Removing the title text of an iOS UIBarButtonItem

In the dynamic world of iOS application development, user interface elements play a crucial role in shaping the user experience. Among these, the UIBarButtonItem is a staple, frequently employed in navigation bars and toolbars to provide quick access to actions or navigation paths. While often used with both an icon and a descriptive title, there are numerous design scenarios where developers might find themselves needing to style these buttons with an icon alone, effectively removing the title text of an iOS UIBarButtonItem. This seemingly straightforward task can present subtle challenges, particularly when aiming for a clean aesthetic and optimal user experience without compromising functionality. Understanding the various techniques to achieve this, from direct property manipulation to custom view integration, is key to crafting polished iOS interfaces that align perfectly with modern design principles.

Understanding UIBarButtonItem Customization in iOS

The UIBarButtonItem class in UIKit is designed to represent a button in a navigation bar, toolbar, or tab bar. It offers several initialization options, allowing developers to create buttons with text, images, or even custom views. By default, when initialized with a title, the button displays both the text and an optional image. However, modern iOS design often leans towards minimalist interfaces where iconography conveys meaning more efficiently, especially for common actions like “back,” “add,” or “share.” Removing the title text allows for a cleaner look, reduces visual clutter, and can sometimes free up valuable screen real estate on smaller devices.

Achieving a text-free UIBarButtonItem isn’t just about aesthetics; it’s about enhancing usability. An effectively designed icon can communicate an action quicker than text, especially for universally recognized symbols. Developers frequently explore options for UIBarButtonItem customization to ensure their app’s navigation and action elements are both intuitive and visually appealing. This involves delving into properties that control the button’s appearance, its content, and how it interacts with the surrounding interface. A deep understanding of these properties is fundamental before attempting to modify the default behavior.

For instance, developers often need to switch between text and icon-only representations based on context or user preferences. Apple’s official documentation for UIBarButtonItem provides comprehensive details on its properties and methods, serving as the ultimate authority for understanding its capabilities. This foundational knowledge ensures that any modifications, such as removing title text, are implemented correctly and robustly within the application’s architecture.

Practical Approaches to Removing Title Text

When the goal is to present a UIBarButtonItem solely with an image, several effective strategies can be employed. The most direct method involves initializing the UIBarButtonItem directly with an image, bypassing the title property altogether. This approach leverages the initializer init(image:style:target:action:), which is specifically designed for image-based bar button items. By providing a UIImage instance, the button will render only the specified icon, leaving the navigation bar or toolbar free from unwanted text.

Alternatively, for existing bar button items that might have been initialized with a title, one can set the image property and explicitly clear the title. Setting the title to an empty string ("") is a common, albeit sometimes imperfect, technique. While it visually removes the text, it might still allocate space for the text, or in some iOS versions, display a small, almost invisible gap. A more robust solution involves setting the title to nil if the initializer permits, or more reliably, using the setImage(_:for:) and setTitle(_:for:) methods of the UIBarButtonItem’s underlying button if it were a custom view, though this is less common for standard bar button items.

For scenarios requiring even greater control over the button's appearance, such as specific padding, custom fonts, or complex visual states, developers often resort to providing a `customView`. This involves creating a `UIButton` (or any `UIView` subclass), configuring it with just an image, and then assigning this custom view to the `UIBarButtonItem`'s `customView` property. This method offers unparalleled flexibility for `custom button appearance`, ensuring that the button's visual representation is precisely as intended. It's a powerful technique for achieving unique designs that standard `UIBarButtonItem` styles might not support natively. Advanced Customization with Appearance Proxy --------------------------------------------

While setting individual UIBarButtonItem instances to display only an image is effective, managing consistency across an entire application can become cumbersome. This is where the appearance() proxy comes into play, offering a powerful mechanism for global styling. The appearance() proxy allows developers to apply styling attributes to all instances of a particular class, or even specific instances within a containment hierarchy, before they are displayed. For UIBarButtonItem, this means you can define how all bar button items, or a subset of them, should look throughout your app.

When the goal is to suppress title text globally, especially for back buttons or specific types of toolbar items, the appearance() proxy can be incredibly efficient. One common technique involves adjusting the title’s position so far off-screen that it becomes invisible. For instance, using setTitlePositionAdjustment(_:for:) can effectively push the text out of view for all UIBarButtonItems. This method is particularly useful for achieving a consistent iOS navigation bar aesthetic across multiple view controllers without repetitive code.

However, precision is key. While the appearance proxy is powerful, it must be used judiciously. Overriding global appearance properties without proper testing can lead to unintended side effects in other parts of the application. It’s crucial to understand the target scope of your appearance settings. As highlighted by experts in Swift UI development, careful consideration of the user experience, especially regarding accessibility, must accompany any global styling changes. For example, if a user relies on VoiceOver, an invisible title might still be read aloud, potentially causing confusion. Therefore, ensure that if you are using an image, it is appropriately labeled for accessibility.

For specific instances like a back button, the title can be removed using an empty string set via the appearance proxy for specific states. For example:

1. Access the UIBarButtonItem’s appearance proxy: UIBarButtonItem.appearance().
2. Target the specific state (e.g., .normal) or specific type (e.g., backButtonAppearance).
3. Use setTitleTextAttributes([.foregroundColor: UIColor.clear], for: .normal) to make the text transparent, or even more aggressively, setTitlePositionAdjustment(UIOffset(horizontal: -1000, vertical: -1000), for: .default) to move it completely off-screen.
4. Ensure that any associated image is properly scaled and positioned to fill the space previously occupied by the title, maintaining the intended visual balance.

This approach ensures a uniform application of styles, making the development process more streamlined and the user Question & Answer :

What I wanted to do is to remove the text from the ‘Back’ button of a UIBarButtonItem, leaving only the blue chevron on the navigation bar. Keep in mind that I’m developing for iOS 7. I’ve tried several methods, including, but not limited to:

This is the image method which I did not like (the image looked out of place):

UIBarButtonItem *barBtnItem = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc]initWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"iOS7BackButton"] style:UIBarButtonItemStylePlain target:self action:@selector(goToPrevious:)]; self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = barBtnItem; 

Another method I tried was this, which simply did not work (nothing was displayed):

UIBarButtonItem *barBtn = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc]init]; barBtn.title=@""; self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem=barBtn; 

What I wanted to achieve is something like the back buttons found in the iOS 7 Music app, which only featured a single chevron.

Thanks.

To set the back button title for a view controller without changing its title use:

Objective-C:

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

Swift:

navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(title: "", style: .plain, target: nil, action: nil) 

To be clear, this is done on the view controller that you would see if you hit the back button. i.e. instead of seeing ‘< Settings’ you want to just see ‘<’ then on your SettingsViewController you would put this in your init. Then you don’t get any of the problems of the title not showing when you’re looking at the view controller itself.