Comments on: Adding any kinds of UI elements into a UINavigationBar

By: Alexander

Alexander — Fri, 20 May 2011 20:41:47 +0000

@Miri
I’m not sure what exactly you’re doing.Maybe you should create a small demo project and send it to me, so I can see what you’ve done.

By: Miri

Miri — Thu, 12 May 2011 05:37:08 +0000

Hi Alexander,

That’s what I did – I used a Navigation toolbar without a navigation controller. I added a Navigation toolbar programmatically in viewDidLoad. Then, in another function, I wanted to change its leftBarButtonItem and I was able to do it only when I added again the Navigation toolbar.

Thanks,
Miri

By: Alexander

Alexander — Wed, 11 May 2011 23:32:41 +0000

@Miri
When using a UINavigationController, you can set the left and right buttons only under certain conditions, because the controller really controls almost everything at all times. This means you can usually only use the default behavior of the UINavigationController.
When using a Navigation toolbar without a navigation controller you have much more freedom.

By: Miri

Miri — Wed, 11 May 2011 09:47:42 +0000

Hi,
Good explanation!
If I want to refer this navBar instance, somewhere else in the code and change its leftBarButtonItem, how do I do it? I only succeed when I defined the navBar again and add it again to self.view. I assume there is a better way to do it.

Thanks a lot,
Miri

By: Alexander

Alexander — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 10:19:47 +0000

@Allen
You don’t need a private API for this. All you need to do is to place a UIView with a semi-transparent background color on top of the URL field and resize this view based on the current progress value. And if you make sure that the user-interaction property for this UIView is switched off, all taps on this view will go directly to the URL field which is located below the progress view.

By: Allen

Allen — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 07:00:40 +0000

Thanks Alexander.
I wonder how did you show the progress in the UITextField you put on the navigationBar? I used a private API [UITextField setProgress:(float)value], but the result is very strange.

By: Akram

Akram — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:00:38 +0000

Nice Example… great one really

By: Alexander

Alexander — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:48:17 +0000

@AD
Just use the standard methods for the buttons to disable them. UIButton objects (or UIControl objects) do have properties like “selected”, “enabled”, “highlighted”. So there’s nothing special here.

By: AD

AD — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:19:05 +0000

How do you disable buttons that you’ve added to the uinavigation bar, esp if you do it this way? Thanks

By: Kartik Thapar

Kartik Thapar — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 11:17:08 +0000

Thanks Alexander. Much help.

Would it be possible for you to pass me those button images? I am looking out for the search button, actions button and organise button. I am not good at photoshop, so I cannot make them myself.

Thanks for your help.

By: Alexander

Alexander — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 09:24:28 +0000

@Kartik Thapar

In iCab Mobile the toolbar is just a normal UIView with a background image. And the buttons are standard UIButtons.

But even if you’re using a navigation toolbar (which is also just a UIView), you have to add normal buttons (as subviews) instead of UIBarButtonItems if you need more than just two buttons in the toolbar. A navigation toolbar accepts only two UIBarButtonItems at certain locations. And because a UIBarButtonItem is not a UIView, you can’t add them as subviews as normal UIViews.

By: Kartik Thapar

Kartik Thapar — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 23:26:05 +0000

Hi Alexander

I am trying to create a uinavigation bar which is quite similar to the one we find in safari (iPad). The issue is that I am not able to add uibarbuttonitems to the navigation bar. The navigation bar would be more than 44 pixel.

Can you please explain, how you added those uibarbuttonitems (bookmarks,etc) to the navigationbar in iCab?

Thanks very much.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:38:03 +0000

Thanks dude, I’m both iphone designer / developer and I wanted red buttons on a black nav bar.. combined with this tutorial http://www.switchonthecode.com/tutorials/iphone-tutorial-how-to-create-a-blue-navigation-button you helped me out!

Keep it up!

By: Alexander

Alexander — Sat, 29 May 2010 07:58:22 +0000

Yes, since OS 3.2 you can also place the toolbars at the top of the screen. But at the time I wrote this article, OS 3.2 was not available and it was not possible to place a UIToolbar at the top of three screen without some visual glitches.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 28 May 2010 23:04:27 +0000

If you don’t need a NavigationBar’s back button, why not just do it all in IB with a toolbar as your base? Toolbars don’t just have to go on the bottom of the view.