Coloured Status Bar on a TabBarController with NavigationBar not working

Question

I've read a lot of posts on here and tried most of the options mentioned, but none fix the issue for me. I have an app that is based off of a Tab Bar Controller. Each tab is a UIViewController with a Navigation Bar at the top.

Adding this code to the AppDelegate gives me an orange coloured Navigation Bar with white text, but a white status bar with Black text.

[[UINavigationBar appearance] setBarTintColor:[UIColor orangeColor]];
[[UINavigationBar appearance] setTintColor:[UIColor whiteColor]];
[[UINavigationBar appearance] setTitleTextAttributes:@{NSForegroundColorAttributeName : [UIColor whiteColor]}];

Reading the answers on various pages suggest adding the following to the View controller:

- (UIStatusBarStyle)preferredStatusBarStyle
{
    return UIStatusBarStyleLightContent;
}

Then calling this in View Did Load:

[self setNeedsStatusBarAppearanceUpdate];

This gets me a White status bar with White text, how can I now get the status bar to go orange to match my Navigation Bar??

The solution mentioned on here https://stackoverflow.com/a/19513714/505457 for those using a Navigation Controller doesn't work, I guess thats because my main controller is a Tab Bar Controller.

Anyone come across this before? Thanks in advance for any advice / suggestions you may have. I can provide a sample app if required, but its probably as quick to build one with the Tab Bar template, add a Navigation bar then paste in my code samples.

Plasma

Answer 1

You can find the statusBar UIVIew by it's name and tint it. Add this method to your AppDelegate.m and call it from didFinishLaunchingWithOptions :

- (void)setStatusBarBackgroundColor:(UIColor *)color {

    UIView *statusBar = [[[UIApplication sharedApplication] valueForKey:@"statusBarWindow"] valueForKey:@"statusBar"];

    if ([statusBar respondsToSelector:@selector(setBackgroundColor:)]) {
        statusBar.backgroundColor = color;
    }
}

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions {

 ...   

    [self setStatusBarBackgroundColor:[UIColor orangeColor]];

 ...

}

Note: There are apps in store that use this method. So it is okay with the apple HIG policy.

Answer 2

Well I had almost the same problem since IOS7 , But my quick solution is to change all your views from the first one, I am refering to set up your color bar configuration in the AppDelegate.m file, I recommend to use this free framework Nab Bar Color And Gradient is very easy to use and also you will be available to set a beautiful gradient on all of your views.

See the examples in the project.

Answer 3

Normally, you shouldn't be adding a UINavigationBar to a UIViewController . Instead, fill your UITabBarController will UINavigationController s.

    let firstViewController = FirstViewController(nibName: nil, bundle: nil)
    let firstNavigationController = UINavigationController(rootViewController: firstViewController)

    let secondViewController = SecondViewController(nibName: nil, bundle: nil)
    let secondNavigationController = UINavigationController(rootViewController: secondViewController)

    let navigationControllers = [
        firstNavigationController,
        secondNavigationController
    ]

    yourTabBarController.setViewControllers(navigationControllers, animated: false)

The same general process applies if you are using storyboards.

Answer 4

Right so the point BSmith11 made about adding Navigation controllers to a Tab Bar got me thinking. So I did a bit of Googling and an answer on this page, helps a lot: Tab bar controller inside a uinavigationcontroller

By having the TabBar controller as the rootViewController, then inserting a "NavigationController" between that and the normal ViewController allows me to do this:

    //Fix up the Navigation bar tint and set text colours to white
[[UINavigationBar appearance] setBarTintColor:[UIColor orangeColor]];
[[UINavigationBar appearance] setBackgroundColor:[UIColor orangeColor]];

[[UINavigationBar appearance] setTintColor:[UIColor whiteColor]];
[[UINavigationBar appearance] setTitleTextAttributes:@{NSForegroundColorAttributeName : [UIColor whiteColor]}];

//Also requires setting 'View controller-based status bar appearance' to NO in .plist
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] setStatusBarStyle:UIStatusBarStyleLightContent];

Which is exactly what I had before, and that gives me a coloured StatusBar and the exact same colour NavBar. Now to see if I can add it in to the existing app and not break everything.

Plasma