How to subclass UINavigationBar for a UINavigationController programmatically?

Question

I\'m using a custom drawRect function to draw on UINavigationBar across my application in iOS4, it doesn\'t use images, only CoreGraphics.

Since you ca

Answer 1

Had issues with answers 2-4 in iOS 4 (from AnswerBot's answer), and needed a way to load the UINavigationController programmatically (though the NIB method worked)... So I did this:

Created a Blank XIB file (don't set file owner), add a UINavigationController (give it your custom UINavigationController's class), change the UINavigationBar to your custom class (here it's CustomNavigationBar), then create the following custom class header (CustomNavigationController.h in this case):

#import 

@interface CustomNavigationController : UINavigationController
+ (CustomNavigationController *)navigationController;
+ (CustomNavigationController *)navigationControllerWithRootViewController:(UIViewController *)rootViewController;
@end

and custom implementation (CustomNavigationController.mm)

#import "CustomNavigationController.h"

@interface CustomNavigationController ()

@end

@implementation CustomNavigationController
+ (CustomNavigationController *)navigationController
{
    NSArray *nib = [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:@"CustomNavigationController" owner:self options:nil];
    CustomNavigationController *controller = (CustomNavigationController *)[nib objectAtIndex:0];
    return controller;
}


+ (CustomNavigationController *)navigationControllerWithRootViewController:(UIViewController *)rootViewController
{
    CustomNavigationController *controller = [CustomNavigationController navigationController];
    [controller setViewControllers:[NSArray arrayWithObject:rootViewController]];
    return controller;
}

- (id)init
{
    self = [super init];
    [self autorelease]; // We are ditching the one they allocated.  Need to load from NIB.
    return [[CustomNavigationController navigationController] retain]; // Over-retain, this should be alloced
}

- (id)initWithRootViewController:(UIViewController *)rootViewController
{
    self = [super init];
    [self autorelease];
    return [[CustomNavigationController navigationControllerWithRootViewController:rootViewController] retain];
}
@end

Then you can just init that class instead of a UINavigationController, and you'll have your custom navigation bar. If you want to do it in a xib, change the class of UINavigationController and UINavigationBar inside of your XIB.