Adding a UILabel to a UIToolbar

Question

I\'m trying to add a label to my toolbar. Button works great, however when I add the label object, it crashes. Any ideas?

UIBarButtonItem *setDateRangeButton         


        

Answer 1

I found answerBot's answer very useful, but I think I found an even easier way, in Interface Builder:

• create a UIBarButtonItem and add it to your Toolbar in Interface Builder

• Uncheck "enabled" for this BarButtonItem

• plug this BarButtonItem to a property in your class (this is in Swift, but would be very similar in Obj-C):

  @IBOutlet private weak var lastUpdateButton: UIBarButtonItem! // Dummy barButtonItem whose customView is lastUpdateLabel
  

• add another property for the Label itself:

  private var lastUpdateLabel = UILabel(frame: CGRectZero)
  

• in viewDidLoad, add the following code to set the properties of your label, and add it as the customView of your BarButtonItem

  // Dummy button containing the date of last update
  lastUpdateLabel.sizeToFit()
  lastUpdateLabel.backgroundColor = UIColor.clearColor()
  lastUpdateLabel.textAlignment = .Center
  lastUpdateButton.customView = lastUpdateLabel
  

• To update the UILabel text:

  lastUpdateLabel.text = "Updated: 9/12/14, 2:53"
  lastUpdateLabel.sizeToFit() 
  

Result :

You have to call lastUpdateLabel.sizetoFit() each time you update the label text