Is it possible to have a UIBarButtonItem as a cell accessoryView?

Question

I have a tableview, where one of the cells is supposed to display a thumbnail image. However, if that image is not available (hasn't been taken yet), I'd LIKE for the cell's accessoryView to display the camera UIBarButtonItem...but when I try my usual approach I get 'incompatible types' warnings. Is there any way to use those items outside of a nav bar?

Answer 1

It is not possible to directly use UIBarButtonItem as the cell's accessoryView, because UIBarButtonItem is not a UIView.

A suboptimal solution could be to use a UIToolbar to hold your UIBarButtonItem. You can then add the UIToolbar as the cell's accessoryView, but you'll end up with the unwanted outline of the UIToolbar. This SO answer explains how to make a transparent UIToolbar subclass. That way you won't see the toolbar's background, but you'll also lose the outline of the UIBarButtonItem - it will only show the white camera icon:

UIToolbar *toolbar = [[TransparentToolbar alloc] init];
UIBarButtonItem *item = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithBarButtonSystemItem:UIBarButtonSystemItemCamera target:self action:@selector(someAction)];
toolbar.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 40, 30);
[toolbar setItems:[NSArray arrayWithObject:item] animated:NO];
cell.accessoryView = toolbar;
[item release];
[toolbar release];

Answer 2

I think that is impossible. Since it is called BarButtonItem it can only go into a bar. The old method allthough works: Take a screenshot of the camera button (just add it to any navigationbar for the screenshot), cut it out from the screenshot, add a regular UIButton to your cell and add the image of your camera button as backgroundimage for your UIButton using

[button setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageWithImage:@"camerabutton.png"] forState:UIControlStateNormal];

And also take a screenshot of the button when its pressed and save it and set it as image for selected state:

[button setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageWithImage:@"camerabuttonpressed.png"] forState:UIControlStateHighlitedl];