Changing UIButton text

Question

So I'm trying to update the text on a UIButton when I click it. I'm using the following line to change the text:

calibrationButton.titleLabel.text = @"Calibration";

I have verified that the text is changing, but when I run the app and I click on the button, it changes to "Calibration" for a split second and then goes right back to its default value. Any ideas why this might be happening? Is there some sort of refresh function I need to be calling?

possible duplicate of [iPhone UIButton TitleLabel text?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2394945/iphone-uibutton-titlelabel-text) — Sergey Kalinichenko, Jul 10 '12 at 15:51

score 254 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 25 '15 at 17:21

254

When laying out its subviews, a UIButton will set its titleLabel's text value using its own title values, so that you can set up to four different strings for the four states (normal, highlighted, selected, disabled).

Because of this feature, setting the titleLabel's text directly won't persist, and will be reset by the button when it lays out its subviews.

This is what you have to do to change the title text for a button's state.

[calibrationButton setTitle:@"Calibration" forState:UIControlStateNormal];

edited Sep 25 '15 at 17:21

Alex Zavatone

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answered Jul 10 '12 at 15:50

Jesse Gumpo

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so what button.titleLabel.text=@"some text" is supposed to do then? – Boris Gafurov May 17 '13 at 17:23
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@BorisGafurov If you type in `button.titleLabel`, you see that titleLabel is a read-only property, and so any of a read-only property's properties are read-only as well. Using dot-notation to edit them won't work, and so you need explicit methods in order to edit them. This makes sense for me at least. – erdekhayser Aug 26 '13 at 14:45
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I think I wasted about two hours until I realized this (which sadly I think I already knew!) – race_carr Feb 25 '14 at 16:56
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@erdekhayser Actually, read-only properties **CAN** have read/write properties. I use the titlelabel's tag to pass an integer to a action method. Also see Apple's docs [link](https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/UIKit/Reference/UIButton_Class/index.html#//apple_ref/occ/instp/UIButton/titleLabel) `Although this property is read-only, its own properties are read/write. Use these properties primarily to configure the text of the button. For example:` – Aaron Feb 11 '15 at 21:43
@Aaron Yes you are right. I'm slightly embarrassed that I wrote that, but that was in the first couple months that I was into iOS, so I guess I can't be too concerned – erdekhayser Feb 11 '15 at 22:20
@erdekhayser no worries! it's an old post. – Aaron Feb 13 '15 at 13:45

Ashley Mills · Answer 2 · 2017-02-27T11:31:53.233

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To set button text use the following method:

[calibrationButton setTitle: @"Calibration" forState: UIControlStateNormal];

See UIButton class reference for more details... http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/uikit/reference/UIButton_Class/UIButton/UIButton.html

Or in Swift 3:

calibrationButton.setTitle("Calibration", for: .normal)

edited Feb 27 '17 at 11:31

answered Jul 10 '12 at 15:50

Ashley Mills

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score 6 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 11 '15 at 18:09

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programmatically you can set button title like below:

[myButton setTitle:@"buttonTitle" forState:UIControlStateNormal];

you can also set button title property from storyboard.

edited Jul 11 '15 at 18:09

HaveNoDisplayName

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answered Jul 11 '15 at 17:45

bhautikmewada191

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score 2 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:32

Not a huge deal, and possibly obvious, but there are several states available for buttons. If you provide the 'wrong' one, you will not see the text change as desired.

I noticed that my button was not showing the text I added, using the methods shown here. Check this link to make sure you are providing the UIControlState that you intend.

What's the difference between UIControlStateHighlighted and UIControlStateSelected?

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 21 '16 at 08:46

For Swift 3.0

let button = UIButton(type: .system)
button.frame = CGRect(x: 100, y: 100, width: 100, height: 100)
button.setTitle("set here", for: .normal)
button.addTarget(self, action: #selector(TableViewController.actionButtonTocuh), for: .touchUpInside)
button.titleLabel?.textColor  = #colorLiteral(red: 0.1019607857, green: 0.2784313858, blue: 0.400000006, alpha: 1)
view.addSubview(button)

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 28 '19 at 09:34

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If you don't want to set the title for all states, just set it for the normal state since the title for the unset states will default to the title of the normal state.

btn.setTitle("Some text", for:.normal)

answered Nov 28 '19 at 09:34

Johan Franzén

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score 0 · Answer 7 · edited Nov 30 '16 at 06:29

For Swift 2.0:

let btnObject : UIButton  = UIButton() 
btnObject.frame = CGRect(x: 8, y: 89, width: 70, height: 22)
btnObject.setTitle("Button Title", forState: UIControlState.Normal)
btnObject.titleLabel?.font = UIFont(name: "Helvetica Neue", size: 13)
btnObject.titleLabel?.textColor = UIColor.whiteColor()
btnObject.backgroundColor = UIColor(red: 189/255, green: 176/255, blue: 0/255, alpha: 1)
btnObject.titleLabel?.textAlignment = NSTextAlignment.Center
btnObject.addTarget(self, action: "btnbtnObjectClick:", forControlEvents: UIControlEvents.TouchUpInside)
subView.addSubview(btnObject)

Changing UIButton text

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