Navigation Bar customization in ios4 doesnt work in ios5

Question

i know that this question looks the same as other around here, but none of them say anything about incompatibility between ios4 and ios5.

In my app i want to customize the pattern of the navigation Bar, but my deployment target is ios4, so i am using the code bellow above the implementation of the appDelegate.m to do this:

@implementation UINavigationBar (CustomImage)

- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect {
UIColor *color = [UIColor blackColor];
UIImage *image = [UIImage imageNamed: @"nav_bar.png"];
[image drawInRect:CGRectMake(0, 0, self.frame.size.width, self.frame.size.height)];
self.tintColor = color;
}

@end

When i run the app using the 4.3 simulator, it works properly, but when i simulate in ios5, it doesnt work, the nav bar goes back to the default color.. any help?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Here's a category that will work on both iOS 4 and 5:

@implementation UINavigationBar (CustomBackground)

- (UIImage *)barBackground
{
    return [UIImage imageNamed:@"top-navigation-bar.png"];
}

- (void)didMoveToSuperview
{
    //iOS5 only
    if ([self respondsToSelector:@selector(setBackgroundImage:forBarMetrics:)])
    {
        [self setBackgroundImage:[self barBackground] forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];
    }
}

//this doesn't work on iOS5 but is needed for iOS4 and earlier
- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect
{
    //draw image
    [[self barBackground] drawInRect:rect];
}

@end

Answer 2

I'd recommend using your existing code when running on iOS4, and using the new iOS5 features to customize the bar under iOS5.

See here: UINavigationBar's drawRect is not called in iOS 5.0

Answer 3

For iOS5 you can use this approach:

if([navigationBar respondsToSelector:@selector(setBackgroundImage:forBarMetrics:)] ) {
    [navigationBar setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed: @"nav_bar.png"]; forBarMetrics: UIBarMetricsDefault];
}

I usually put it into appDelegate.