Using Tabs

Remarks#

Always remember to check out Ionic 2 Tab docs to be aware of the latest changes and updates.

Change selected tab programatically from child Page

You can take a look at the full code in this working Plunker.

In this example I use a shared service to handle the communication between the pages inside the tab (child pages) and the tab container (the component that holds the tabs). Even though you probably could do it with Events I like the shared service approach because is easier to understand and also to mantain when the application starts growing.

TabService

import {Injectable} from '@angular/core';
import {Platform} from 'ionic-angular/index';
import {Observable} from 'rxjs/Observable';
 
@Injectable()
export class TabService { 
  
  private tabChangeObserver: any;
  public tabChange: any;

  constructor(private platform: Platform){
    this.tabChangeObserver = null;
    this.tabChange = Observable.create(observer => {
        this.tabChangeObserver = observer;
    });
  }
  
  public changeTabInContainerPage(index: number) {
    this.tabChangeObserver.next(index);
  }
}

So basically the TabService only creates an Observable to allow the tabs container to subscribe to it, and also declares the changeTabInContainerPage() method that will be called from the child pages.

Then, in each child page (the ones inside the tabs) we only add a button and bind the click event to a method that calls the service:

Page1.html

<ion-content class="has-header">
    <h1>Page 1</h1>
    <button secondary (click)="changeTab()">Select next tab</button>
</ion-content>

Page1.ts

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { Observable } from 'rxjs/Observable';
import { TabService } from 'tabService.ts';

@Component({
  templateUrl:"page1.html"
})
export class Page1 {

  constructor(private tabService: TabService) { }

  public changeTab() {
    this.tabService.changeTabInContainerPage(1);
  }
}

And finally, in the TabsPage, we only subscribe to the service, and then we change the selected tab with this.tabRef.select(index);

import { Component, ViewChild } from "@angular/core";
import { Page1 } from './page1.ts';
import { Page2 } from './page2.ts';
import { TabService } from 'tabService.ts'; 

@Component({
  templateUrl: 'tabs.html'
})
export class TabsPage {
  @ViewChild('myTabs') tabRef: Tabs;

  tab1Root: any = Page1;
  tab2Root: any = Page2;

  constructor(private tabService: TabService){
    this.tabService.tabChange.subscribe((index) => {
      this.tabRef.select(index);
    });
  }
}

Please notice that we’re getting a reference to the Tabs instance by adding #myTabs in the ion-tabs element, and we get it from the component with @ViewChild('myTabs') tabRef: Tabs;

<ion-tabs #myTabs>
  <ion-tab [root]="tab1Root" tabTitle="Tab 1"></ion-tab>
  <ion-tab [root]="tab2Root" tabTitle="Tab 2"></ion-tab>
</ion-tabs>

Change tab with selectedIndex

Instead of getting a reference to the DOM you can simply change the index of the tab using the selectedIndex attribute on the ion-tabs

HTML:

 <ion-tabs [selectedIndex]="tabIndex" class="tabs-icon-text" primary >
      <ion-tab tabIcon="list-box"   [root]="tabOne"></ion-tab>
      <ion-tab tabIcon="contacts"  [root]="tabTwo"></ion-tab>
      <ion-tab tabIcon="chatboxes"  [tabBadge]="messagesReceived" [root]="tabFive"></ion-tab> 
 </ion-tabs>

TS:

 import { Events} from "ionic-angular";

 export class tabs {
  public tabIndex: number;
  constructor(e: Events) {
    tabs.mySelectedIndex = navParams.data.tabIndex || 0;
    e.subscribe("tab:change", (newIndex) => this.tabIndex = newIndex);
  }
}

If you want to change it from some other controller service you can send an event:

e.publish("tab:change",2);