How to disable the highlight control state of a UIButton?

Question

I've got a UIButton that, when selected, shouldn't change state when being touched. The default behaviour is for it to be in UIControlStateHighlighted while being touched, and this is making me angry.

Suggestions?

1

You should meditate :-P – Maneesh M Dec 15 '20 at 19:03

score 334 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 12 '19 at 17:05

334

Your button must have its buttonType set to Custom.

In IB you can uncheck "Highlight adjusts image".

Programmatically you can use theButton.adjustsImageWhenHighlighted = NO;

Similar options are available for the "disabled" state as well.

edited Aug 12 '19 at 17:05

marc_s

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answered Feb 14 '10 at 02:24

Haydn

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Any chance you know what the programmatic version of this would be? Right now I've got it working hackishly by making it disabled, and dressing it up as being selected. – kbanman Feb 17 '10 at 06:50
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uibutton.adjustsImageWhenHighlighted = NO; – Haydn Feb 20 '10 at 03:53
44

Also make sure the button type is set to CUSTOM. (As Mosib Asad mentioned in another answer) – Vlad Lego Jul 30 '14 at 16:04
Great!!! just a little and obvious change that i missed!!! I had set UIButton class type to MyCustomClass but forghet to change this one. So it was giving unselected button highlighted effect. Thank you once again. – Vinod Supnekar May 04 '17 at 06:38

score 41 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 05 '14 at 10:48

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In addition to above answer of unchecking "highlight adjusts image" in IB, make sure that button type is set CUSTOM.

answered Jan 05 '14 at 10:48

Muhammad Asad

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This was the missing piece: button type CUSTOM. Thanx! – JOM Apr 22 '15 at 09:57
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What if i would like to keep as a System UIButton? can't i remove the highlight adjusts image? – Amjad Husseini Aug 16 '17 at 10:29

score 39 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 09 '11 at 06:32

39

This will work for you:

[button setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"button_image"] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
[button setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"button_image_selected"] forState:UIControlStateSelected];
[button setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"button_image_selected"] forState:UIControlStateSelected | UIControlStateHighlighted];

3rd line is the trick here...

This works the same for setting image/backgroundImage

answered Aug 09 '11 at 06:32

Manish Ahuja

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This works perfect for me. The `adjustsImageWhenHighlighted` property of `UIButton` seems to affect only the background image. – Michael Thiel May 07 '12 at 15:30
Be aware, that if do decide to assign an image to the 'disabled state', you do not call setBackgroundImage. Instead, you should do the following [button setImage:image forState:UIControlStateDisabled]; Also also be aware, that as is mentioned in this thread, the adjustsImageWhenHighlighted UIButton property only effects the background image. – HamasN Jul 22 '13 at 05:58
this wonderful answer should be referenced if your purpose is to remove the control's Highlight state , not only remove the highlight effect on click – ximmyxiao Oct 30 '20 at 03:34

score 28 · Answer 4 · edited Jul 14 '12 at 12:52

28

adjustsImageWhenHighlighted = NO;

edited Jul 14 '12 at 12:52

Luke

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answered May 31 '12 at 05:18

KETAN

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score 23 · Answer 5 · edited Jul 14 '12 at 12:52

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button.adjustsImageWhenDisabled = NO;

is equally useful for having your own appearance of a disabled button.

edited Jul 14 '12 at 12:52

Luke

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answered Feb 04 '11 at 12:22

Tim

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score 5 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 14 '10 at 03:09

Depending on what changes from the default to the highlighted state of the button, you can call a couple of methods to set them to what you need. So if the image changes you can do

[myButton setImage:[myButton imageForState:UIControlStateNormal] forState:UIControlStateHighlighted];

If the text changes you can do

[myButton setTitle:[myButton titleForState:UIControlStateNormal] forState:UIControlStateHighlighted];

other similar functions:

- (void)setTitleColor:(UIColor *)color forState:(UIControlState)state

- (void)setTitleShadowColor:(UIColor *)color forState:(UIControlState)state

setTitleColor is all i needed to disable highlight on uibutton's text — atulkhatri, Sep 03 '14 at 17:48

score 5 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 03 '16 at 05:53

5

For Swifty Developer -

yourButton.adjustsImageWhenHighlighted = false

answered Nov 03 '16 at 05:53

iDeveloper

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score 4 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 08 '18 at 06:21

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Swift 3+

button.adjustsImageWhenHighlighted = false

button.adjustsImageWhenDisabled = false

answered Feb 08 '18 at 06:21

yuanjilee

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score 3 · Answer 9 · edited Jul 20 '10 at 16:56

OK here's an easy solution if this works for you, after a week of banging my head on this it finally occurred to me to just set highlighted=NO for the 1st line of the IBAction method for the TouchUpInside or TouchDown, or whatever works. For me it was fine on the TouchUpInside.

-(IBAction)selfDismiss:(id)sender {

    self.btnImage.highlighted = NO;

    NSLog(@"selfDismiss");

    etc, etc, etc.

}

score 3 · Answer 10 · answered Jan 13 '17 at 06:27

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make your button Type - "Custom" and Uncheck - Highlighted Adjust image and you are done.

answered Jan 13 '17 at 06:27

Khushboo

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score 2 · Answer 11 · answered Jan 22 '15 at 10:23

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just two things:

UIButton *btnTransparentComponent = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom];
btnTransparentComponent.adjustsImageWhenHighlighted = NO;

answered Jan 22 '15 at 10:23

maddy

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score 2 · Answer 12 · answered Jan 22 '16 at 18:59

2

I had a similar issue and found that "unchecking" Clears Graphic Content in interface builder fixed my issue

answered Jan 22 '16 at 18:59

Jeff

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score 1 · Answer 13 · answered Jun 17 '22 at 07:45

After the introduction of Style, you have to set the style to Default in IB along with setting the type to Custom to be able to disable the highlighting effect completely. Otherwise your button text will keep highlighting.

*Setting the Style to Default resets the text color to white.

score -4 · Answer 14 · answered Jan 28 '14 at 23:08

-4

avoid to set UIButton's Line Break to Clip, use instead the standard Truncate Middle

enter image description here

answered Jan 28 '14 at 23:08

János

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How to disable the highlight control state of a UIButton?

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