UISearchBar text color - iphone

Question

Browsed the documentation and I couldn't find anything to change the color of UISearchBar. Does anybody know how to change it? There isn't any textColor property :/
Thx

Answer 1

Works on iOS 7 and later:
[[UITextField appearanceWhenContainedIn:[UISearchBar class], nil] setDefaultTextAttributes:#{
NSForegroundColorAttributeName : [UIColor whiteColor],
NSFontAttributeName : [UIFont systemFontOfSize:15]
}];
You may remove unused attribute as well.
UPDATE. Due to appearanceWhenContainedIn is deprecated in iOS 9, see the Dishant's answer below: https://stackoverflow.com/a/38893352/2799722

Answer 2

You can do the following: Just get the searchField property from the SearchBar, and then change its textColor property.
UITextField *searchField = [searchbar valueForKey:#"_searchField"];
searchField.textColor = [UIColor redColor]; //You can put any color here.
That's it! Now you manipulate the textField in any way possible.

Answer 3

iOS 8: See https://stackoverflow.com/a/28183058/308315
iOS 6 / 7:
[[UITextField appearanceWhenContainedIn:[UISearchBar class], nil] setTextColor:[UIColor redColor]];

Answer 4

I suspect you could use techniques described in this post
Modifying the code presented there slightly, you subclass UISearchBar:
#interface SearchBar : UISearchBar {
}
#end
Then in your implementation:
- (void)layoutSubviews {
UITextField *searchField;
NSUInteger numViews = [self.subviews count];
for(int i = 0; i < numViews; i++) {
if([[self.subviews objectAtIndex:i] isKindOfClass:[UITextField class]]) {
searchField = [self.subviews objectAtIndex:i];
}
}
if(!(searchField == nil)) {
searchField.textColor = [UIColor redColor];
}
[super layoutSubviews];
}
I haven't tested either the original post's code or this code, but looks like it ought to work.
-wkw

Answer 5

Here's a category that adds this functionality:
#implementation UISearchBar (UISearchBar_TextColor)
- (UITextField *)field {
// HACK: This may not work in future iOS versions
for (UIView *subview in self.subviews) {
if ([subview isKindOfClass:[UITextField class]]) {
return (UITextField *)subview;
}
}
return nil;
}
- (UIColor *)textColor {
return self.field.textColor;
}
- (void)setTextColor:(UIColor *)color {
self.field.textColor = color;
}
#end

Answer 6

For iOS11, I found this worked:
After setting the searchController into the navigationItem, the search text was black on black. To make it white, I had to do:
searchController.searchBar.barStyle = .blackTranslucent
It was the only thing that worked for me. My app has a transparent navigation bar to let the background gradient show through, and I am guessing the SearchBar takes on that appearance since my appearance settings for UISearchBar were largely ignored with one exception:
UISearchBar.appearance().tintColor = UIColor.red
This made the Cancel button and the text insertion cursor red. The placeholder text was light gray.
Note that: UISearchBar.appearance().barStyle = .blackTranslucent did not work - it had to be set on the instance. This also had no visible effect on the search bar (it was still transparent like the navigation bar); it just made the search text white.

Answer 7

appearanceWhenContainedIn is deprecated in iOS 9 , so we have to use below method for iOS 9 and above.
[[UIBarButtonItem appearanceWhenContainedInInstancesOfClasses:#[[UISearchBar class]]]
setTintColor:[UIColor whiteColor]];

Answer 8

With iOS 11 the search bar is expected to become part of the navigation bar which, as you might expect, adds all kinds of new "features."
I think it's a bug but I found that I needed to do the following to change the text (and cancel button) colour:
self.searchController.searchBar.barStyle = UISearchBarStyleMinimal;
[[UIBarButtonItem appearanceWhenContainedInInstancesOfClasses:#[[UISearchBar class]]]
setTintColor:[UIColor whiteColor]];
I found that the bar-style, when left to "default," would make the text black no matter the tint colour, etc. When set to either Minimal or Prominent the text was visible.

Answer 9

Here's a cleaner approach:
UITextField *searchField = nil;
for (UIView *v in self.searchBar.subviews)
{
if ([v isKindOfClass:[UITextField class]])
{
searchField = (UITextField *)v;
break;
}
}
if (searchField)
{
searchField.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
}

Answer 10

Modified the category suggested by David Foster (#david-foster) to work on iOS 8.
static UITextField *PBFindTextFieldInView(UIView *view) {
for(UIView *subview in view.subviews) {
if([subview isKindOfClass:UITextField.class]) {
return (UITextField *)subview;
} else {
UITextField* textField = PBFindTextFieldInView(subview);
if(textField) {
return textField;
}
}
}
return nil;
}
#implementation UISearchBar (Appearance)
- (UITextField *)field {
return PBFindTextFieldInView(self);
}
- (UIColor *)textColor {
return self.field.textColor;
}
- (void)setTextColor:(UIColor *)color {
self.field.textColor = color;
}
#end

Answer 11

After setting the searchController in the navigationItem for iOS 11, I found that attempting to set the textColor via UIAppearance for any UITextField within a UISearchBar had no affect, but a custom appearance property that simply called the regular textColor worked just fine.
// Implement a custom appearance property via a UITextField category
#interface UITextField (SearchBarTextColor)
#property (nonatomic, strong) UIColor * textColorWorkaround UI_APPEARANCE_SELECTOR;
#end
#implementation UITextField (SearchBarTextColor)
- (UIColor *)textColorWorkaround {
return self.textColor;
}
- (void)setTextColorWorkaround:(UIColor *)textColor {
self.textColor = textColor;
}
#end
And then use as follows:
UITextField *textFieldProxy = [UITextField appearanceWhenContainedInInstancesOfClasses:#[UISearchBar.class]];
textFieldProxy.textColorWorkaround = UIColor.lightGrayColor;
P.S. The same trick helped me color the seemingly inaccessible labels of UIDatePicker and UIPickerView