Setting UIButton image results in blue button in i

Question

On iOS 6 SDK I wrote the following lines of code to display an image inside a button:

NSURL *thumbURL2 = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://example.com/thumbs/2.jpg"];
NSData *thumbData2 = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:thumbURL2];
UIImage *thumb2 = [UIImage imageWithData:thumbData2];
[btn2 setImage:thumb2 forState:UIControlStateNormal];
[self.view addSubview:btn2];

But now with Xcode 5 and iOS 7 this doesn't work. The button doesn't contain the image. The button is filled with blue color.

Answer 1

For swift:

    let aButton = UIButton.buttonWithType(UIButtonType.Custom) as UIButton

Answer 2

I had the same issue. On my storyboard I had a button without any image.

I would then assign the image in the code.

IOS 7 came and I got a lot of blue images.

The resolution was simple yet confusing. If I assign any image on the storyboard and then change the image at run time it works fine.

You always must specify a starting image on the storyboard even if you are not going to use it.

Answer 3

Using Xcode 9.2 none of the above solutions worked for what I was looking for.

I was looking for a solution that will let me set .normal and .selected UIControlState images inside the storyboard for their original rendering mode, but, inside the Swift file, no string literals should exist regarding the image names.

Basically, inside your code you will get the image you set inside your storyboard for .normal state and re-render it as .alwaysOriginal (Same for .selected state), then, you will set that image (which is now rendered as original and won't be affected by the tint) for the relevant state (.normal and .selected) of your UIButton.

Here it is:

// Get your .normal image (you set via your storyboard) and render it as original
let unselectedImage = yourButton.image(for: .normal)?.withRenderingMode(.alwaysOriginal)
// Set your normal image but this time rendered as original
yourButton.setImage(unselectedImage, for: .normal)
// Same for selected state
let selectedImage = yourButton.image(for: .selected)?.withRenderingMode(.alwaysOriginal)
yourButton.setImage(selectedImage, for: .selected)

This way you can set your button image states and if the image name will change, it won't affect your code.

Answer 4

It seems iOS 7 is using the image provided just as an Alpha mask for displaying the button's tint color. Changing the button type to UIButtonTypeCustom did the trick for me (thanks user716216!). Setting the image as background doesn't always work if you already have a background image, as was my case.

Answer 5

In iOS 13 -- just set the Tint property to White, while keeping the type of the UIButton as Custom

Answer 6

In Swift 4, initialize your UIButton and assign uyour image Data as follows:

let myButton = UIButton(type: .cutsom)
myButton.setImage(UIImage(data:myImageData), for: .normal)