Question

I have a UIToolbar which I am trying to put some custom UIBarButtonItems on. However, when I use the code below, the button shows up with NO border.

    UIImage *cameraRollButtonImage = [UIImage imageNamed:@"Flash.png"];
    UIButton *cameraRollButton = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom];
    [cameraRollButton setImage:cameraRollButtonImage forState:UIControlStateNormal];
    cameraRollButton.frame = CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, cameraRollButtonImage.size.width, cameraRollButtonImage.size.height);

    // Initialize the UIBarButtonItem
    cameraRollButtonItem = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithCustomView:cameraRollButton];
    [cameraRollButtonItem setStyle:UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered];

    //Add the Buttons to the toolbar
    NSArray *toolbarItems = [NSArray arrayWithObject:cameraRollButtonItem];
    [self.cameraTabBar setItems:toolbarItems];

This displays the button just fine, however, there is NO button border (like standard the UIBarButtonItem). So the line [cameraRollButtonItem setStyle:UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered]; doesn’t seem to do anything.

Does anyone have any experience with this?

I would like to be able to eventually rotate the image in the button when the device orientation is changed (keeping the toolbar static), so simply adding an image to the UIBarButtonItem doesn’t work; I need to get this to work with by using the customView property.

Many thanks!
Brett

Answer 1

Have you considered creating your own button image with a border? You can use it as the backgroundImage of a UIButton:

UIButton *button = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom];

[button setBackgroundImage:_backgroundImage_ forState:UIControlStateNormal];

// So that the button does not gray out when disabled
[button setBackgroundImage:_backgroundImage_ forState:UIControlStateDisabled]; 

[button setImage:_cameraImage_ forState:UIControlStateNormal];

button.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 125, 30);

You could then use button with initWithCustomView:.

The PSD file here might give you an overview of how to create your own button.