title: How to subclass a UITabBarController and replace its UITabBar view?
body: <p>I need to subclass a <code>UITabBarController</code> so that I can completely replace the UITabBar view with a custom  view that I can hopefully produce in the interface builder. I tried but am not succeeding.</p>
  <p>First, I created a subclass of <code>UITabBarController</code> along with a xib. I deleted the default view in the xib, and replaced it with a new one that was only 60px tall (the size of my tabbar). I dragged the necessary buttons onto it, and configured the .h file like so:</p>
  <pre><code>@interface ToolbarViewController : UITabBarController
  
  @property (strong, nonatomic) IBOutlet UIView *tabBarView;
  
  @property (strong, nonatomic) IBOutlet UIButton* firstButton;
  @property (strong, nonatomic) IBOutlet UIButton* secondButton;
  
  @end
  </code></pre>
  <p>My xib looks like this:</p>
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/nWRmT.png" alt="Xcode screenshot of the tabbar xib" /></p>
  <p>When I launch the app, I see an empty space at the bottom made for the tab bar, but I am not seeing an actual tab bar:</p>
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/z0ucC.png" alt="App screenshot of the tabbar at runtime" /></p>
  <p>Update: I realize that I'm not actually launching the xib file in the .m file. Anyone know how I can do this properly?</p>