How to Change Tab Bar Item Selected Color in Xcode Storyboard

28 February 2025 Stephan Petzl Leave a comment Xcode

Customizing the appearance of your app’s UI can enhance user experience significantly. One common customization is changing the color of tab bar items in an iOS app. This guide will walk you through the steps to change the selected color of tab bar items using Xcode’s Storyboard.

Solution Overview

To change the selected color of tab bar items, you can utilize the “Runtime Attribute” feature in Xcode’s Storyboard. This method is applicable for Xcode 8 and above, and supports Swift versions 3.0, 4.2, and 5.1.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Open your project in Xcode and navigate to the Storyboard file where your Tab Bar is located.
2. Select the Tab Bar in the Storyboard.
3. In the Attributes Inspector, set a Runtime Attribute named tintColor to the desired color for the selected tab bar item. You may use UIColor for specifying your color.
4. Optionally, set another Runtime Attribute named unselectedItemTintColor for the unselected tab bar items to further customize the appearance.

Additional Considerations

If you prefer programmatic customization, you can also modify the tab bar appearance in your AppDelegate.swift file:

UITabBar.appearance().tintColor = UIColor(red: 255/255.0, green: 105/255.0, blue: 180/255.0, alpha: 1.0)

This code snippet sets the tab bar selected item color to pink. Adjust the RGB values to suit your design specifications.

Enhancing Your Testing Process with Repeato

When developing mobile applications, ensuring that UI changes like these are consistent across different devices and versions is crucial. This is where automated testing tools like Repeato come into play. Repeato is a no-code test automation tool designed to simplify the testing process for iOS, Android, and web apps.

With Repeato, you can easily record tests using a test recorder, which is particularly fast and efficient. Its AI-driven approach ensures reliability in identifying UI elements, even after changes. Furthermore, Repeato supports data-driven and keyword-driven testing, allowing for comprehensive test scenarios. All test data is saved in text and JSON formats, making it easy to integrate with version control systems.

For more detailed guidance on setting up your automated testing environment, check out our getting started documentation.

By incorporating Repeato into your development workflow, you can streamline the testing of UI customizations like tab bar color changes, ensuring a consistent and high-quality user experience across all platforms.

Check it out!

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