Need to either set status bar to solid color, or add subview to status bar

Question

I am using a UINavigationController and showing navigation bars throughout my app, but I do not want to show a status bar to the user. My problem is if I hide the status bar, then the navigation bar size is not big enough to give the appearance of a full navigation bar.

I would like to do one of the following:

Make the status bar a solid color. This will not show any status bar content, it will literally just be color.
Add a subview to the status bar so that I can cover all of it's "status" content. This subview would just be a UIView that was a solid color.

This would allow me to have the full size "nav bar" at the top, without having to actually show status bar content.

EDIT:

I have been trying the following UIWindow workaround with no luck. The following code is being called inside one of my view controller's viewWillAppear: method:

UIWindow *statusWindow = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, 20)];
statusWindow.windowLevel = UIWindowLevelStatusBar + 1;
statusWindow.hidden = NO;
statusWindow.backgroundColor = [UIColor redColor];
[statusWindow makeKeyAndVisible];

I can't get this to work. Am I supposed to be hiding the status bar, or showing it? I have tried both hiding and showing it with the above code and my red colored UIWindow never shows on screen.

Changing status bar colour will not work if you want to change it other then white(light content) or black(default). let me know if you want to do so. — Irfan Gul, Feb 06 '15 at 08:01

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 06 '15 at 08:48

I finally figured it out. This code does work perfectly:

self.statusWindow = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, 20)];
self.statusWindow.windowLevel = UIWindowLevelStatusBar + 1;
self.statusWindow.hidden = NO;
self.statusWindow.backgroundColor = [UIColor redColor];
[self.statusWindow makeKeyAndVisible];

The key is, statusWindow cannot just be a local variable. It needs to be an actual property, otherwise it is deallocated from memory.

Also for what it's worth, I don't even have to call makeKeyAndVisible to get this to appear.

where do you add this in Swift? – Oracular Man Apr 19 '18 at 17:36 — Oracular Man, Apr 19 '18 at 17:36

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 06 '15 at 07:53

0

The only thing you can do is change its colour or hide it. You cannot add subviews to it or hide its content.

answered Feb 06 '15 at 07:53

Robert J. Clegg

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How can I change it to a solid color and not display any "status" content? – user3344977 Feb 06 '15 at 08:13
Sorry, I should have been more clear. You can change its colour. But the content will be visible. There isn't a way to hide its content and display the colour. – Robert J. Clegg Feb 06 '15 at 08:14

Need to either set status bar to solid color, or add subview to status bar

2 Answers2