Ios – How to change the status bar background color and text color on iOS 7

iosios-statusbarios7uicolor

My current application runs on iOS 5 and 6.

The navigation bar is having an orange color and the status bar is having a black background color with white text color. However, when I run the same application on iOS 7, I observe the status bar looks transparent with the same orange background color as the navigation bar and the status bar text color is black.

Due to this I'm not able to differentiate between the status bar and the navigation bar.

How do I make the status bar to look the same as it was in iOS 5 and 6, that is with black background color and white text color? How can I do this programmatically?

Best Answer

Warning: It does not work anymore with iOS 13 and Xcode 11.

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I had to try look for other ways. Which does not involve addSubview on window. Because I am moving up the window when keyboard is presented.

Objective-C

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

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

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

Swift

func setStatusBarBackgroundColor(color: UIColor) {

    guard  let statusBar = UIApplication.sharedApplication().valueForKey("statusBarWindow")?.valueForKey("statusBar") as? UIView else {
        return
    }

    statusBar.backgroundColor = color
}

Swift 3

func setStatusBarBackgroundColor(color: UIColor) {

    guard let statusBar = UIApplication.shared.value(forKeyPath: "statusBarWindow.statusBar") as? UIView else { return }

    statusBar.backgroundColor = color
}

Calling this form application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions worked for me.

N.B. We have an app in the app store with this logic. So I guess it is okay with the app store policy.

Edit:

Use at your own risk. Form the commenter @Sebyddd

I had one app rejected cause of this, while another was accepted just fine. They do consider it private API usage, so you are subject to luck during the reviewing process :) – Sebyddd

Modern approach

The modern way, for the entire navigation controller… do this once, when your navigation controller's root view is loaded.

[self.navigationController.navigationBar setTitleTextAttributes:
   @{NSForegroundColorAttributeName:[UIColor yellowColor]}];

However, this doesn't seem have an effect in subsequent views.

Classic approach

The old way, per view controller (these constants are for iOS 6, but if want to do it per view controller on iOS 7 appearance you'll want the same approach but with different constants):

You need to use a UILabel as the titleView of the navigationItem.

The label should:

Have a clear background color (label.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor]).
Use bold 20pt system font (label.font = [UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize: 20.0f]).
Have a shadow of black with 50% alpha (label.shadowColor = [UIColor colorWithWhite:0.0 alpha:0.5]).
You'll want to set the text alignment to centered as well (label.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentCenter (UITextAlignmentCenter for older SDKs).

Set the label text color to be whatever custom color you'd like. You do want a color that doesn't cause the text to blend into shadow, which would be difficult to read.

I worked this out through trial and error, but the values I came up with are ultimately too simple for them not to be what Apple picked. :)

If you want to verify this, drop this code into initWithNibName:bundle: in PageThreeViewController.m of Apple's NavBar sample. This will replace the text with a yellow label. This should be indistinguishable from the original produced by Apple's code, except for the color.

- (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil
{
    self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil];
    if (self)
    {
        // this will appear as the title in the navigation bar
        UILabel *label = [[[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectZero] autorelease];
        label.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
        label.font = [UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize:20.0];
        label.shadowColor = [UIColor colorWithWhite:0.0 alpha:0.5];
        label.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentCenter;
                           // ^-Use UITextAlignmentCenter for older SDKs.
        label.textColor = [UIColor yellowColor]; // change this color
        self.navigationItem.titleView = label;
        label.text = NSLocalizedString(@"PageThreeTitle", @"");
        [label sizeToFit];
    }

    return self;
}

Edit: Also, read Erik B's answer below. My code shows the effect, but his code offers a simpler way to drop this into place on an existing view controller.

Ios – iPhone UITextField – Change placeholder text color

Since the introduction of attributed strings in UIViews in iOS 6, it's possible to assign a color to the placeholder text like this:

if ([textField respondsToSelector:@selector(setAttributedPlaceholder:)]) {
  UIColor *color = [UIColor blackColor];
  textField.attributedPlaceholder = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:placeholderText attributes:@{NSForegroundColorAttributeName: color}];
} else {
  NSLog(@"Cannot set placeholder text's color, because deployment target is earlier than iOS 6.0");
  // TODO: Add fall-back code to set placeholder color.
}