setting leftBarButtonItems with UINavigationController in iOS 5

Question

I saw in the documentation that now you can have an array of items for the leftBarButtonItems and rightBarButtonItems in a UINavigationController and don't have to create a UIToolBar and set that as the button. I basically want a "Home" button on the left next to the "back" button of the navigationController. So it would look like:

BackButtonFromNavigationController HomeBarButtonItem

I wasn't sure how I get the navigationBar's backButton into my array once I create my HomeButton. I tried this, but I only see the navigationController's backBarButton:

if ([self.navigationItem respondsToSelector:@selector(setLeftBarButtonItems:)]) {
    UIBarButtonItem *hButton = [self createHomeButton];
    self.navigationController.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItems = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem, hButton, nil];
}

Edited per smparkes response:

if ([self.navigationItem respondsToSelector:@selector(leftItemsSupplementBackButton)]) {
    self.navigationItem.leftItemsSupplementBackButton = YES;
    self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = homeBBI;
}

I know homeBBI is created properly as I have it in my UIToolBar as the rightBarButtonItem prior to iOS 5. Now I'm just trying to move it to the left and I used the same button to see if it would work but it doesn't seem to work still...

smparkes · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-26 23:41:23Z

8

Don't put the back button in the array. Use leftItemsSupplementBackButton to make the button array add to instead of replace the back button. Once you've done that, it doesn't sound like you even need an array.

I think you're getting the behavior you are seeing because your button array is empty. You're adding self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem which is probably nil. You want the back button from the controller one step deeper in the nav stack, not the back button for the current controller.

answered Jan 26, 2012 at 23:41

smparkes

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2 Comments

smparkes Over a year ago

It looks okay, as long as homeBBI is not nil (did you double check)? Otherwise, not sure.

Crystal Over a year ago

yeah i checked it for not being nil and still doesn't show up unfortunately. Will keep checking. Thanks for the response though!

freytag · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-30 17:51:39Z

0

I had the same problem. In my case the reason for hiding the additional buttons was that I've been using a custom title view. As the documentation states:

If there is not enough room to display all of the items in the array, those that would overlap the title view (if present) or the buttons on the right side of the bar are not displayed.

Changing the size of the custom title view did resolve my problems. Perhaps this hint will help others.

answered Oct 30, 2012 at 17:51

freytag

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