customize UIBarButtonItem initWithBarButtonSystemItem to show up as grey not white in iOS 5

Question

I am using a white background on my UINavigationBar with darkGrayColor text

[[UINavigationBar appearance] setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"uinavigationcontrollerbackground"] forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];
[[UINavigationBar appearance] setTitleTextAttributes:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:font,UITextAttributeFont ,[UIColor darkGrayColor], UITextAttributeTextColor,  [UIColor whiteColor], UITextAttributeTextShadowColor, nil]];

Which looks nice but I have buttons defined like this throughout my app:

self.searchButton =[[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithBarButtonSystemItem:UIBarButtonSystemItemSearch target:self action:@selector(searchProducts)];

I killed the default blakc background look I had going like this:

[[UIBarButtonItem appearance] setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"uibarbuttonbackground"]  forState:UIControlStateNormal
                                          barMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];

Which is just a white square.

Now my icons are still white with a light gray shadow, anyway to change these default icons?

Answer 1

I used the category solution found here, it is working great:

UIBarButtonItem with custom image and no border

I little more work than I was hoping but it is a nice clean solution.

Answer 2

Once I tried to change background of UIBarButtonSystemItemCamera but nothing worked. I guess these default system button types (UIBarButtonSystemItem )come with a background image already, so changing it won't do.

I recommend you to create a custom view and init your bar button with it. Not a perfect code but I hope it helps.

 UIImage *image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"icon.png"];
    UIButton *button = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom];
    [button setBackgroundImage: [image stretchableImageWithLeftCapWidth:7.0 topCapHeight:0.0] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
    button.frame= CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, image.size.width, image.size.height);
    [button addTarget:self action:@selector(takePicture:)    forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];

    UIView *v=[[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, image.size.width, image.size.height) ];
    [v addSubview:button];


    UIBarButtonItem *barItem = [[[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithCustomView:v] autorelease];