Question

I am using a little chunk of code like below to change the text attributes of my nav bar title app wide and it works great.

[[UINavigationBar appearance] setTitleTextAttributes:
     [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
      [UIColor whiteColor], UITextAttributeTextColor,
      [UIColor grayColor], UITextAttributeTextShadowColor,
      [NSValue valueWithUIOffset:UIOffsetMake(0, -1)], UITextAttributeTextShadowOffset,
      [UIFont fontWithName:@"Cochin-BoldItalic" size:0.0], UITextAttributeFont,
      nil]];

But I want to be able to just as easily do this for UIBarButtonItem text as well but I can’t figure it out as it doesn’t share the same or similar methods it appears.

Edit

Tried this code, not making any changes to text:

[[UIBarItem appearance] setTitleTextAttributes:
     [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
      [UIColor whiteColor], UITextAttributeTextColor,
      [UIColor grayColor], UITextAttributeTextShadowColor,
      [NSValue valueWithUIOffset:UIOffsetMake(0, -1)], UITextAttributeTextShadowOffset,
      [UIFont fontWithName:@"Cochin-BoldItalic" size:12.0], UITextAttributeFont,
      nil]
     forState:UIControlStateNormal];

Answer 1

You want to use the - (void)setTitleTextAttributes:(NSDictionary *)attributes forState:(UIControlState)state method of UIBarItem (UIBarButtonItem inherits from UIBarItem).

Check out the docs for more details: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/uikit/reference/UIBarItem_Class/Reference/Reference.html#//apple_ref/occ/cl/UIBarItem

Try this:

//Suppose you have initialized barButton elsewhere`
[barButton setTitleTextAttributes:
     [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
      [UIColor whiteColor], UITextAttributeTextColor,
      [UIColor grayColor], UITextAttributeTextShadowColor,
      [NSValue valueWithUIOffset:UIOffsetMake(0, -1)], UITextAttributeTextShadowOffset,
      [UIFont fontWithName:@"Cochin-BoldItalic" size:12.0], UITextAttributeFont,
      nil]
     forState:UIControlStateNormal];