Question

I’ve tried both this (MKMapView Delegate):

-(void) mapView:(MKMapView *)mapView didAddAnnotationViews:(NSArray *)views
{
    for (MKAnnotationView *annotationView in views)
    {
        annotationView.image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"itemType2.png"];
        annotationView.rightCalloutAccessoryView = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeDetailDisclosure];
        annotationView.canShowCallout = YES;
    }        
}

and this (on the VC that has the MKMapView):

[self.theMapView addAnnotations:annotationsArray];

for (id <MKAnnotation> itemAnnotation in self.theMapView.annotations)
{        
    MKAnnotationView *itemAnnotationView = [self.theMapView viewForAnnotation:itemAnnotation];

    itemAnnotationView.image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"itemType2.png"];
    itemAnnotationView.rightCalloutAccessoryView = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeDetailDisclosure];
    itemAnnotationView.canShowCallout = YES;

    //[self.theMapView setNeedsDisplay];
}

whithout any success on changing the MKAnnotationView’s appearance, they appear as simple red pins without the disclosure buttons or anything….

Is the only way of changing them through creating a subclassed MKMapView and using – (MKAnnotationView *)viewForAnnotation:(id < MKAnnotation >)annotation ??? I feel it’s desnecessary to create an extra subclass just for changing the annotations, why don’t the above methods work?

Answer 1

You don’t need to subclass anything to set those properties on an MKAnnotationView.

You need to implement the viewForAnnotation delegate method and set the properties there.

See this answer for a code example.

The only change from that example is to use MKAnnotationView instead of MKPinAnnotationView.