Make NavigationBar's titleView larger than itself

Question

I want to place an image in the middle of a navigation bar that is bigger then the bar itself. So far I tried to use a UIView with a UIImageView inside and it works quite we

Answer 1

I found why you got this issue. It's because of a private view which has name _UINavigationBarContentView. It's a subview of UINavigationBar. navigationItem.titleView is contained in this view.

At first time, when you change navigationItem.titleView. _UINavigationBarContentView.clipsToBounds is false .But after you push another controller and pop back, _UINavigationBarContentView.clipsToBounds is true. That's why titleView is cropped.

So i have a temporary solution. Each time when viewController appears, find this view and change _UINavigationBarContentView.clipsToBounds to false and layout titleView.

override func viewDidAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
    for view : UIView in (navigationController?.navigationBar.subviews)! {
      view.clipsToBounds = false;
    }
    navigationItem.titleView?.layoutIfNeeded()
  }

  override func viewWillAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
    for view : UIView in (navigationController?.navigationBar.subviews)! {
      view.clipsToBounds = false;
    }
    navigationItem.titleView?.layoutIfNeeded()
  }

I tried and it works. But i think you shouldn't do something whit it because it's private view. Maybe Apple don't want us do anything with it.

Hope somehow my suggestion can help you. Good luck ;)

SOLUTION

Adding observer for _UINavigationBarContentView.clipsToBounds, each time when it changes to false, set to true and update layout of titleView

override func viewDidLoad() {
  super.viewDidLoad()
  // Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.

  let logo = UIImage(named: "Logo")
  let titleView = UIView(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 60, height: 60))
  let imageView = UIImageView(image: logo)
  imageView.frame = CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: titleView.frame.width, height: titleView.frame.height)
  titleView.addSubview(imageView)
  imageView.contentMode = .scaleAspectFit
  imageView.image = logo
  navigationItem.titleView = titleView
  navigationController?.navigationBar.subviews[2].addObserver(self, forKeyPath: "clipsToBounds", options: [.old, .new], context: nil)
}

override func observeValue(forKeyPath keyPath: String?, of object: Any?, change: [NSKeyValueChangeKey : Any]?, context: UnsafeMutableRawPointer?) {
  if  (navigationController?.navigationBar.subviews[2].isEqual(object))! {
    DispatchQueue.main.async {
      self.navigationController?.navigationBar.subviews[2].clipsToBounds = false
      self.navigationItem.titleView?.layoutIfNeeded()
    }
  }
}

deinit {
  navigationController?.navigationBar.subviews[2].removeObserver(self, forKeyPath: "clipsToBounds")
}

For more detail and easier, you can check my demo here https://github.com/trungducc/stackoverflow/tree/big-title-navigation-bar