I have a need that I'd like to solve with a UITabBarController but I'm struggling to understand if it's actually possible. The primary reason I want to use the UITabBarController is because I get all the interactions and animations for 'free' with the Siri Remote and I'm hoping to avoid implementing a custom UITabBar precisely for that reason.
The mockup of the view I'm after is here: https://imgur.com/a/oOSRLpv
In this mockup the items in the tab bar are view controllers that only take up a portion of the screen partially obscuring the underlying 'custom view.' In my actual application this view controller is part of a UINavigationController.
With that said I've attempted to create a custom UIViewController with a container view that contains a UITabBarController. On the surface this appears to work but has one glaring problem that I haven't figured out how to resolve. That problem is that when the tab bar is in focus and I press the Menu button on the Siri Remote it doesn't hide the tab bar like I'd expect it to, it pops the entire view controller off the navigation stack.
My next stop would be to remove the concept of a container view and make the view controller itself a UITabBarController. Since UITabBarControllers take up the whole window I don't know how to provide a custom 'background view' and have tab bar items only provide part of the view.
I know this is possible because this interface I'm after is essentially identical to the behavior that the tvOS player interface has. What I don't know is if it's possible with a UITabBarController or if I have to go with a plain UITabBar and roll my own animations and gesture recognizers.