UIBarButtonItemStyleDone background image using the iOS 5 appearance API

Question

How can I provide a visually distinct bar button item background image for bar buttons with the UIBarButtonItemStyleDone style and the editing state of the Edit/Done button? None of the documented UIControlState values in the UIBarButtonItem appearance proxy's setBackgroundImage:forState:barMetrics: seem to do the trick.

Gog

Are you trying to customize the appearance of the buttons specifically or would you like a similar background for all UIBarButtons? – Smutch

I second that question. Could only set one backgroundImage for [UIBarButtonItem appearance], but can't find how to set a different image for "Done" button. If I try to setBackgroundImage of the Done button's instance, it changes back to the default appearance. I don't get it. – Pyszka

Answer 1

I'm not sure why this was never answered but if you are still looking then simply create a property for a BarButtonItem in your .h, assign it in IB, then set the background property of that barButtonItem. Works fine for me and never "changes back to default appearance".

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];

    [self.barButton setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"YOURIMAGE"] forState:UIControlStateNormal barMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];
}

Phan

Answer 2

I have just found and posted a possible solution to this problem. You can 'inject' custom styles using a UIBarButtonItem category:

Customizing UIBarButtonItem "Done" style and "Plain" style separately using UIAppearance

Felsite