Turn off highlighting on UIBarButtonItem

Question

I'm trying to use a UIBarButtonItem to put a title on my UIToolbar. I'm using the plain style and that looks fine, but I can't seem to get it to stop highlighting on touch. The Shows Touch When Highlighted option isn't available for the bar button items. Is there a quick and easy way to do this? I'm trying to do the building in interface builder so I can see what I'm doing. I'd prefer not to build the toolbar in the view did load every time.

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered May 06 '11 at 20:04

3

The property responsible for this is accessible in the UIButton class:

myButton.showsTouchWhenHighlighted = NO;

You can access this (programmatically) in a UIBarButtonItem by assigning a UIButton to the bar button item's customView property, and configuring the button. You can do this in Interface Builder too: drag a UIButton onto a UIToolbar, and it will automatically embed it in a UIBarButtonItem for you - then look for the "Shows Touch On Highlight" checkbox under the button's settings.

Incidentally, I don't know how you're customising your buttons so feel free to ignore this, but if your button looks and behaves like a standard toolbar item then users will expect the glow effect.

answered May 06 '11 at 20:04

Stuart

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This button itself is just a title. I just need a toolbar so I can have a bunch of buttons, and didn't know any other way to put a title in the middle of it. – codeetcetera May 06 '11 at 20:26
2

@btate: Ah yes, the title. When I needed a title, I actually just used a standard UILabel with appropriate formatting. Perhaps not as elegant as embedding one in the toolbar as you are doing, but maybe a little simpler. In case you're interested, the formatting for such a label is Helvetica Bold 20.0, white text color, 50% opacity black shadow with -1 vertical offset. – Stuart May 06 '11 at 20:34

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 09 '12 at 11:39

I wanted a solution that could be used without any modification to my XIB structure.
The most obvious and simple one worked: subclass UIBarButtonItem:

UITitleBarButtonItem.h:

//
//  UITitleBarButtonItem.m
//  Created by Guillaume Cerquant - MacMation on 09/08/12.
//

/*
 * A UIBarButtonItem that does not show any highlight on the touch
 * Drag and drop a normal UIBarButtonItem in your xib and set its subclass to UITitleBarButtonItem
 */
@interface UITitleBarButtonItem : UIBarButtonItem
@end

UITitleBarButtonItem.m:

#import "UITitleBarButtonItem.h"

@implementation UITitleBarButtonItem

// Only caring about UITitleBarButtonItem set up in Interface Builder. Update this class if you need to instantiate it from code

- (void) awakeFromNib {
    UIView *theView = [self valueForKey:@"view"];

    if ([theView respondsToSelector:@selector(setUserInteractionEnabled:)]) {
        theView.userInteractionEnabled = NO;
    }
}

@end

Tested on iOS 5 and the one we aren't allowed to talk yet.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 01 '18 at 12:12

My solution was to set it to disabled, and adjust the titleAttributes for each UIControlState

let attributes: [NSAttributedStringKey: Any] = [
    .font: UIFont.boldSystemFont(ofSize: 16),
    .foregroundColor: UIColor.white
]

barButton.setTitleTextAttributes(attributes, for: .enabled)
barButton.setTitleTextAttributes(attributes, for: .disabled)
barButton.isEnabled = false

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 13 '11 at 16:13

Alternative: Use a UIBarButtonItem in the plain style and additionally cover the toolbar in the appropriate area with a UIView that has a clear background. The view consumes the taps and hides them from the bar button item. Make sure you set the autoresizing mask correctly.

Turn off highlighting on UIBarButtonItem

4 Answers4

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