UISearchBar: clear background color or set background image [duplicate]

Answer 1

mj_ has the answer that i used. i was just going to comment as such but i can't yet. So i'll just post my own answer with my implementation where I add a search bar to the top of a table view with a semi-transparent BG.

DLog(@"    Add search bar to table view"); 

//could be a UIImageView to display an image..?
bg = [[[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, 45)] autorelease];
bg.backgroundColor        = [UIColor blackColor];
UISearchBar *sb           = [[[UISearchBar alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 290, 45)] autorelease];
sb.barStyle               = UIBarStyleBlackTranslucent;
sb.showsCancelButton      = NO;
sb.autocorrectionType     = UITextAutocorrectionTypeNo;
sb.autocapitalizationType = UITextAutocapitalizationTypeNone;
sb.delegate               = self;
[bg addSubview:sb];
table.tableHeaderView     = bg;

for (UIView *subview in sb.subviews) {
    if ([subview isKindOfClass:NSClassFromString(@"UISearchBarBackground")]) {
        [subview removeFromSuperview];
        break;
    }
}   

Answer 2

searchBar.searchBarStyle = UISearchBarStyleMinimal;

Answer 3

One liner:

[[self.theSearchBar.subviews objectAtIndex:0] removeFromSuperview];

Answer 4

Set background image

    UIImageView *backgroundView = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithFrame:searchBar.bounds];
    backgroundView.image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"xxxx.png"];
    [searchBar insertSubview:backgroundView atIndex:1]; // at index 1 but not 0
    [backgroundView release];

Answer 5

with iOS8 sdks apple moved @"UISearchBarBackground" view one level deeper, so have will need to look at subviews of the child-views as bellow,

for (UIView *subview in searchBar.subviews) {
        for(UIView* grandSonView in subview.subviews){
            if ([grandSonView isKindOfClass:NSClassFromString(@"UISearchBarBackground")]) {
                grandSonView.alpha = 0.0f;
            }else if([grandSonView isKindOfClass:NSClassFromString(@"UISearchBarTextField")] ){
                NSLog(@"Keep textfiedld bkg color");
            }else{
                grandSonView.alpha = 0.0f;
            }
        }//for cacheViews
    }//subviews

Answer 6

How to set background color in UISearchBar:

#import <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h>

Then make an outlet connection to search bar (say, objSearchbar), and use these lines :

for (UIView *subview in self.objSearchbar.subviews) 
{
    if ([subview isKindOfClass:NSClassFromString(@"UISearchBarBackground")]) 
    {
        [subview removeFromSuperview];
        break;
    }
}

self.tweetSearchbar.layer.backgroundColor = [UIColor blueColor].CGColor;