Transparent UIToolBar

Sometimes it is really necessary to have a transparent UIToolBar within you iPhone app. Especially if you want to add a UIToolBar to your UINavigationBar you get some problems with overlaying backgrounds (UIBarStyleBlackOpaque did not work for a toolbar on a black opaque navigation bar).

A quick and pragmatic solution is to subclass UIToolBar and do some modifications. The following code is everything you need to get a really transparent tool bar:

@interface TransparentToolbar : UIToolbar@end @implementation TransparentToolbar // Override draw rect to avoid// background coloring- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect {    // do nothing in here} // Set properties to make background// translucent.- (void) applyTranslucentBackground{self.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];self.opaque = NO;self.translucent = YES;} // Override init.- (id) init{self = [super init];[self applyTranslucentBackground];return self;} // Override initWithFrame.- (id) initWithFrame:(CGRect) frame{self = [super initWithFrame:frame];[self applyTranslucentBackground];return self;} @end

To apply a color to the including UIBarButtonItems you can set the bar style as usual.

That’s all for today,
Andreas