UINavigationBar TitleView with subtitle

Question

I want a titleView inside my UINavigationBar which has two lines of text instead of only one

My current implementiation works well when I have a "Back"-Button and an "Edit" Button because it looks nearly centered. The problem is when I only have one of the Buttons. It looks really weird and wrong because the view centers itself on the available space.

UINavigationBar with left and right Button

UINavigationBar with only one Button

This is my current implementation:

CGRect frame = self.navigationController.navigationBar.frame;

UIView *twoLineTitleView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(CGRectGetWidth(frame), 0, CGRectGetWidth(frame), CGRectGetHeight(frame))];

UILabel *titleLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 8, CGRectGetWidth(frame), 14)];
titleLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
titleLabel.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth;
titleLabel.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;
titleLabel.text = self.title;
[twoLineTitleView addSubview:titleLabel];

UILabel *subTitleLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 23, CGRectGetWidth(frame), 14)];
subTitleLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
subTitleLabel.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth;
subTitleLabel.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;
subTitleLabel.text = self.subTitle;
[twoLineTitleView addSubview:subTitleLabel];

self.navigationItem.titleView = twoLineTitleView;

Answer 1

I did this by completely replacing the title view. The end result looks like this:

It can be achieved with the following code in the viewDidLoad method.

UIView * containerView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 220, 40)];

UILabel * titleLabel = [[UILabel alloc] init];
titleLabel.text = @"Ttitle";
titleLabel.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentCenter;
titleLabel.font = [UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize:titleLabel.font.pointSize];

[containerView addSubview:titleLabel];
titleLabel.keepInsets.equal = 0;
titleLabel.keepBottomInset.equal = 10;

UILabel * subtitleLabel = [[UILabel alloc] init];
subtitleLabel.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentCenter;
subtitleLabel.font = [UIFont italicSystemFontOfSize:12.0];
subtitleLabel.textColor = [UIColor lightGrayColor];

[containerView addSubview:subtitleLabel];

subtitleLabel.keepHeight.equal = 15;
subtitleLabel.keepWidth.equal = 200;
subtitleLabel.keepBottomInset.equal = 0;
subtitleLabel.keepHorizontalCenter.equal = 0.5;

subtitleLabel.text = @"Subtitle";

[self.navigationItem setTitleView:containerView];

To do this I used the excellent KeepLayout library. It yields a result like this:

Answer 2

An alternative approach may be to use a prompt.

Answer 3

https://www.reddit.com/r/swift/comments/3izq7b/style_guidelines_for_navigation_bar_prompts/

extension UINavigationItem {

    //Make the title 2 lines with a title and a subtitle
    func addTitleAndSubtitleToNavigationBar (title: String, subtitle: String) {
        var label = UILabel(frame: CGRectMake(10.0, 0.0, 50.0, 40.0))
        label.font = UIFont.boldSystemFontOfSize(14.0)
        label.numberOfLines = 2
        label.text = "\(title)\n\(subtitle)"
        label.textColor = UIColor.blackColor()
        label.sizeToFit()
        label.textAlignment = NSTextAlignment.Center
        self.titleView = label
    }
}