Changing navigation items color through the entire app?

Question

I'm trying to change the tint Color of the back button in iOS 7. Now Is there a way to change all navigation items throughout the entire app to a specific color? This is what i have in one view controller as of right now:

self.editButtonItem.tintColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
    self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem.tintColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
    self.navigationController.navigationBarHidden = NO;
    self.navigationController.navigationBar.barTintColor = [UIColor redColor];
    self.navigationController.navigationBar.translucent = NO;
    self.title = @"Inbox";
    self.navigationController.navigationBar.titleTextAttributes = @{NSForegroundColorAttributeName : [UIColor whiteColor]};

Answer 1

Swift answer

UINavigationBar.appearance().backgroundColor = UIColor.blackColor()
UINavigationBar.appearance().barTintColor = UIColor.blackColor()
UINavigationBar.appearance().titleTextAttributes = [NSForegroundColorAttributeName: UIColor.whiteColor()]
UINavigationBar.appearance().tintColor = UIColor.blackColor()
UIBarButtonItem.appearance().tintColor = UIColor.blackColor()
UITabBar.appearance().backgroundColor = UIColor.blackColor()
UITabBar.appearance().tintColor = UIColor.blackColor()
UITabBar.appearance().unselectedItemTintColor = UIColor.darkGrayColor()

put it in your AppDelegate's func application(application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [NSObject: AnyObject]?) -> Bool {

Answer 2

UINavigationItem is not a view and it doesn't have a color.

You instead want to change the UIBarButtonItem tint color.

Using the UIAppearance proxy you can do

[[UIBarButtonItem appearance] setTintColor:[UIColor whiteColor]];

This will change the tintColor of each UIBarButtonItem in the application.

You can use the same strategy to change the UINavigationBar barTintColor and titleTextAttributes:

[[UINavigationBar appearance] setTintColor:[UIColor whiteColor]]; // this will change the back button tint
[[UINavigationBar appearance] setBarTintColor:[UIColor redColor]];
[[UINavigationBar appearance] setTitleTextAttributes:@{NSForegroundColorAttributeName : [UIColor whiteColor]}];

Unfortunately there's no way of changing the translucent property using the proxy, so you will have to do it on each bar.