235
votes

I want to set background for Navigation Bar to be black and all colors inside it to be white.

So, I used this code :

[[UINavigationBar appearance] setTitleTextAttributes:
     [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
      [UIColor whiteColor],
      NSForegroundColorAttributeName,
      [UIColor whiteColor],
      NSForegroundColorAttributeName,
      [NSValue valueWithUIOffset:UIOffsetMake(0, -1)],
      NSForegroundColorAttributeName,
      [UIFont fontWithName:@"Arial-Bold" size:0.0],
      NSFontAttributeName,
      nil]];

But back button text color, arrow and bar button have still default blue color.
How to change those colors like on image below?

navigation bar

11
try in AppDelegate if ([self.window respondsToSelector:@selector(setTintColor:)]) self.window.tintColor = [UIColor whiteColor];Evgeniy S
Interestingly your code worked great for me (just wanted to change the text color to white). Thanks!William T. Mallard
What is the blue color you are using? Looks nice!ebi
@ebi some people don't like sharing. Just user a colour picker to pick it out. Or....there you go: RGB:(18, 60, 133)pnizzle

11 Answers

756
votes

Behavior from some of the properties of UINavigationBar has changed from iOS 7. You can see in the image shown below :

enter image description here


Two beautiful links I'd like to share with you. For more details you can go through these links :

  1. iOS 7 UI Transition Guide.
  2. How to Update Your App for iOS 7.

Apple Documentation for barTintColor says :

This color is made translucent by default unless you set the translucent property to NO.

Sample Code :

self.navigationController.navigationBar.barTintColor = [UIColor blackColor];
self.navigationController.navigationBar.tintColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
[self.navigationController.navigationBar 
 setTitleTextAttributes:@{NSForegroundColorAttributeName : [UIColor whiteColor]}];
self.navigationController.navigationBar.translucent = NO;
85
votes

enter image description here

This one took me about half a day to figure out but this is what worked for me. Inside the rootViewController that initializes the navigationController, I put this code inside my viewDidAppear method:

//set bar color
[self.navigationController.navigationBar setBarTintColor:[UIColor colorWithRed:85.0/255.0 green:143.0/255.0 blue:220.0/255.0 alpha:1.0]];
//optional, i don't want my bar to be translucent
[self.navigationController.navigationBar setTranslucent:NO];
//set title and title color
[self.navigationItem setTitle:@"Title"];
[self.navigationController.navigationBar setTitleTextAttributes:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:[UIColor whiteColor] forKey:UITextAttributeTextColor]];
//set back button color
[[UIBarButtonItem appearanceWhenContainedIn:[UINavigationBar class], nil] setTitleTextAttributes:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:[UIColor whiteColor], UITextAttributeTextColor,nil] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
//set back button arrow color
[self.navigationController.navigationBar setTintColor:[UIColor whiteColor]];

My full post on this here

38
votes

Swift3, ios 10

To globally assign the color, in AppDelegate didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:

let textAttributes = [NSForegroundColorAttributeName:UIColor.white]
UINavigationBar.appearance().titleTextAttributes = textAttributes

Swift 4, iOS 11

let textAttributes = [NSAttributedStringKey.foregroundColor:UIColor.white]
UINavigationBar.appearance().titleTextAttributes = textAttributes
21
votes

Vin's answer worked great for me. Here is the same solution for C# developers using Xamarin.iOS/MonoTouch:

var navigationBar = NavigationController.NavigationBar; //or another reference
navigationBar.BarTintColor = UIColor.Blue;
navigationBar.TintColor = UIColor.White;
navigationBar.SetTitleTextAttributes(new UITextAttributes() { TextColor = UIColor.White });
navigationBar.Translucent = false;
12
votes

Swift / iOS8

let textAttributes = NSMutableDictionary(capacity:1)
textAttributes.setObject(UIColor.whiteColor(), forKey: NSForegroundColorAttributeName)
navigationController?.navigationBar.titleTextAttributes = textAttributes
12
votes
[[UINavigationBar appearance] setTitleTextAttributes:@{NSForegroundColorAttributeName : [UIColor whiteColor]}];
8
votes

To change color of UINavigationBar title the correct way use this code:

[self.navigationController.navigationBar setTitleTextAttributes:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:[UIColor whiteColor] forKey:UITextAttributeTextColor]];

UITextAttributeTextColor is deprecated in lastest ios 7 version. Use NSForegroundColorAttributeName instead.

5
votes

If you're looking to change the title text size and the text color you have to change the NSDictionary titleTextAttributes, for 2 of its objects:

    self.navigationController.navigationBar.titleTextAttributes = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:[UIFont fontWithName:@"Arial" size:13.0],NSFontAttributeName,
                                                                  [UIColor whiteColor], NSForegroundColorAttributeName, 
                                                                  nil];
2
votes

I think previous answers are correct , this is another way of doing the same thing. I am sharing it here with others just in case if it becomes useful for someone. This is how you can change the text/title color for the navbar in ios7:

UIColor *red = [UIColor colorWithRed:254.0f/255.0f green:0.0f/255.0f blue:0.0f/255.0f alpha:1.0];
NSMutableDictionary *navBarTextAttributes = [NSMutableDictionary dictionaryWithCapacity:1];
[navBarTextAttributes setObject:red forKey:NSForegroundColorAttributeName ];
self.navigationController.navigationBar.titleTextAttributes = navBarTextAttributes;
1
votes

It seems that Accessibility controls in the iOS Settings override pretty much everything you try to do color-wise to the navigation bar buttons. Make sure you have all the settings to the default positions (set increase contrast, bold text, button shapes, etc to off) otherwise you won't see anything change. Once I did it, all the color change code started working as expected. You might not need to turn them all off, but I didn't pursue it further.

0
votes

Swift 5/iOS 13

To change color of title in controller:

UINavigationBar.appearance().titleTextAttributes = [NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor: UIColor.white]