iOS 5: UITabBarItem setFinishedSelectedImage:withFinishedUnselectedImage: not working / ignored

Question

As per Apple docs

I'm trying to set custom finished selected and unselected images on a UITabBarItem like so:


...
DetailViewController *vc1 = [[DetailViewController alloc] initWithNibName:@"DetailView" bundle:nil];
UITabBarItem *vc1i = [[UITabBarItem alloc] initWithTabBarSystemItem:UITabBarSystemItemTopRated tag:100];
[vc1i setFinishedSelectedImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"tab_bar_item_selected.png"] withFinishedUnselectedImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"tab_bar_item_normal.png"]];
[vc1 setTabBarItem:vc1i];
...

Basically what's happening is the TabBar loads up just fine, it just completely ignores the tab bar item customization.

I'm targeting iOS5+

The images are 30x30 transparent PNGs and exist in the project. Can't figure out what I'm overlooking here, but must be something!

This is being called in the tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath method, ala Ray Wenderlich's tutorial

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

Note: setFinishedSelectedImage:withFinishedUnselectedImage: requires iOS 5. — taber, Dec 20 '11 at 05:49

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 17 '11 at 21:06

6

The tab bar item is initialized with the method: initWithTabBarSystemItem:tag:. But, as the documentation says:

This method returns a system-supplied tab bar item. The title and image properties of the returned item cannot be changed later.

You should initialize the tab bar item with initWithTitle:image:tag:.

UITabBarItem *vc1i = [[UITabBarItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"Top Rated" image:nil tag:100];
[vc1i setFinishedSelectedImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"tab_bar_item_selected.png"] withFinishedUnselectedImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"tab_bar_item_normal.png"]];

answered Dec 17 '11 at 21:06

Nicolas Bachschmidt

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Oops, I knew I was missing something simple like that - thanks a lot! – taber Dec 18 '11 at 01:42
This method is deprecated. – Premal Khetani Oct 27 '15 at 05:22

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 22 '13 at 10:52

If your are trying to achieve displaying of the actual image at the UITabBar then use the following code.

[yourTabBarItem setImage:[[UIImage imageNamed:@"more.png"] imageWithRenderingMode:UIImageRenderingModeAlwaysOriginal]];

and if you want to display image in original condition for the selected then use the following

[yourTabBarItem setSelectedImage:[[UIImage imageNamed:@"more.png"] imageWithRenderingMode:UIImageRenderingModeAlwaysOriginal]];

these two are alternative to

setFinishedSelectedImage:  withFinishedUnselectedImage:

iOS 5: UITabBarItem setFinishedSelectedImage:withFinishedUnselectedImage: not working / ignored

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