Achieving bright, vivid colors for an iOS 7 translucent UINavigationBar

The problem has now been fixed by Apple in the new 7.0.3 release.

Theres a great Dropin UINavigationController replacement available from Simon Booth available at GitHub Here [GitHub - C360NavigationBar][1]


[1]:

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"C360NavigationBar"


If you're backward supporting iOS6 do a check on the root view controller as such:

PatientListTableViewController *frontViewController = [[PatientListTableViewController alloc] init];

UINavigationController *navViewController = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithNavigationBarClass:[C360NavigationBar class] toolbarClass:nil];
if ([navViewController.view respondsToSelector:@selector(setTintColor:)]) {
//iOS7
[navViewController.view setTintColor:self.navBarTintColor];
[[C360NavigationBar appearance] setItemTintColor:self.navBarItemTintColor];
} else {
//iOS6
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] setStatusBarStyle:UIStatusBarStyleBlackOpaque animated:NO];
navViewController.navigationBar.tintColor = self.navBarTintColor;
}
[navViewController pushViewController:frontViewController animated:NO];

self.window.rootViewController = navViewController;

**iOS 7.0.3 UPDATE:** As you see above 7.0.3 changed things. I've updated my gist. Hopefully this will just go away as people upgrade.

**Original Answer:**
I ended up with a hack combining the two of the other answers. I'm subclassing UINavigationBar and adding a layer to the back with some extra space to cover if any of the various height status bars are up. The layer gets adjusted in layout subviews and the color changes whenever you set barTintColor.

Gist:

setBarTintColor

[super setBarTintColor:barTintColor];
if (self.extraColorLayer == nil) {
self.extraColorLayer = [CALayer layer];
self.extraColorLayer.opacity = self.extraColorLayerOpacity;
[self.layer addSublayer:self.extraColorLayer];
}
self.extraColorLayer.backgroundColor = barTintColor.CGColor;

layoutSubviews

[super layoutSubviews];
if (self.extraColorLayer != nil) {
[self.extraColorLayer removeFromSuperlayer];
self.extraColorLayer.opacity = self.extraColorLayerOpacity;
[self.layer insertSublayer:self.extraColorLayer atIndex:1];
CGFloat spaceAboveBar = self.frame.origin.y;
self.extraColorLayer.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0 - spaceAboveBar, CGRectGetWidth(self.bounds), CGRectGetHeight(self.bounds) + spaceAboveBar);
}

Frankly speaking, above answers might be right but following trick worked for me with very ease.

// this is complete 100% transparent image
self.imageBlack = [[UIImage imageNamed:@"0102_BlackNavBG"]
resizableImageWithCapInsets:UIEdgeInsetsMake(0, 2, 0, 2)
resizingMode:UIImageResizingModeStretch];

// this is non-transparent but iOS7
// will by default make it transparent (if translucent is set to YES)
self.imageRed = [[UIImage imageNamed:@"0102_RedNavBG"]
resizableImageWithCapInsets:UIEdgeInsetsMake(0, 2, 0, 2)
resizingMode:UIImageResizingModeStretch];

// some navigation controller
[nvCtrLeft.navigationBar setBackgroundImage:self.imageRed
forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];

// some another navigation controller
[nvCtrCenter.navigationBar setBackgroundImage:self.imageRed
forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];

Here are the images used for `self.imageRed` and `self.imageBlack`.

< ![self.imageBlack][1] > black image is in this brackets won't be visible as it is transparent :)

< ![self.imageRed][2] > red image is in this brackets.


[1]:

[2]:

The behavior of tintColor for bars has changed on iOS 7.0. It no longer affects the bar's background and behaves as described for the tintColor property added to UIView. To tint the bar's background, please use -barTintColor.You can use following code to make the app work with both ios6 and ios7.

if(IS_IOS7)
{
self.navigationController.navigationBar.barTintColor = [UIColor blackColor];
self.navigationController.navigationBar.translucent = NO;
}
else
{
self.navigationController.navigationBar.tintColor = [UIColor blackColor];
}

IS_IOS7 is a macro which is defined in pch file as follows.

#define IS_IOS7 ([[UIDevice currentDevice].systemVersion floatValue] >= 7.0)

is there a way to use @aprato solution without subclassing UINavigationBar.

In my project my main view is a UIViewController.

the problem is that the navigationController is a readonly property, is there a way to use you class with my project because i can't use : `[[UINavigationController alloc] initWithNavigationBarClass:`

thanks

As @bernhard [mentioned above](

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) it's possible to saturate the bar tint color to get desired navigation bar appearance.

I wrote an [BarTintColorOptimizer utility](

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) for that kind of adjustment. It optimizes translucent bar tint color to make the bar's actual color match the desired color in iOS 7.x and later. Look at [this answer](

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) for details.