How do i remove text from back button on navbar within Xcode?

Question

I set an arrow custom image to navigation bar by adding the following code in app delegate, it works but now im looking to remove the text completely for back button.

UIImage * backButtonImage = [UIImage imageNamed: @"BackButtonGrey.png"];
backButtonImage = [backButtonImage stretchableImageWithLeftCapWidth: 15.0 topCapHeight: 30.0];
[[UIBarButtonItem appearance]  setBackButtonBackgroundImage: backButtonImage  forState: UIControlStateNormal  barMetrics: UIBarMetricsDefault];

Answer 1

Simply move the text vertically so far that it no longer appears. This can be done at app launch in your app delegate.

[[UIBarButtonItem appearance] setBackButtonTitlePositionAdjustment:UIOffsetMake(0, 20.f) forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];

Normally this call is for tweaking the vertical text position which can vary depending on the font used. Here the text is moved far enough that it's no longer inside the Back button view, and so is clipped into non-existence.

Answer 2

I really don't think is a good practice for a developer to adjust the offset of the text in order to hide it.

A cleaner solution would be to just add to the navigation controller back button a new button where the title is an empty string. You should add this in the previous calling view controller in viewWillAppear (not the current one):

UIBarButtonItem *backButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"" style:UIBarButtonItemStylePlain target:nil action:nil];
self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = backButton;