Motion Tab Bar v2

A highly customizable, animated bottom navigation bar for Flutter apps. The active tab icon animates into place with a smooth motion effect, and colors, sizes, icons, labels and badges are fully customizable.

Built with Flutter 3 and null-safety support.

Features

🎬 Animated tab bar with a smooth "motion" indicator that slides to the selected tab
🎨 Fully customizable colors, sizes and text styles
🖼️ Custom icons via IconData or custom widgets (iconWidgets)
🔔 Badges / notification indicators (built-in MotionBadgeWidget or any custom widget)
🎯 Programmatic tab navigation via MotionTabBarController
📱 Safe area support
🏷️ Option to always show tab labels (labelAlwaysVisible)

Preview

v0.3.0+ — programmatic tab changes

0.3.x screenshot, example with programmatically change tabs

v0.2.x

0.2.x screenshot

v0.1.x animation preview

MotionTabBar Gif

Getting Started

Add the package to your pubspec.yaml:

dependencies:
  motion_tab_bar_v2: ^3.0.0

Basic Usage

1. Import the package

import 'package:motion_tab_bar_v2/motion-tab-bar.dart';

// optional, only if using the provided badge style
import 'package:motion_tab_bar_v2/motion-badge.widget.dart';

// optional, only if using "MotionTabBarController" to programmatically change the tab
import 'package:motion_tab_bar_v2/motion-tab-controller.dart';

2. Create a controller

Use a MotionTabBarController (instead of a plain TabController) if you need to change the selected tab programmatically:

class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> with TickerProviderStateMixin {
  MotionTabBarController? _motionTabBarController;

  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();

    //// Use normal tab controller
    // _tabController = TabController(
    //   initialIndex: 1,
    //   length: 4,
    //   vsync: this,
    // );

    //// use "MotionTabBarController" to replace with "TabController", if you need to programmatically change the tab
    _motionTabBarController = MotionTabBarController(
      initialIndex: 1,
      length: 4,
      vsync: this,
    );
  }

  @override
  void dispose() {
    super.dispose();

    // _tabController.dispose();
    _motionTabBarController!.dispose();
  }
}

3. Add MotionTabBar to the Scaffold

bottomNavigationBar: MotionTabBar(
  controller: _motionTabBarController, // ADD THIS if you need to change your tab programmatically
  initialSelectedTab: "Home",
  useSafeArea: true, // default: true, apply safe area wrapper
  labelAlwaysVisible: true, // default: false, set to "true" if you need to always show labels
  labels: const ["Dashboard", "Home", "Profile", "Settings"],

  //// use default icon (with IconData)
  // icons: const [
  //   Icons.dashboard,
  //   Icons.home,
  //   Icons.people_alt,
  //   Icons.settings,
  // ],

  // use custom widget as display Icon
  iconWidgets: [
    _generateCustomIcon('<svgString>'),
    _generateCustomIcon('<svgString>'),
    _generateCustomIcon('<svgString>'),
    _generateCustomIcon('<svgString>'),
  ],

  // optional badges, length must be same with labels
  badges: [
    // Default Motion Badge Widget
    const MotionBadgeWidget(
      text: '99+',
      textColor: Colors.white, // optional, default to Colors.white
      color: Colors.blue, // optional, default to Colors.red
      size: 18, // optional, default to 18
    ),

    // custom badge Widget
    Container(
      color: Colors.black,
      padding: const EdgeInsets.all(2),
      child: const Text(
        '48',
        style: TextStyle(
          fontSize: 14,
          color: Colors.white,
        ),
      ),
    ),

    // allow null
    null,

    // Default Motion Badge Widget with indicator only
    const MotionBadgeWidget(
      isIndicator: true,
      color: Colors.blue, // optional, default to Colors.red
      size: 5, // optional, default to 5,
      show: true, // true / false
    ),
  ],
  tabSize: 50,
  tabBarHeight: 55,
  textStyle: const TextStyle(
    fontSize: 12,
    color: Colors.black,
    fontWeight: FontWeight.w500,
  ),
  // tabIconColor: Colors.blue[600],
  tabIconSize: 28.0,
  tabIconSelectedSize: 32.0,
  tabSelectedColor: Colors.white,
  tabIconSelectedColor: Colors.black,
  tabBarColor: Colors.orange,
  onTabItemSelected: (int value) {
    setState(() {
      _motionTabBarController!.index = value;
    });
  },
),

4. Add a TabBarView to the Scaffold body

body: TabBarView(
  physics: const NeverScrollableScrollPhysics(), // swipe navigation handling is not supported
  // controller: _tabController,
  controller: _motionTabBarController,
  children: <Widget>[
    const Center(
      child: Text("Dashboard"),
    ),
    const Center(
      child: Text("Home"),
    ),
    const Center(
      child: Text("Profile"),
    ),
    const Center(
      child: Text("Settings"),
    ),
  ],
),

5. Change tabs programmatically

ElevatedButton(
  // set MotionTabBarController index to new tab index
  onPressed: () => _motionTabBarController.index = 0,
  child: const Text('Dashboard Page'),
),
ElevatedButton(
  // set MotionTabBarController index to new tab index
  onPressed: () => _motionTabBarController.index = 1,
  child: const Text('Home Page'),
),

Parameters

MotionTabBar

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`initialSelectedTab`	`String`	— (required)	Label of the tab selected when the widget is first built. Must be one of `labels`.
`labels`	`List<String?>`	— (required)	Labels of the tabs. Length must match `icons` / `iconWidgets`.
`icons`	`List<IconData>?`	`null`	Icons for each tab. Mutually exclusive with `iconWidgets`; either one must be provided.
`iconWidgets`	`List<Widget>?`	`null`	Custom widgets used as tab icons. Mutually exclusive with `icons`; either one must be provided.
`badges`	`List<Widget?>?`	`null`	Badges shown on each tab. Length must match `labels`; entries may be `null` to hide a badge.
`controller`	`MotionTabBarController?`	`null`	Controller used to change the selected tab programmatically.
`onTabItemSelected`	`Function?`	`null`	Callback invoked when a tab is selected, receiving the index of the selected tab.
`tabIconColor`	`Color?`	`Colors.black`	Color of the unselected tab icons.
`tabIconSelectedColor`	`Color?`	`Colors.white`	Color of the selected tab icon (inside the floating indicator).
`tabIconSize`	`double?`	`24`	Size of the unselected tab icons.
`tabIconSelectedSize`	`double?`	`24`	Size of the selected tab icon.
`tabSelectedColor`	`Color?`	`Colors.black`	Background color of the floating indicator circle.
`tabBarColor`	`Color?`	`Colors.white`	Background color of the tab bar.
`tabBarHeight`	`double?`	`65`	Height of the tab bar.
`tabSize`	`double?`	`60`	Size of the floating indicator circle.
`textStyle`	`TextStyle?`	`TextStyle(color: Colors.black)`	Text style applied to the tab labels.
`useSafeArea`	`bool`	`true`	Whether to wrap the tab bar in a `SafeArea`.
`labelAlwaysVisible`	`bool`	`false`	Whether tab labels are always visible. When `false`, only the selected tab's label is shown.

MotionBadgeWidget

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`text`	`String?`	`null`	Badge text (at most 3 characters).
`isIndicator`	`bool?`	`false`	When `true`, renders a plain indicator dot instead of a text badge.
`color`	`Color?`	`Colors.red`	Background color of the badge.
`textColor`	`Color?`	`Colors.white`	Color of the badge text.
`size`	`double?`	`18` (or `5` for indicator)	Size of the badge.
`disabled`	`bool?`	`false`	When `true`, renders the badge in a dimmed style.
`show`	`bool?`	`true`	When `false`, hides the badge.

MotionTabBarController

MotionTabBarController extends Flutter's TabController and adds a callback so the MotionTabBar animates to the new tab when its index is changed programmatically.

Member	Type	Description
`index` (setter)	`int`	Sets the current tab index and notifies the `MotionTabBar` to animate to the new tab.
`onTabChange` (setter)	`Function(int)?`	Callback invoked when the tab index changes. Used internally by `MotionTabBar`.

Example

A complete, runnable example app is available in the example/ folder (and a full multi-platform app in example_app/). It demonstrates:

Custom icon widgets via iconWidgets (SVG icons)
Badges with MotionBadgeWidget and custom widgets
Programmatic tab changes via MotionTabBarController

Run it with:

cd example
flutter run

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you find a bug or have a feature request, please open an issue or submit a pull request.

License

MIT