Changing back button title to default < icon

Question

I made a custom back button but I want to change the title to the default arrow "<" how do I do this? This is what I currently have

let newBackButton = UIBarButtonItem(title: "<", style: UIBarButtonItemStyle.Plain, target: self, action: "back:")

I need "Back" to be the default "<" icon. When I type it in as text it's just a small ugly text button.

Answer 1

You can use some font-icon library like ionicons to get what you need. In provided link there are library and examples how install and how to use it. It's quite useful because with a font icon you don't need to bother with image sizes and scaling.

To set "back" icon on button you only need to do something like this:

self.button.setTitle(String.fontIonIconWithName("ios-arrow-back"), forState: .Normal)

Here is official website where you can find all available icons.

Answer 2

You could put this line into viewDidLoad method

self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"" style:UIBarButtonItemStylePlain target:nil action:nil];

This way you will get standard "<" sign without any label

EDIT

Swift notation:

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    // only standard '<' will appear; proper target and action will be added automatically
    self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(title: "", style: .Plain , target: nil, action: nil)
}