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What is foldingtabbar.ios?

yalantis/foldingtabbar.ios — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-07-03

3,671Objective-CAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5Setup · easy

In one sentence

An iOS library that replaces the standard bottom navigation bar with an animated version that folds down to a single plus button and expands outward when tapped, with optional quick-action side buttons on each tab.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What It Does
      Animated tab bar
      Fold and unfold
    Components
      Tab bar controller
      Tab bar view
      Side action buttons
    Setup
      CocoaPods install
      Carthage install
      Manual file drop
    Compatibility
      iOS 7 minimum
      Swift and Objective-C
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Code map

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filefunction / class

What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Add an animated tab bar to your iOS app that collapses to a single button and expands outward when tapped.

USE CASE 2

Replace a standard UITabBarController with a folding version to give your app a more distinctive navigation style.

USE CASE 3

Add quick-action side buttons to each tab item so users can trigger actions without switching away from the current screen.

What is it built with?

Objective-CiOSCocoaPodsCarthage

How does it compare?

yalantis/foldingtabbar.iossyncthing/syncthing-macoscoderzhuxh/xhlaunchad
Stars3,6713,6703,684
LanguageObjective-CObjective-CObjective-C
Setup difficultyeasyeasyeasy
Complexity2/51/52/5
Audiencedevelopergeneraldeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 30min

Requires Xcode and CocoaPods or Carthage, minimum iOS deployment target must be set to iOS 7.0.

License not mentioned in the explanation.

So what is it?

FoldingTabBar.iOS is an Objective-C library for iOS that replaces the standard app navigation bar at the bottom of the screen with an animated version that folds and unfolds. Instead of the usual row of icons that is always visible, the tab bar collapses down to a single center button (a "plus" icon). Tapping it triggers an animation where the other tab items expand outward to the left and right. Tapping the center button again collapses everything back. Each tab item in the expanded bar can also have up to two extra small buttons placed to its left and right. These can be used to trigger actions related to the currently visible screen without navigating away from it, such as a search button or a compose button. The library provides two main components. The first is a drop-in replacement for iOS's built-in tab bar controller called YALFoldingTabBarController, which handles the animation and the switching between screens automatically. The second is the tab bar view itself, which can be used independently if you want to write your own controller logic. Setup in Xcode involves pointing the storyboard at the custom controller class, then supplying arrays of tab bar item images from your app delegate. A delegate protocol lets you respond to taps on the extra side buttons and observe when the bar is expanding or collapsing. The library is available through CocoaPods and Carthage, the standard iOS dependency managers, and also supports manual installation by dropping the source files into a project. It works with both Objective-C and Swift. The minimum iOS version required is iOS 7.0. The design was inspired by an animation concept originally posted on Dribbble.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
I want to add the FoldingTabBar to my Swift iOS project using CocoaPods. Walk me through the setup and how to configure the tab items and images.
Prompt 2
Using yalantis/foldingtabbar.ios, show me how to handle taps on the extra side buttons and run custom code when they are pressed.
Prompt 3
Help me replace my existing UITabBarController with YALFoldingTabBarController in my Objective-C iOS project.
Prompt 4
How do I detect when the FoldingTabBar is expanding or collapsing and run an animation or update the UI at those moments?

Frequently asked questions

What is foldingtabbar.ios?

An iOS library that replaces the standard bottom navigation bar with an animated version that folds down to a single plus button and expands outward when tapped, with optional quick-action side buttons on each tab.

What language is foldingtabbar.ios written in?

Mainly Objective-C. The stack also includes Objective-C, iOS, CocoaPods.

What license does foldingtabbar.ios use?

License not mentioned in the explanation.

How hard is foldingtabbar.ios to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is foldingtabbar.ios for?

Mainly developer.

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