Swift Custom NavBar Back Button Image and Text

IosSwiftUinavigationcontrollerUikitUibarbuttonitem

Ios Problem Overview

I need to customise the look of a back button in a Swift project.

Here's what I have: Default Back Button

Here's what I want: Custom Back Button

I've tried creating my own UIBarButtonItem but I can't figure out how to get the image to be beside the text, rather than as a background or a replacement for the text.

let backButton = UIBarButtonItem(title: "Custom", style: .Plain, target: self, action: nil    )
//backButton.image = UIImage(named: "imageName") //Replaces title
backButton.setBackgroundImage(UIImage(named: "imageName"), forState: .Normal, barMetrics: .Default) // Stretches image
navigationItem.setLeftBarButtonItem(backButton, animated: false)

Ios Solutions

Solution 1 - Ios

You can do something like that:

let yourBackImage = UIImage(named: "back_button_image")
self.navigationController?.navigationBar.backIndicatorImage = yourBackImage
self.navigationController?.navigationBar.backIndicatorTransitionMaskImage = yourBackImage
self.navigationController?.navigationBar.backItem?.title = "Custom"

Your image will only have one color though

Solution 2 - Ios

> Note: Please remember that the back button belongs to the the source ViewController and not to the destination ViewController. Thus, the modification needs to be done in the source VC, which is reflected to all the view in the navigation controller

Code Snippet:

let backImage = UIImage(named: "icon-back")
    
self.navigationController?.navigationBar.backIndicatorImage = backImage
    
self.navigationController?.navigationBar.backIndicatorTransitionMaskImage = backImage
    
/*** If needed Assign Title Here ***/
self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(title: "", style: UIBarButtonItemStyle.plain, target: nil, action: nil)

Solution 3 - Ios

swift 4

In my case, I needed to have only the image of the button, without any text. I hope this will be useful to someone.

let imgBackArrow = UIImage(named: "back_arrow_32")

navigationController?.navigationBar.backIndicatorImage = imgBackArrow
navigationController?.navigationBar.backIndicatorTransitionMaskImage = imgBackArrow

navigationItem.leftItemsSupplementBackButton = true
navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(title: "", style: .plain, target: self, action: nil)

For iOS 12 you can do

func setNavigationBar() {

    self.navigationItem.setHidesBackButton(true, animated:false)

    //your custom view for back image with custom size
    let view = UIView(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 40, height: 40))
    let imageView = UIImageView(frame: CGRect(x: 10, y: 10, width: 20, height: 20))

    if let imgBackArrow = UIImage(named: "icn_back_arrow") {
        imageView.image = imgBackArrow
    }
    view.addSubview(imageView)

    let backTap = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(backToMain))
    view?.addGestureRecognizer(backTap)

    let leftBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(customView: view ?? UIView())
    self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = leftBarButtonItem
}

@objc func backToMain() {
    self.navigationController?.popViewController(animated: true)
}

Solution 4 - Ios

For setting custom back bar button and remove text from back bar button, FROM STORYBOARD only, without any coding. 

For setting custom back button and remove text from back button

RESULT:

enter image description here

Solution 5 - Ios

For the back button image:

  • By this tutorial: (but didn't work for me)

     UINavigationBar.appearance().backIndicatorImage = UIImage(named: "imageName")

  • But this stack answer: (worked for me)

     var backButtonImage = UIImage(named: "back-button-image")
 backButtonImage = backButtonImage?.stretchableImage(withLeftCapWidth: 15, topCapHeight: 30)
 UIBarButtonItem.appearance().setBackButtonBackgroundImage(backButtonImage, for: .normal, barMetrics: .default)

And for the font, assuming you want the font to match for the whole navigation bar:(currently in use)

if let font = UIFont(name: "Avenir-Book", size: 22) {
  UINavigationBar.appearance().titleTextAttributes = [NSFontAttributeName: font]
}

Solution 6 - Ios

Having a button in Navigation Bar with Image AND Text is quite hard. Especially after they have introduced a new headache with UIBarButtonItem position in iOS 11: iOS 11 - UIBarButtonItem horizontal position

You can make either button with image or a button with text, but not a button with both of those. I even tried two UIBarButtonItems together, one with image and other with text - it still doesn't look good at all and their UIStackView can't be easily accessed for modification.

Unexpectedly I found a plain simple solution:

  1. design the button as view in Interface Builder. In my case it is inside target UIViewController and accessible via IBOutlet for simplicity

  2. set Leading Space constraint for the image to be negative, you might also want to set view's background color to .clear.

enter image description here

  1. use it:

    @IBOutlet var backButtonView: UIView!

    override func viewDidLoad() { super.viewDidLoad()

     let backButton = UIBarButtonItem(customView: self.backButtonView)
 self.backButtonView.heightAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: 44).isActive = true // if you set more than you'll get "Unable to simultaneously..."
 self.backButtonView.widthAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: 75).isActive = true
 self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = backButton

    }

That's it. No need to use the trick with negative spacer for iOS 10 or the trick with imageInsets for iOS 11 (which works only if you have image and doesn't work for image+text, BTW).

enter image description here

Solution 7 - Ios

I have tried all the above and all make the custom image without changing the text The only one worked for me is from this answer

let backBTN = UIBarButtonItem(image: UIImage(named: "Back"), 
                              style: .plain, 
                              target: navigationController, 
                              action: #selector(UINavigationController.popViewController(animated:)))
navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = backBTN
navigationController?.interactivePopGestureRecognizer?.delegate = self

Solution 8 - Ios

swift 3

    extension UIViewController {
        
        func setBackButton(){
            let yourBackImage = UIImage(named: "backbutton")
            navigationController?.navigationBar.backIndicatorImage = yourBackImage
            navigationController?.navigationBar.backIndicatorTransitionMaskImage = yourBackImage
        }

    }

Solution 9 - Ios

This worked for me on iOS 13 using swift 5. Just hide the original back button and add a new navigation left bar button item with an action.

navigationItem.hidesBackButton = true
navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(image: #imageLiteral(resourceName: "backBtn"), style: .plain, target: self, action: #selector(back(sender:)))

@objc func back(sender: UIBarButtonItem) {
    self.navigationController?.popViewController(animated:true)
}

Solution 10 - Ios

Just replace the backButton with a custom rightBarButtonItem

let backImage = UIImage(named: "BackBtn")?.withRenderingMode(.alwaysOriginal)
    navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(image: backImage, style: .plain, target: self, action: #selector(popnav))

    @objc func popnav() {
    self.navigationController?.popViewController(animated: true)
}

Solution 11 - Ios

I know it was answered. Here you can set title, image and target.

    let view = UIView()
    let button = UIButton(type: .system)
    button.setImage(UIImage(named: "backArrow_theme"), for: .normal)
    button.setTitle("Back to workflow", for: .normal)
    button.addTarget(self, action: #selector(onBackButton(_:)), for: .touchUpInside)
    button.titleEdgeInsets = UIEdgeInsets(top: 0, left: 10, bottom: 0, right: -10)
    button.sizeToFit()
    view.addSubview(button)
    view.frame = button.bounds
    navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(customView: view)

Solution 12 - Ios

Just in case someone need to change all Back buttons color or font with Swift5. UIBarButtonItem.appearance().tintColor = .red

Add this to AppDelegate.swift file.

import UIKit

@main
class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {

var window: UIWindow?

func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {
    
    // Override point for customization after application launch.        
    UIBarButtonItem.appearance().tintColor = .white
    UIBarButtonItem.appearance().setTitleTextAttributes([
        NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor: .red,
        NSAttributedString.Key.font: UIFont(name: "font_name", size: 14)!
    ], for: .normal)

    return true
}

}

Solution 13 - Ios

Swift 4.2 Add this functions ViewController

func addNavigationBarButton(imageName:String,direction:direction){
    var image = UIImage(named: imageName)
    image = image?.withRenderingMode(.alwaysOriginal)
    switch direction {
    case .left:
       self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(image: image, style:.plain, target: nil, action: #selector(goBack))
    case .right:
       self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(image: image, style:.plain, target: nil, action: #selector(goBack))
    }
}

@objc func goBack() {
    navigationController?.popViewController(animated: true)
}

enum direction {
    case right
    case left
}

Using you should use here

> viewDidLoad()

addNavigationBarButton(imageName: "ic_back", direction:.left)

Solution 14 - Ios

SWIFT 5

> This works for me.

let backIcon =  UIImage(named: "arrowRight")
self.navigationController?.navigationBar.backIndicatorImage = backIcon
    
self.navigationController?.navigationBar.backIndicatorTransitionMaskImage = backIcon

navigationItem.backButtonTitle = ""

Solution 15 - Ios

You can change it globally in the AppDelegate with the following code:

UINavigationBar.appearance().backIndicatorImage = UIImage(named: "custom-back")
UINavigationBar.appearance().backIndicatorTransitionMaskImage = UIImage(named: "custom-back")
Categories
Recommended Ios Solutions
Recommended Swift Solutions
Recommended Uinavigationcontroller Solutions
Recommended Uikit Solutions
Recommended Uibarbuttonitem Solutions

Previous Solution:

How to create an associative array in JavaScript literal notation

JavascriptArraysAssociative Array

Next Solution:

pyspark collect_set or collect_list with groupby

ListGroup BySetPysparkCollect

Attributions

All content for this solution is sourced from the original question on Stackoverflow.

The content on this page is licensed under the Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.

Content TypeOriginal AuthorOriginal Content on Stackoverflow
QuestionConorView Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - IosRandyView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - IosSupratik MajumdarView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - IosBooharinView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - IosMushrankhanView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - IosIdanView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - IosVitaliiView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - IosMohamed SalehView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - IosAhmed SafadiView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - IosKegham K.View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 10 - IosMohamed AliView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 11 - IosMuruganandham KView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 12 - IosJ A S K I E RView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 13 - IosikbalView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 14 - IosLittleRiderView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 15 - IosIng. RonView Answer on Stackoverflow