Create an Empty Tab-based iOS App in Swift programmatically

README.md

tl;dr; It's not always a great idea to create a tab-based app via storyboard. The following code shows you how to create an empty tab-based App in Swift without storyboard or nib.

View controllers will be created in the following structure:

                tabs
                 |
     ------------|-----------
     |           |          |
   nav1         nav2       nav3

AppDelegate.swift

import UIKit

@UIApplicationMain
class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {

    var window: UIWindow?
    
    func application(application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: NSDictionary?) -> Bool {
        // Override point for customization after application launch.
        
        // Create UIWindow within the screen boundaries.
        self.window = UIWindow(frame: UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds)
        
        var nav1 = UINavigationController()
        var first = FirstViewController(nibName: nil, bundle: nil)
        nav1.viewControllers = [first]
        nav1.tabBarItem = UITabBarItem(title: "Nav1", image: UIImage(named:"IconNav1"), tag: 1)
        
        var nav2 = UINavigationController()
        var second = SecondViewController(nibName: nil, bundle: nil)
        nav2.viewControllers = [second]
        nav2.tabBarItem = UITabBarItem(title: "Nav2", image: UIImage(named:"IconNav2"), tag: 1)
        
        var nav3 = UINavigationController()
        var third = ThirdViewController(nibName: nil, bundle: nil)
        nav3.viewControllers = [third]
        nav3.tabBarItem = UITabBarItem(title: "Nav3", image: UIImage(named:"IconNav3"), tag: 1)
        
        var tabs = UITabBarController()
        tabs.viewControllers = [nav1, nav2, nav3]
        
        self.window!.rootViewController = tabs;
        self.window?.makeKeyAndVisible();
        
        return true
    }

Thank you. This was helpful. I wanted to know the simplest way to get a tab view 👍