UISearchBar transparent background view

Question

In UISearchBar default a background view should present. How to hide that? I need only the search textview part, in UISearchBar.

Answer 1

[[searchBar.subviews objectAtIndex:0] removeFromSuperview];

Answer 2

Update: as of iOS 5.0, if you have a background image available, you can now do

searchBar.backgroundImage = someUIImage;

(only tested on iOS 6, so may be bugged on 5 though! Will check around.)

Brandon's answer no longer works (or doesn't for me, anyway), so I looked around a bit and noted:

(gdb) po [searchBar subviews]
<__NSArrayM 0x665ab80>(
<UISegmentedControl: 0x63aad80; frame = (0 0; 225 44); opaque = NO; layer = <CALayer: 0x6368420>>,
<UISearchBarBackground: 0x6347280; frame = (0 0; 225 44); layer = <CALayer: 0x638a230>>,
<UISearchBarTextField: 0x6331110; frame = (0 0; 0 0); clipsToBounds = YES; opaque = NO; layer = <CALayer: 0x63a20f0>>
)

The 3rd entry is a custom text field and presumably it is the one I want, I thought, but removing subview 0 AND 1 from superview didn't fix it oddly enough. I ended up with the following, which does work:

UITextField *sbTextField = (UITextField *)[searchBar.subviews lastObject];
[sbTextField removeFromSuperview];
[self.view addSubview:sbTextField];
sbTextField.frame = searchBar.frame;
[searchBar removeFromSuperview];

To make that a bit more robust, it's probably a good idea to check that the class is a subclass of text field and such, but unless it breaks I'm just leaving it simple.

Edit: switched objectAtIndex:2 to lastObject as tipycalFlow suggested.

Answer 3

For future visitors looking for an answer. I have found the following to be effective in iOS 5+ and prefer it as it doesn't involve messing with the layout of the UISearchBar itself.

UISearchBar * search = [[UISearchBar alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, self.view.frame.size.width, 44)];
[search setBackgroundColor:[UIColor clearColor]];
[search setPlaceholder:@"Search"];

for (UIView * v in [search subviews]) {
    if (![v isKindOfClass:[UITextField class]]) {
        v.alpha = 0;
    }
}

[header addSubview:search];
[search release];

Answer 4

Here there is a solution working for iOS 5 and iOS 6. I have checked that it is not necessary to change any other property (like setting the backgroundColor to [UIColor clearColor]) to make it work.

for (UIView * v in searchBar.subviews) {
    if ([v isKindOfClass:NSClassFromString(@"UISearchBarTextField")]) {
        v.superview.alpha = 0;
        UIView *containerView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:searchBar.frame];
        [containerView addSubview:v];
        [self.view addSubview:containerView];
    }
}

Answer 5

Starting iOS 5, I would recommend the following way of doing, which avoids messing up with the undocumented subviews. Replace self with self.searchBar if you're subclassing the UISearchBarController instead of the UISearchBar itself.

// transparency for UISearchBar
self.translucent = YES;
self.backgroundImage = [UIImage new];
self.scopeBarBackgroundImage = [UIImage new];

And as a bonus:

// transparency for UIToolbar
self.translucent = YES;
[self setBackgroundImage:[UIImage new] forToolbarPosition:UIToolbarPositionAny barMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];
[self setShadowImage:[UIImage new] forToolbarPosition:UIToolbarPositionAny];

// transparency for UINavigationBar
self.translucent = YES;
[self setBackgroundImage:[UIImage new] forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];
self.shadowImage = [UIImage new];

// transparency for UITabBar
self.backgroundImage = [UIImage new];
self.shadowImage = [UIImage new];