How do I show/hide a UIBarButtonItem?

Question

I created a toolbar in IB with several buttons. I would like to be able to hide/show one of the buttons depending on the state of the data in the main window.

Answer 1

You can use text attributes to hide a bar button:

barButton.enabled = false
barButton.setTitleTextAttributes([NSForegroundColorAttributeName : UIColor.clearColor()], forState: .Normal)

Also see my solution with UIBarButtonItem extension for the similar question: Make a UIBarButtonItem disapear using swift IOS

Answer 2

There is no way to "hide" a UIBarButtonItem you must remove it from the superView and add it back when you want to display it again.

Answer 3

One way to do it is use the initWithCustomView:(UIView *) property of when allocating the UIBarButtonItem. Subclass for UIView will have hide/unhide property.

For example:

1. Have a UIButton which you want to hide/unhide.

2. Make the UIButtonas the custom view. Like :

UIButton*myButton=[UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeRoundedRect];//your button

UIBarButtonItem*yourBarButton=[[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithCustomView:myButton];

3. You can hide/unhide the myButton you've created. [myButton setHidden:YES];

Answer 4

For Swift version, here is the code:

For UINavigationBar:

self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = nil

self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = nil

Answer 5

Save your button in a strong outlet (let's call it myButton) and do this to add/remove it:

// Get the reference to the current toolbar buttons
NSMutableArray *toolbarButtons = [self.toolbarItems mutableCopy];

// This is how you remove the button from the toolbar and animate it
[toolbarButtons removeObject:self.myButton];
[self setToolbarItems:toolbarButtons animated:YES];

// This is how you add the button to the toolbar and animate it
if (![toolbarButtons containsObject:self.myButton]) {
    // The following line adds the object to the end of the array.  
    // If you want to add the button somewhere else, use the `insertObject:atIndex:` 
    // method instead of the `addObject` method.
    [toolbarButtons addObject:self.myButton];
    [self setToolbarItems:toolbarButtons animated:YES];
}

Because it is stored in the outlet, you will keep a reference to it even when it isn't on the toolbar.

Answer 6

In case the UIBarButtonItem has an image instead of the text in it you can do this to hide it: navigationBar.topItem.rightBarButtonItem.customView.alpha = 0.0;