How to animate Tab bar tab switch with a CrossDissolve slide transition?

Question

I'm trying to create a transition effect on a UITabBarController somewhat similar to the Facebook app. I managed to get a "scrolling effect" working on tab switch, but I can't seem to figure out how to cross dissolve (or it doesn't work at least).

Here's my current code:

import UIKit

class ScrollingTabBarControllerDelegate: NSObject, UITabBarControllerDelegate {
    func tabBarController(_ tabBarController: UITabBarController, animationControllerForTransitionFrom fromVC: UIViewController, to toVC: UIViewController) -> UIViewControllerAnimatedTransitioning? {

        return ScrollingTransitionAnimator(tabBarController: tabBarController, lastIndex: tabBarController.selectedIndex)
    }
}

class ScrollingTransitionAnimator: NSObject, UIViewControllerAnimatedTransitioning {
    weak var transitionContext: UIViewControllerContextTransitioning?
    var tabBarController: UITabBarController!
    var lastIndex = 0

    func transitionDuration(using transitionContext: UIViewControllerContextTransitioning?) -> TimeInterval {
        return 0.2
    }

    init(tabBarController: UITabBarController, lastIndex: Int) {
        self.tabBarController = tabBarController
        self.lastIndex = lastIndex
    }

    func animateTransition(using transitionContext: UIViewControllerContextTransitioning) {
        self.transitionContext = transitionContext

        let containerView = transitionContext.containerView
        let fromViewController = transitionContext.viewController(forKey: UITransitionContextViewControllerKey.from)
        let toViewController = transitionContext.viewController(forKey: UITransitionContextViewControllerKey.to)

        containerView.addSubview(toViewController!.view)

        var viewWidth = toViewController!.view.bounds.width

        if tabBarController.selectedIndex < lastIndex {
            viewWidth = -viewWidth
        }

        toViewController!.view.transform = CGAffineTransform(translationX: viewWidth, y: 0)

        UIView.animate(withDuration: self.transitionDuration(using: (self.transitionContext)), delay: 0.0, usingSpringWithDamping: 1.2, initialSpringVelocity: 2.5, options: .transitionCrossDissolve, animations: {
            toViewController!.view.transform = CGAffineTransform.identity
            fromViewController!.view.transform = CGAffineTransform(translationX: -viewWidth, y: 0)
        }, completion: { _ in
            self.transitionContext?.completeTransition(!self.transitionContext!.transitionWasCancelled)
            fromViewController!.view.transform = CGAffineTransform.identity
        })
    }
}

Would be great if anyone know how to get this to work, been trying for days now without progress... :/

edit: I got a cross dissolve working by replacing the UIView.animate block with:

UIView.transition(with: containerView, duration: 0.2, options: .transitionCrossDissolve, animations: {

    toViewController!.view.transform = CGAffineTransform.identity
    fromViewController!.view.transform = CGAffineTransform(translationX: -viewWidth, y: 0)

}, completion: { _ in

    self.transitionContext?.completeTransition(!self.transitionContext!.transitionWasCancelled)
    fromViewController!.view.transform = CGAffineTransform.identity

})

However, the animation is really laggy and not usable :(

edit 2: For people trying to use these snippets, don't forget to hook up the delegate for the UITabBarController, otherwise nothing will happen.

edit 3: I've found a Swift library that does exactly what I was looking for: https://github.com/Interactive-Studio/TransitionableTab

Answer 1

There is a simpler way to doing this. Add the following code in the tabbar delegate:

Working on Swift 2, 3 and 4

class MySubclassedTabBarController: UITabBarController {

    override func viewDidLoad() {
      super.viewDidLoad()
      delegate = self
    }
}

extension MySubclassedTabBarController: UITabBarControllerDelegate  {
    func tabBarController(_ tabBarController: UITabBarController, shouldSelect viewController: UIViewController) -> Bool {

        guard let fromView = selectedViewController?.view, let toView = viewController.view else {
          return false // Make sure you want this as false
        }

        if fromView != toView {
          UIView.transition(from: fromView, to: toView, duration: 0.3, options: [.transitionCrossDissolve], completion: nil)
        }

        return true
    }
}

EDIT (4/23/18) Since this answer is getting popular, I updated the code to remove the force unwraps, which is a bad practice, and added the guard statement.

EDIT (7/11/18) @AlbertoGarcía is right. If you tap the tabbar icon twice you get a blank screen. So I added an extra check