Remove back arrow in iOS7

Question

I want to incorporate a custom back button - I'm able to get the above result using

self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"back-btn"] style:UIBarButtonItemStylePlain target:nil action:nil];

but how do you remove the native blue button?

Answer 1

In iOS7+ you can use navigationBar's backIndicatorImage and backIndicatorTransitionMaskImage to achieve the custom arrow that you want. Swift code below:

self.navigationController?.navigationBar.backIndicatorImage = UIImage(named:"button-backArrow18x15")
self.navigationController?.navigationBar.backIndicatorTransitionMaskImage = UIImage(named:"button-backArrowMask18x15")

If you want to hide the "back" text you can set the title of the previous view to be an single space " " or use a custom UIBarButtonItem that doesn't have a title.

Answer 2

I just faced the exact same problem, here's what I ended up doing:

// First set the back button text to an empty string
viewController.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = 
     [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"" 
          style:UIBarButtonItemStylePlain 
          target:nil 
          action:nil];

// Set the back-indicator image to the custom image (scaled to 20x20)
UIImage *img = [MyUtils imageWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"back"] scaledToSize:CGSizeMake(20, 20)];
[[UINavigationBar appearance] setBackIndicatorImage:img];
[[UINavigationBar appearance] setBackIndicatorTransitionMaskImage:img];

// Set the tint color to WHITE
[[UINavigationBar appearance] setTintColor:[UIColor whiteColor]];

Here's the image-scaling method:

+ (UIImage *)imageWithImage:(UIImage *)image scaledToSize:(CGSize)newSize {
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(newSize, NO, 0.0);
    [image drawInRect:CGRectMake(0, 0, newSize.width, newSize.height)];
    UIImage *newImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
    return newImage;
}

Credit for the scaling method above goes to Paul Lynch on this SO question: (The simplest way to resize an UIImage?)