Styling the cancel button in a UISearchBar

Question

I have a UISearchBar that has a cancel button (it\'s displayed using -(void)setShowsCancelButton:animated). I\'ve changed the tintColor of the sear

Answer 1

After you've initialized your UISearchBar, you can probe into it's subviews and customize each of them. Example:

for (UIView *view in searchBar.subviews) {

    //if subview is the button
    if ([[view.class description] isEqualToString:@"UINavigationButton"]) {

        //change the button images and text for different states
        [((UIButton *)view) setEnabled:YES];
        [((UIButton *)view) setTitle:nil forState:UIControlStateNormal];
        [((UIButton *)view) setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"button image"] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
        [((UIButton *)view) setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"button"] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
        [((UIButton *)view) setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"button_pressed"] forState:UIControlStateSelected];
        [((UIButton *)view) setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"button_pressed"] forState:UIControlStateHighlighted];

    //if the subview is the background
    }else if([[view.class description] isEqualToString:@"UISearchBarBackground"]) {

        //put a custom gradient overtop the background
        CAGradientLayer *gradient = [CAGradientLayer layer];
        gradient.frame = view.bounds;
        gradient.colors = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:(id)[[some uicolor] CGColor], (id)[[another uicolor] CGColor], nil];
        [view.layer insertSublayer:gradient atIndex:0];

    //if the subview is the textfield
    }else if([[view.class description] isEqualToString:@"UISearchBarTextField"]){

        //change the text field if you wish

    }

}

Worked out great for me! Especially the gradient :)