UISearchBar increases navigation bar height in iOS 11

Question

I have my UISearchBar being part of the navigation bar like:

 let searchBar = UISearchBar()
 //some more configuration to the search bar
 .....
         


        

Answer 1

I believe in iOS 11 UISearchBar now has the height equals to 56, and UINavigationBar uses autolayout to fit its subviews hence it increases the height. If you still want to have UISearchBar as titleView as in pre-iOS 11, I found out the best way to do it is to embed UISearchBar in a custom view, and set this view's height to 44, and assign it to navigationItem.titleView

class SearchBarContainerView: UIView {  

    let searchBar: UISearchBar  

    init(customSearchBar: UISearchBar) {  
        searchBar = customSearchBar  
        super.init(frame: CGRect.zero)  

        addSubview(searchBar)  
    }

    override convenience init(frame: CGRect) {  
        self.init(customSearchBar: UISearchBar())  
        self.frame = frame  
    }  

    required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {  
        fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented")  
    }  

    override func layoutSubviews() {  
        super.layoutSubviews()  
        searchBar.frame = bounds  
    }  
}  

class MyViewController: UIViewController {  

    func setupNavigationBar() {  
        let searchBar = UISearchBar()  
        let searchBarContainer = SearchBarContainerView(customSearchBar: searchBar)  
        searchBarContainer.frame = CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: view.frame.width, height: 44)  
        navigationItem.titleView = searchBarContainer  
    }  
} 

Answer 2

I couldn't use the solution of keeping the navBar at 44. So it took me a day but finally, I found a solution that doesn't change the bar height and position the button in the middle of the bar. The issue is that the buttons are placed in a stack view which is configured as Horizontal stack view and therefore doesn't adjust to the height change.

This is done on init:

UIBarButtonItem *cancelButton;
if (@available(iOS 11.0, *)) {
    // For iOS11 creating custom button to accomadate the change of navbar + search bar being 56 points
    self.navBarCustomButton = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom];
    [self.navBarCustomButton setTitle:@"Cancel"];
    [self.navBarCustomButton addTarget:self action:@selector(cancelButtonTapped) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
    cancelButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithCustomView:self.navBarCustomButton];
} else {
    cancelButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:MagicLocalizedString(@"button.cancel", @"Cancel")
                                                                                         style:UIBarButtonItemStylePlain
                                                                                        target:self
                                                                                        action:@selector(cancelButtonTapped)];
}

on viewWillApear (or anytime after the view was added to the navigation stack)

   if (@available(iOS 11.0, *)) {
        UIView *buttonsStackView = [navigationController.navigationBar subviewOfClass:[UIStackView class]];
        if (buttonsStackView ) {
            [buttonsStackView.centerYAnchor constraintEqualToAnchor:navigationController.navigationBar.centerYAnchor].active = YES;
            [self.navBarCustomButton.heightAnchor constraintEqualToAnchor:buttonsStackView.heightAnchor];
        }
    }

And subviewOfClass is a category on UIView:

- (__kindof UIView *)subviewOfClass:(Class)targetClass {
     // base case
     if ([self isKindOfClass:targetClass]) {
        return self;
     }

     // recursive
    for (UIView *subview in self.subviews) {
        UIView *dfsResult = [subview subviewOfClass:targetClass];

        if (dfsResult) {
           return dfsResult;
       }
   }
   return nil;
}

Answer 3

EDIT: The @zgjie answer is a better solution for this problem: https://stackoverflow.com/a/46356265/1713123

It seems this happens because in iOS 11 the default height value of SearchBar was changed to 56, instead 44 on previous iOS versions.

For now, I've applied this workaround, setting searchBar height back to 44:

let barFrame = searchController.searchBar.frame
searchController.searchBar.frame = CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: barFrame.width, height: 44)    

Another solution could be use the new searchController property on navigationItem in iOS 11:

navigationItem.searchController = searchController

But this way da searchBar appears below navigation title.

Answer 4

In Objective-C

if (@available(iOS 11.0, *)) {
        [self.searchBar.heightAnchor constraintLessThanOrEqualToConstant: 44].active = YES;
}              

Answer 5

I tried various things to get the size back to the original 44, but then the search bar always looks and behaves weird - like being to far stretched, y-offset and alike.

I found a nice solution here (via some other stackoverflow post): https://github.com/DreamTravelingLight/searchBarDemo

Just derive your viewcontroller from the SearchViewController and include in your project the SearchViewController and WMSearchbar classes. Worked out of the box for me without any ugly if (iOS11) else... uglyness.

Answer 6

I found Mai Mai's solution to be the only one that's really usable.
However it's still not perfect:
When rotating the device, the search bar is not properly resized and remains in the smaller dimension.

I have found a fix for that. Here is my code in Objective C with the relevant parts annotated:

// improvements in the search bar wrapper
@interface SearchBarWrapper : UIView
@property (nonatomic, strong) UISearchBar *searchBar;
- (instancetype)initWithSearchBar:(UISearchBar *)searchBar;
@end
@implementation SearchBarWrapper
- (instancetype)initWithSearchBar:(UISearchBar *)searchBar {
    // setting width to a large value fixes stretch-on-rotation
    self = [super initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 4000, 44)];
    if (self) {
        self.searchBar = searchBar;
        [self addSubview:searchBar];
    }
    return self;
}
- (void)layoutSubviews {
    [super layoutSubviews];
    self.searchBar.frame = self.bounds;
}
// fixes width some cases of resizing while search is active
- (CGSize)sizeThatFits:(CGSize)size {
    return size;
}
@end

// then use it in your VC
@implementation MyViewController
- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];
    self.navigationItem.titleView = [[SearchBarWrapper alloc] initWithSearchBar:self.searchController.searchBar];
}
@end

Now there is still one case left that I haven't figured out yet. To reproduce do the following:
- start in portrait
- activate search field
- rotate to landscape
- error: the bar doesn't resize