iOS 6, How to tint UIBarButtonItem white icons?

Question

I have UIBarButtonItems in my app with a light color background, and I wanted to tint the icons with a darker color, instead of the standard white.

Like this:

I was able to tint text using

[[UIBarButtonItem appearance] setTitleTextAttributes:@{UITextAttributeTextColor: [UIColor blackColor]} forState:UIControlStateNormal];,

but I can't figure out how to change the icon colors.

Is it possible to do that?

Answer 1

Create a UIButton with your custom image, then create a UIBarButtonItem with the UIButton as a custom view:

UIImage *buttonImage = [UIImage imageNamed:@"image"]; // Tint this image programmatically
UIButton *button = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom];
[button setImage:buttonImage forState:UIControlStateNormal];
button.frame = CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, buttonImage.size.width, buttonImage.size.height);
[button addTarget:self action:@selector(action:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];

UIBarButtonItem *barButtonItem = [[[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithCustomView:button] autorelease];

Note that this is mainly for iOS 6 and below. In iOS 7+ you get this behavior for free with tintColor.

Answer 2

I believe this might work in the navigation bar:

[[UINavigationBar appearance] setTintColor:[UIColor blackColor]];

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

And of course, you can also change the whole tint in the storyboard options (not on my mac, so can't tell you exactly where)