem alloc] init]
        self.tabBarItem.image = myImage;
        self.tabBarItem.title = @"FooBar";
    }

    delegate = (AWSAppDelegate *)[[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate];

    return self;
}

However this just gives me a blank tab without any text, everything else works ok. can you please help? I'm using iOS 6

Answer 1

Following actually worked :) However I've noticed that if the image file does not exist, this won't work...

- (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil
{
    self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil];
    delegate = (AWSAppDelegate *)[[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate];

    if (self) {

        self.title = @"City Search";
        [self.tabBarItem setFinishedSelectedImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"about_tap_icon.png"]withFinishedUnselectedImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"about_tap_icon.png"]];
        [self.tabBarItem setBadgeValue:@"about"];
        [self.tabBarItem setTitle:@"hello"];
    }

    return self;
}

Answer 2

Here is a simple solution, your image must be black and white and in proper size 30x30

    self.title=NSLocalizedString(@"foobar", nil);
    self.tabBarItem.image=[UIImage imageNamed:@"image.png"];

Answer 3

use following code :

myTabItemContainViewController *addVC = [[myTabItemContainViewController alloc] init]; /// initialize object of your viewController       
self.tabBarItem = [[UITabBarItem alloc] init]
self.tabBarItem.image = myImage;
self.tabBarItem.title = @"FooBar";
[addVC setTabBarItem: self.tabBarItem ];

You need to add your tabBarItem to your specific viewController.

Answer 4

The UITabBarItem for this UIViewController would've already been created and added - so there's no need to allocate a new one.

Just modify the current UITabBarItem.

You can also set the selected image like so:

-(void)awakeFromNib
{
    self.title = @"City Search";
    [self.tabBarItem setFinishedSelectedImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"citySearch_selected"]withFinishedUnselectedImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"citySearch_unselected"]];
}