How do I show hide a UIBarButtonItem

Question

I created a toolbar in IB with several buttons  I would like to be able to hide show one of the buttons depending on the state of the data in the main window    UIBarButtonItem doesn t have a hidden property  and any examples I ve found so far for hiding them involve setting nav bar buttons to nil  which I don t think I want to do here because I may need to show the button again  not to mention that  if I connect my button to an IBOutlet  if I set that to nil I m not sure how I d get it back

User · Answer

With credit to  lnafziger   MindSpiker   vishal  et  al   The simplest one liner that I arrived at for a single right  or left  bar button is   self navigationItem rightBarButtonItem    lt  StateExpression  gt         lt  StrongPropertyButton  gt    nil    As in    interface MyClass     property  strong  nonatomic  IBOutlet UIBarButtonItem   lt  StrongPropertyButton  gt     end   implementation  -  void  updateState       self navigationItem rightBarButtonItem    lt  StateExpression  gt             lt  StrongPropertyButton  gt    nil      end   I tested this and it works for me  with the strong bar button item wired via IB

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It is possible to hide a button in place without changing its width or removing it from the bar  If you set the style to plain  remove the title  and disable the button  it will disappear  To restore it  just reverse your changes    - void toggleBarButton  bool show       if  show            btn style   UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered          btn enabled   true          btn title     MyTitle         else           btn style   UIBarButtonItemStylePlain          btn enabled   false          btn title   nil

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One way to do it is use the  initWithCustomView  UIView    property of when allocating the UIBarButtonItem  Subclass for UIView will have hide unhide property   For example   1  Have  a UIButton which you want to hide unhide   2  Make the UIButtonas the custom view  Like     UIButton myButton  UIButton buttonWithType UIButtonTypeRoundedRect    your button  UIBarButtonItem yourBarButton   UIBarButtonItem alloc  initWithCustomView myButton     3  You can hide unhide the myButton you ve created   myButton setHidden YES

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I know this answer is late for this question  However  it might help if anybody else faces a similar situation   In iOS 7  to hide a bar button item  we can use the following two techniques  -   use SetTitleTextAttributes  - This works great on bar button items like  Done    Save  etc  However  it does not work on items like Add  Trash symbol etc  atleast not for me  since they are not texts  use TintColor  - If I have a bar button item called  deleteButton   -   To hide the button  I used the following code -   self deleteButton setEnabled NO     self deleteButton setTintColor   UIColor clearColor      To show the button again I used the following code -    self deleteButton setEnabled YES    self deleteButton setTintColor nil

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For Swift 3 and Swift 4 you can do this to hide the UIBarButtomItem   self deleteButton isEnabled   false self deleteButton tintColor   UIColor clear   And to show the UIBarButtonItem   self deleteButton isEnabled   true self deleteButton tintColor   UIColor blue   On the tintColor you must have to specify the origin color you are using for the UIBarButtomItem

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Save your button in a strong outlet  let s call it myButton  and do this to add remove it      Get the reference to the current toolbar buttons NSMutableArray  toolbarButtons    self toolbarItems mutableCopy       This is how you remove the button from the toolbar and animate it  toolbarButtons removeObject self myButton    self setToolbarItems toolbarButtons animated YES       This is how you add the button to the toolbar and animate it if    toolbarButtons containsObject self myButton            The following line adds the object to the end of the array           If you want to add the button somewhere else  use the  insertObject atIndex           method instead of the  addObject  method       toolbarButtons addObject self myButton        self setToolbarItems toolbarButtons animated YES       Because it is stored in the outlet  you will keep a reference to it even when it isn t on the toolbar

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I discovered another wrinkle in the tintColor and isEnabled approach suggested by Max and others - when VoiceOver is enabled for accessibility and the button is logically hidden  the accessibility cursor will still focus on the bar button  and state that it is  dimmed   i e  because isEnabled is set to false   The approach in the accepted answer doesn t suffer from this side-effect  but another work around I found was to set isAccessibilityElement to false when  hiding  the button   deleteButton tintColor   UIColor clear deleteButton isEnabled   false deleteButton isAccessibilityElement   false   And then setting isAccessibilityElement back to true when  showing  the button   deleteButton tintColor   UIColor blue deleteButton isEnabled   true deleteButton isAccessibilityElement   true   Having the bar button item still take up space was not an issue in my case  since we were hiding showing the left-most of right bar button items

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Just Set  barButton customView   UIView   and see the Trick

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I ll add my solution here as I couldn t find it mentioned here yet  I have a dynamic button whose image depends on the state of one control  The most simple solution for me was to set the image to nil if the control was not present  The image was updated each time the control updated and thus  this was optimal for me  Just to be sure I also set the enabled to NO   Setting the width to a minimal value did not work on iOS 7

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iOS 8  UIBarButtonItem with custom image  Tried many different ways  most of them were not helping  Max s solution  thesetTintColor was not changing to any color  I figured out this one myself  thought it will be of use to some one   For Hiding    self navigationItem rightBarButtonItem setEnabled NO    self navigationItem rightBarButtonItem setImage nil     For Showing    self navigationItem rightBarButtonItem setEnabled YES    self navigationItem rightBarButtonItem setImage image

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for hiding one of many items  I used the following code   self navigationItem leftBarButtonItems  remove at  0    self navigationItem rightBarButtonItems  remove at  1    I guess the items can be re-added if needed

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Below is my solution though i was looking it for Navigation Bar   navBar topItem rightBarButtonItem   nil    Here  navBar  is a IBOutlet to the NavigationBar in the view in XIB Here i wanted to hide the button or show it based on some condition  So i m testing for the condition in  If  and if true i am setting the button to nil in viewDidLoad method of the target view   This may not be relevant to your problem exactly but something similar incase if you want to hide buttons on NavigationBar

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In case the UIBarButtonItem has an image instead of the text in it you can do this to hide it      navigationBar topItem rightBarButtonItem customView alpha   0 0

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Subclass UIBarButtonItem  Make sure the button in Interface Builder is set to HidableBarButtonItem  Make an outlet from the button to the view controller  From the view controller you can then hide show the button by calling setHidden   HidableBarButtonItem h   import  lt UIKit UIKit h gt    interface HidableBarButtonItem   UIBarButtonItem   property  nonatomic  BOOL hidden    end   HidableBarButtonItem m   import  HidableBarButtonItem h    implementation HidableBarButtonItem  -  void setHidden  BOOL const hidden        hidden   hidden       self enabled   hidden   YES   NO      self tintColor   hidden    UIApplication sharedApplication  keyWindow tintColor    UIColor clearColor       end

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I used IBOutlets in my project  So my solution was    IBOutlet weak var addBarButton  UIBarButtonItem   addBarButton enabled   false addBarButton tintColor   UIColor clearColor     And when you ll need to show this bar again  just set reversed properties   In Swift 3 instead enable use isEnable property

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My solution is set bounds width to 0 for what you have inside UIBarButtonItem  I used this approach with UIButton and UISearchBar    Hide   self btnXXX bounds   CGRectMake 0 0 0 0     Show   self btnXXX bounds   CGRectMake 0 0 40 30       lt -- put your sizes here

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Some helper methods I thought I d share based upon lnafziger s accepted answer as I have multiple toolbars and multiple buttons in each   - void  hideToolbarItem  UIBarButtonItem   button inToolbar  UIToolbar   toolbar      NSMutableArray  toolbarButtons    toolbar items mutableCopy        toolbarButtons removeObject button        toolbar setItems toolbarButtons animated NO      - void  showToolbarItem  UIBarButtonItem   button inToolbar  UIToolbar   toolbar atIndex  int  index      NSMutableArray  toolbarButtons    toolbar items mutableCopy       if    toolbarButtons containsObject button             toolbarButtons insertObject button atIndex index            self setToolbarItems toolbarButtons animated YES

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You can easily get the view and hide it this way  let view  UIView   barButtonItem valueForKey  view   as  UIView view hidden   true

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Here is an extension that will handle this    extension UIBarButtonItem        var isHidden  Bool           get               return tintColor     clear                   set               tintColor   newValue    clear    white   or whatever color you want             isEnabled    newValue             isAccessibilityElement    newValue                      USAGE   myBarButtonItem isHidden   true

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Try in Swift  don t update the tintColor if you have some design for your UIBarButtonItem like font size in AppDelegate  it will totally change the appearance of your button when showing up   In case of a text button  changing title can let your button  disappear    if WANT TO SHOW       myBarButtonItem enabled   true     myBarButtonItem title    BUTTON NAME   else      myBarButtonItem enabled   false     myBarButtonItem title

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For Swift version  here is the code   For UINavigationBar   self navigationItem rightBarButtonItem   nil  self navigationItem leftBarButtonItem   nil

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I am currently running OS X Yosemite Developer Preview 7 and Xcode 6 beta 6 targeting iOS 7 1 and following solution works fine for me    Create outlet for UINavigationItemand UIBarButtonItems Run following code to remove   self navItem setRightBarButtonItem nil    self navItem setLeftBarButtonItem nil    Run following codes to add buttons again   self navItem setRightBarButtonItem deleteItem    self navItem setLeftBarButtonItem addItem

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If you are using Swift 3   if  ShowCondition      self navigationItem rightBarButtonItem   self addAsset btn      else      self navigationItem rightBarButtonItem   nil

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Setting the text color to a clear color when the bar button item is disabled is probably a cleaner option  There s no weirdness that you have to explain in a comment  Also you don t destroy the button so you still keep any associated storyboard segues    self navigationItem rightBarButtonItem setTitleTextAttributes   NSForegroundColorAttributeName  UIColor clearColor                                                         forState UIControlStateDisabled     Then when ever you want the bar button item hidden  you can just do   self navigationItem rightBarButton enabled   NO    It s lame there s no hidden property but this offers the same result

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Improving From  lnafziger answer  Save your Barbuttons in a strong outlet and do this to hide show it   - void  hideBarButtonItem   UIBarButtonItem   myButton          Get the reference to the current toolbar buttons     NSMutableArray  navBarBtns    self navigationItem rightBarButtonItems mutableCopy           This is how you remove the button from the toolbar and animate it      navBarBtns removeObject myButton        self navigationItem setRightBarButtonItems navBarBtns animated YES       - void  showBarButtonItem   UIBarButtonItem   myButton          Get the reference to the current toolbar buttons     NSMutableArray  navBarBtns    self navigationItem rightBarButtonItems mutableCopy           This is how you add the button to the toolbar and animate it     if    navBarBtns containsObject myButton              navBarBtns addObject myButton            self navigationItem setRightBarButtonItems navBarBtns animated YES             When ever required use below Function     self showBarButtonItem self rightBarBtn1    self hideBarButtonItem self rightBarBtn1

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IBDesignable class AttributedBarButtonItem  UIBarButtonItem        var isHidden  Bool   false            didSet                isEnabled    isHidden             tintColor   isHidden   UIColor clear   UIColor black                     And now simply change isHidden property

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Complementing Eli Burke s response  if your UIBarButtonItemhas a background image instead of a title  you can use the code   - void toggleLogoutButton  bool show      if  show            self tabButton style   UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered          self tabButton enabled   true          UIImage  imageMap    UIImage imageNamed   btn img png               UIButton    self tabButton customView   setBackgroundImage imageMap forState UIControlStateNormal         else           self tabButton style   UIBarButtonItemStylePlain          self tabButton enabled   false             UIButton    self tabButton customView   setBackgroundImage nil forState UIControlStateNormal

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I had the problem that I had 2 leftBarButtonItems  On Mac Catalyst firstButton was pointing to an action that was not supported  recording a video with AVFoundation  Only the second button was valid on Mac Catalyst  use an UIImagePickerController   So on Mac Catalyst I had to point the first UIBarButtonItem to secondButton and always hide the second UIBarButtonItem  On iOS both buttons should be shown  This was my solution    if TARGET OS MACCATALYST         self navigationItem leftBarButtonItem   self secondButton          NSUInteger count    self navigationItem leftBarButtonItems count           for  NSUInteger i   0  i  lt  count  i                  UIBarButtonItem  thisButton    self navigationItem leftBarButtonItems objectAtIndex i               if  i    1                    thisButton enabled   NO                  thisButton tintColor    UIColor clearColor                            else         self navigationItem leftBarButtonItem   self firstButton   endif   I hope it helps someone with a comparable problem

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In IB if you leave the button s title blank it will not appear  never initialized    I do this often during development during UI updates if I want a bar button item to temp disappear for a build without deleting it and trashing all its outlet references    This does not have the same effect during runtime  setting the button s title to nil will not cause it the whole button to disappear  Sorry doesn t really answer your question  but may be useful to some   Edit  This trick only works if the button s style is set to plain

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You need to manipulate the toolbar items array   Here is some code I use to hide and display a Done button  If your button is on the extreme edge of the toolbar or in-between other buttons your other buttons will move  so if you want your button to just disappear then place your button as the last button towards the centre  I animate the button move for effect  I quite like it   - void initLibraryToolbar        libraryToolbarDocumentManagementEnabled    NSMutableArray   arrayWithCapacity self libraryToolbar items count       libraryToolbarDocumentManagementDisabled    NSMutableArray arrayWithCapacity self libraryToolbar items count        libraryToolbarDocumentManagementEnabled addObjectsFromArray self libraryToolbar items        libraryToolbarDocumentManagementDisabled addObjectsFromArray self libraryToolbar items       trashCan    libraryToolbarDocumentManagementDisabled objectAtIndex 3       mail    libraryToolbarDocumentManagementDisabled objectAtIndex 5        libraryToolbarDocumentManagementDisabled removeObjectAtIndex 1       trashCan enabled   NO      mail enabled   NO       self libraryToolbar setItems libraryToolbarDocumentManagementDisabled animated NO        so now can use the following code to show your button   self libraryToolbar setItems libraryToolbarDocumentManagementEnabled animated YES   trashCan enabled   YES  mail enabled   YES     or to hide your button     self libraryToolbar setItems libraryToolbarDocumentManagementDisabled animated YES   trashCan enabled   NO  mail enabled   NO

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This is long way down the answer list  but just in case somebody wants an easy copy and paste for the swift solution  here it is  func hideToolbarItem button  UIBarButtonItem  withToolbar toolbar  UIToolbar        var toolbarButtons   UIBarButtonItem    toolbar items      toolbarButtons removeAtIndex toolbarButtons indexOf button        toolbar setItems toolbarButtons  animated  true     func showToolbarItem button  UIBarButtonItem  inToolbar toolbar  UIToolbar  atIndex index  Int        var toolbarButtons   UIBarButtonItem    toolbar items      if  toolbarButtons contains button            toolbarButtons insert button  atIndex  index          toolbar setItems toolbarButtons  animated true

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My answer is here for Swift 4   if  0       self navigationItem rightBarButtonItems    UIBarButtonItem customView  self button1     else       self navigationItem rightBarButtonItems    UIBarButtonItem customView  self button2

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There is no way to  hide  a UIBarButtonItem you must remove it from the superView and add it back when you want to display it again

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I worked with xib and with UIToolbar  BarButtonItem was created in xib file  I created IBOutlet for BarButtonItem  And I used this code to hide my BarButtonItem   self myBarButtonItem enabled   NO   self myBarButtonItem title    nil    this helped me

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You can use text attributes to hide a bar button   barButton enabled   false barButton setTitleTextAttributes  NSForegroundColorAttributeName   UIColor clearColor     forState   Normal    Also see my solution with UIBarButtonItem extension for the similar question  Make a UIBarButtonItem disapear using swift IOS

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self dismissButton customView     UIView alloc  initWithFrame CGRectMake 0  0  0  0

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Here s a simple approach   hide   barbuttonItem width   0 01  show   barbuttonItem width   0     0 defaults to normal button width  which is the width of the text    I just ran it on my retina iPad  and  01 is small enough for it to not show up

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