Can we have a simple way to customize the behavior when clicking the bottom tabs?

[nicholasyin]

Instead of having to navigate to some routes, it's very common to use the bottom tabs as some sort of context menu. Currently I don't find a simple way to define the menu items and its accompanying click handling logic. Right now the tabs can only be defined in Shell.xaml and it can only do navigation.

[rokmeglic71]

CoPilot AI got this question — here are a few practical ways you can currently intercept or override bottom tab clicks in .NET MAUI Shell, even though there’s no official “tab click event” yet.

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1️⃣ Use CurrentItemChanged or Navigating events

Shell exposes events you can hook into when navigation changes.
You can detect when a tab is selected and run your own logic instead of navigating.

Shell.Current.Navigating += (s, e) =>
{
    if (e.Target.Location.OriginalString.Contains("//mytab"))
    {
        e.Cancel(); // stop default navigation
        // run your custom action here
    }
};

Pros: Simple to implement.
Cons: Fires for all navigation, so you’ll need to filter carefully.

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2️⃣ Custom ShellItem with a Tapped gesture

You can wrap the tab’s content in a ContentView or Grid and attach a TapGestureRecognizer:

<ShellContent>
    <ContentPage>
        <Grid>
            <!-- Your UI -->
            <Grid.GestureRecognizers>
                <TapGestureRecognizer Command="{Binding TabTappedCommand}" />
            </Grid.GestureRecognizers>
        </Grid>
    </ContentPage>
</ShellContent>

Pros: Lets you run code without changing Shell’s navigation structure.
Cons: Still navigates unless you design the tab to be a “dummy” page.

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3️⃣ Use a “dummy” route and trigger logic manually

Instead of pointing the tab to a real page, point it to a placeholder route and handle it in code:

Routing.RegisterRoute("dummy", typeof(EmptyPage));

Then in Navigating or CurrentItemChanged, detect "dummy" and run your action.

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4️⃣ Fully custom bottom navigation bar

If you need complete control, you can hide Shell’s built‑in tabs and create your own bottom bar using a Grid or CollectionView bound to commands.
This way, each “tab” is just a button that can do anything — navigate, open a modal, show a popup, etc.

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💡 Tip: If you only need to override one or two tabs, the “dummy route + cancel navigation” trick is the least invasive. If you want a fully interactive bottom bar with no navigation at all, go custom.

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If you want, I can put together a minimal working sample where one Shell tab opens a popup instead of navigating — that’s the most common request in discussions like [#31532](#31532).

[nicholasyin]

I believe there're ways to implement the effect, but sadly there's no 'simple' or 'built-in' way to support it. Thanks anyway. I chose the last method eventually:-). Others are more like hacks than methods to me. Hope this feature could be added some day.