UINavigationBar with solid color iOS 5

Question

I'm using the category to customize nav bar. My code is:

- (void) drawRect:(CGRect)rect {
    CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
    CGContextSetFillColor(context, CGColorGetComponents([self.tintColor CGColor]));
    CGContextFillRect(context, rect);
}

It works well, but not in iOS 5. I need nav bar color to be solid without any gradient. How should I do this?

As I know, for iOS 5 the only way to replace drawRect method is to make a subclass, but is there any way to make all navigation controllers to use UINavigationBar subclass instead of original class?

Answer 1

In iOS 5 you can use the UIAppearance protocol to set the appearance of all UINavigationBars in your app. Reference: link.

The way I got a solid color was to create a custom image for the navigation bar, and set it as UINavigationBars background. You might have to create the image with the same size as the UINavigationBar, at least that's what I did.

In your app delegate, do something like this:

UIImage *image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"navbarbg.png"];
[[UINavigationBar appearance] setBackgroundImage:image forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];

You also have to add the UIAppearanceContainer protocol to the header file:

@interface AppDelegate : UIResponder <UIApplicationDelegate, UIAppearanceContainer>

@end

You can probably achieve the same thing by setting some color or something, instead of an image. But I found this to be an easy solution.

Answer 2

This covers both iOS 5 and iOS 4.3 and earlier

https://gist.github.com/1774444

Answer 3

This is more of a hack and has consistently worked for me. This needs to be in the AppDelegate file.

//Create  a size struct.
CGSize size = CGSizeMake(768, 50);

//CReate a imagecontext from a non-existing image. You can use a existing image as well, in that case the color will be the color of the image. 
UIImage *backgroundImage = [UIImage imageNamed:@"nonexist.png"];

UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(size);

[backgroundImage drawInRect:CGRectMake(0,0,size.width,size.height)];

UIImage* newImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();

UIGraphicsEndImageContext();

self.navigationController = [[UINavigationController alloc]initWithRootViewController:self.viewController];

Set the background color to be the color of your choice.

[self.navigationController.view setBackgroundColor:[UIColor blackColor]];

self.window.rootViewController = navigationController;
[self.window makeKeyAndVisible];

//Most important line.
[navigationController.navigationBar setBackgroundImage: newImage forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];