Add UIImage or UILabel to navigationItems

Question

In my app, I have to customize my navigation bar depending on the page I'm on. In some views, I need to add some UIButton, but also some UIImage (for the logo that is not centered) or some UILabel.

I could do that using [self.navigationController.navigationBar addSubview:myLabel]. But I don't really like this method because if I ever have to add a UIButton or just change the text of the UILabel, I need to change manually the origin of each UILabel and each UIImage.

I thought of using something that already exists : UIBarButtonItem. It can contain some text, an image, and I just need to add each of them in the navigationItem.leftBarButtonItems, and every thing is nicely positioned.

The only problem that remains, is that it still is a button, and reacts as a one when pressed. If I disable it, it's alpha changes to show it's disabled... How could I keep it's normal apparence, and let it disabled ?

Thanks !

PS: I'm open to any other idea to add UIImages or UILabels in a navigation bar :)

Answer 1

You can do this by not setting any @selector for created button, and setting the same customized properties for both UIControlStateNormal and UIControlStateSelected. Also, set tintColor to ClearColor. Like that, button will still be a button, it will stay there, always look the same but it won't do anything.

Hope it helps.

Answer 2

Try this code snippet. You can change Label and imageView frame and put as your requirement.

UIView *btn = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, 60)];

UILabel *label;
label = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(5, 25, 200, 16)];
label.tag = 1;
label.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
label.font = [UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize:16];
label.adjustsFontSizeToFitWidth = NO;
label.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentLeft;
label.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
label.text = @"My first lable";
label.highlightedTextColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
[btn addSubview:label];
[label release];

label = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 30, 200, 16)];
label.tag = 2;
label.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
label.font = [UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize:16];
label.adjustsFontSizeToFitWidth = NO;
label.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentRight;
label.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
label.text = @"second line";
label.highlightedTextColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
[btn addSubview:label];
[label release];


UIImageView *imgviw=[[UIImageView alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(170, 10, 20, 20)];
 imgviw.backgroundColor = [UIColor blackColor];
imgviw.image=[UIImage imageNamed:@"abc.png"];
 [btn addSubview:imgviw];

self.navigationItem.titleView = btn;

Hope that it helps.

Answer 3

you can use barButton created with customView.

for example,

UIButton *btn =[UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom];
[btn setFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 100, 40)];
[btn setTitle:@"some Title" forState:UIControlStateNormal];
[btn setBackgroundColor:[UIColor greenColor]];

self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem =[[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithCustomView:btn];