How to customize appearance of UISearchBar

Question

I want to customize the search bar, I mean the white box. Can I do it? Is there some documentation about that? Is there a way to hide the white box, but not the letters. Can I at least make the box smaller? I mean less height

Answer 1

By IOS 5.0 you have the chance to use

  [[UISearchBar appearance] setSearchFieldBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"searchbar.png"]forState:UIControlStateNormal]; 

Answer 2

Here is the solution I was looking for: Subclassing a UISearchBar, & overwriting the method layoutSubviews

- (void)layoutSubviews {    UITextField *searchField;    NSUInteger numViews = [self.subviews count];    for(int i = 0; i < numViews; i++) {       if([[self.subviews objectAtIndex:i] isKindOfClass:[UITextField class]]) { //conform?         searchField = [self.subviews objectAtIndex:i];       }    }    if(!(searchField == nil)) {        searchField.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];        [searchField setBackground: [UIImage imageNamed:@"buscador.png"] ];        [searchField setBorderStyle:UITextBorderStyleNone];    }     [super layoutSubviews]; }