Subclassing UINavigationBar ... how do I use it in UINavigationController?
- by funkadelic
Hi,
I wanted to subclass UINavigationBar (to set a custom background image & text color) and use that for all the navigation bars in my app. Looking at the API docs for UINavigationController, it looks like navigationBar is read-only:
@property(nonatomic, readonly) UINavigationBar *navigationBar
Is there a way to actually use a custom UINavigationBar in my UIViewControllers? I know that other apps have done custom navigation bars, like flickr:
Here is my UINavigationBar subclass:
#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
@interface MyNavigationBar : UINavigationBar <UINavigationBarDelegate> {
}
@end
the implementation
#import "MyNavigationBar.h"
@implementation MyNavigationBar
- (id)initWithFrame:(CGRect)frame {
if (self = [super initWithFrame:frame]) {
// Initialization code
}
return self;
}
- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect {
// override the standard background with our own custom one
UIImage *image = [[UIImage imageNamed:@"navigation_bar_bgd.png"] retain];
[image drawInRect:rect];
[image release];
}
#pragma mark -
#pragma mark UINavigationDelegate Methods
- (void)navigationController:(UINavigationController *)navigationController willShowViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController animated:(BOOL)animated{
// use the title of the passed in view controller
NSString *title = [viewController title];
// create our own UILabel with custom color, text, etc
UILabel *titleView = [[UILabel alloc] init];
[titleView setFont:[UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize:18]];
[titleView setTextColor:[UIColor blackColor]];
titleView.text = title;
titleView.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
[titleView sizeToFit];
viewController.navigationItem.titleView = titleView;
[titleView release];
viewController.navigationController.navigationBar.tintColor = [UIColor colorWithRed:0.1 green:0.2 blue:0.3 alpha:0.8];
}
- (void)navigationController:(UINavigationController *)navigationController didShowViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController animated:(BOOL)animated{
}
- (void)dealloc {
[super dealloc];
}
@end
I know that I can use a category to change the background image, but i still want to be able to set the text color of the navigation bar title
@implementation UINavigationBar (CustomImage)
- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect {
UIImage *image = [UIImage imageNamed: @"navigation_bar_bgd.png"];
[image drawInRect:CGRectMake(0, 0, self.frame.size.width, self.frame.size.height)];
}
@end
any suggestions or other solutions? I basically want to create a light background and dark text like Flickr's app navigation bars