Can I give a UIToolBar a custom background in my iPhone app?

Question

Is it possible to give a UIToolBar a custom background from an image rather than the usual tinted blue/black fade out?

I\'ve tried giving the view a background and s

Answer 1

You can do this with a category that basically adds a new property to UIToolBar. Overriding drawRect can work but it's not necessarily future proof. That same strategy for custom UINavigationBar stopped working with iOS 6.

Here's how I'm doing it.

.h file

@interface UIToolbar (CustomToolbar)

@property (nonatomic, strong) UIView *customBackgroundView;

@end

.m file

#import "CustomToolbar.h"
#import 

static char TIToolbarCustomBackgroundImage;

@implementation UIToolbar (CustomToolbar)

- (void)setCustomBackgroundView:(UIView *)newView {
    UIView *oldBackgroundView = [self customBackgroundView];
    [oldBackgroundView removeFromSuperview];

    [self willChangeValueForKey:@"tfCustomBackgroundView"];
    objc_setAssociatedObject(self, &TIToolbarCustomBackgroundImage,
                             newView,
                             OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN);
    [self didChangeValueForKey:@"tfCustomBackgroundView"];

    if (newView != nil) {
        [self addSubview:newView];
    }
}

- (UIView *)customBackgroundView {
    UIView *customBackgroundView = objc_getAssociatedObject(self, &TIToolbarCustomBackgroundImage);

    return customBackgroundView;
}

@end

In your view controller code, e.g. viewDidLoad

    if (self.navigationController.toolbar.customBackgroundView == nil) {
        self.navigationController.toolbar.customBackgroundView = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"navigation_bar_background.png"]];
        self.navigationController.toolbar.customBackgroundView.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleHeight | UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth;
    }