Hiding UINavigationItem's bar button

Question

I have added a BarButton item to the left of the nav.bar through Interface Builder and in the code I want this only to show in my table view's edit mode. But I didn't find any hidden property to set the leftBarButtonItem (like: self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem.hidden = YES).

I can only set enabled property. Anybody know how to control the hide and show property of the leftBarButtonItem, please help.

Answer 1

To hide/disable

[self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem setEnabled:FALSE];

To show/enable

[self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem setEnabled:TRUE];

Answer 2

This solution work for me

UIView *myView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame: CGRectMake(0, 0, 300, 30)];
UIBarButtonItem *btnL = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc]initWithCustomView:myView];
self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = btnL;

Answer 3

There's nothing in the documentation to suggest bar items have a hidden property.

Why not set

self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = nil; 

when the user isn't editing, then set

self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = whateverBarButtonItem; 

when the user is editing? This requires either re-creating the button each time or storing it for the duration of the view's lifecycle. Neither is terribly painful, but no, not nearly as easy as a .hidden property.

Answer 4

I just created my own "hide" function show below:

- (void)hideClearButton:(BOOL)hide {

    if (hide) {
        self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = nil;
    }
    else {
        self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc]
                                                 initWithTitle:NSLocalizedString(@"Clear", @"Recents")
                                                 style:UIBarButtonItemStylePlain
                                                 target:self action:@selector(clearAll:)];

    }
}

You can just call it like:

[self hideClearButton:YES]; //hide it

or

[self hideClearButton:NO];  //show it

Answer 5

You can use

// Hide
self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = nil;

// Show
self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = self.myBarButtonItem

The key is making sure that you have a strong reference to the button item before nilling leftBarButtonItem.

@property (strong, nonatomic) IBOutlet UIBarButtonItem *myBarButtonItem;

Answer 6

I'm pretty sure the only way to "hide" it is to nil it out.

self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = nil;

Though it's not a perfect answer to your question, since that basically gets rid of your button instead of hiding it. You'll either have to recreate it or keep your original button around and simply set the leftBarButtonItem back to your UIBarButtonItem.