Question

I’m looking at some other iPad apps that have the capability to add extra icons into the leftBarButtonItem and rightBarButtonItem for UINavigationController. Here is a picture of one taken from nngroup.com:

In order to do something like this, are they subclassing UINavigationController or adding a category for it? Or are they doing something different? I kind of just wanted the general approach of how to do something like this, but don’t need all the code since I’m sure it’s a lot of work. Thanks.

Answer 1

You can create a toolbar object and add the buttons to that toolbar and then set the custom view of the right bar button item or left bar button item as this toolbar.

A sample implementation is like this.

UIToolbar * toolbar = [[UIToolbar alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0,0,160, 44.5)];

UIBarButtonItem *spacer = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc]
                          initWithBarButtonSystemItem:UIBarButtonSystemItemFlexibleSpace
                           target:nil
                           action:nil];
[buttons addObject:spacer];
[spacer release];

UIBarButtonItem * deleteButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc]
                              initWithTitle:@"Delete"
                              style:UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered
                              target:self
                              action:@selector(deletePressed)];
// Button style is the default style
[buttons addObject:deleteButton];
[deleteButton release];


UIBarButtonItem * barItem = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"Logout" style:UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered
                                                            target:[Y3AppDelegate mainApplicationInstance] action:@selector(logout)];


[buttons addObject:barItem];
[barItem release];

// put the buttons in the toolbar and release them
[toolbar setItems:buttons animated:YES];
[buttons release];

// place the toolbar into the navigation bar as Right Button item
self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = [[[UIBarButtonItem alloc]
                                          initWithCustomView:toolbar] autorelease];
[toolbar release];

One thing to note here is that you may have to change the tint color of the toolbar to match with that of the navigation bar. Hope this answer helps you.