navigation bar button and items not showing in swift 3

Question

am using navigation bar programmatically in swift, but am not able to show the bar button items in navigation bar, this is the code what I did

override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

  let navBar: UINavigationBar = UINavigationBar(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 420, height: 65))
        self.view.addSubview(navBar)

        navBar.backgroundColor = hexStringToUIColor("4DC8BD")

        let navigationItem = UINavigationItem()

       self.title = "Transport APP"

        let btn1 = UIButton(type: .custom)
        btn1.setImage(UIImage(named: "Menu1"), for: .normal)
        btn1.frame = CGRect(x: 30, y: 30, width: 30, height: 30)
        btn1.addTarget(self, action: #selector(HomeViewController.menubuttonclick(_:)), for: .touchUpInside)
        let item1 = UIBarButtonItem(customView: btn1)


         self.navigationItem.setRightBarButtonItems([item1], animated: true)

}

    @IBAction func menubuttonclick(_ sender:UIBarButtonItem )
    {

        print("this menu button click")

    }

I can try many ways but am not getting the results how to show show bar button item in navigation bar,

Solution 1

You should add UINavigationItem to your UINavigationBar and in item1 need to be added in navitem Look at below code

let navitem = UINavigationItem()
navitem.rightBarButtonItem = item1
navBar.setItems([navitem], animated: true)

Solution 2

While the other mentioned solutions definitely work for programmatically defining the navigation item, some would prefer a storyboard solution. I searched for a Swift 4, Xcode 9 storyboard solution and was unable to find one, so I will show my solution.

Here is a screenshot of my storyboard before adding the bar button item.

The issue I was having is that while the Shops tableview is embedded in the navigation controller, and adding a bar button item was no issue; the Employees tableview is pushed via the navigation controller in the didSelectRowAt function.

extension ShopsViewController: UITableViewDelegate {
  func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, didSelectRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) {
    let selectedShop = fetchedResultsController.object(at: indexPath)
    let st = UIStoryboardname: "Main", bundle: Bundle.main)
    let vc = st.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "EmployeeViewController") as! EmployeeViewController

    vc.shop = selectedShop

    self.navigationController?.pushViewController(vc, animated: true)
  }
}

The result is that I could not drag a bar button item from the storyboard. When I tried, the item would end up in the tab bar at the bottom:

I found an article that suggested embedding the second view controller in a navigation controller, but that adds other levels of complexity that I wanted to avoid. The work around I found is to drag a navigation item to the navigation bar area, and then you can add a bar button item with no problems.

Here is the result:

I know there is a lot of debate whether storyboards or programmatic layout is better. While I am still very much a beginning iOS developer and cannot personally speak to that, I am finding that sometimes the storyboard solution fits the problem best. I hope this helps other beginners.

Solution 3

Swift 3+: Define the barbutton.

//:: Left bar items
     lazy var leftBarItem: Array = { () -> [UIBarButtonItem] in
            let btnBack = UIButton(type: .custom)
           btnBack.frame = kBAR_FRAME
            btnBack.addTarget(self, action: #selector(clickOnBackBtn(_:)), for: .touchUpInside)
            let item = UIBarButtonItem(customView: btnBack)
            item.tag = 3
            return [item]
    }()

Add this line into viewDidLoad

 self.navigationItem.setLeftBarButtonItems(self.leftBarItem, animated: true)

Bar Button Action

@objc func clickOnBackBtn(_ sender: Any){

}

Comments

[Anbu.Karthik]

see this for e.g stackoverflow.com/questions/21448766/…

[rmaddy]

You have tagged this question with the UINavigationController tag. If you are actually putting this view controller in a navigation controller then you don't need to add your own navigation bar or your own navigation item.

[rmaddy]

The proper way to create the navigation controller would be: let nav = UINavigationController(rootViewController: myView).

[p.yarandi]

@rmaddy both ways are true :)

[colinwong]

This totally works for the storyboard solution! AWESOME.

[llamacorn]

Thanks for the feedback @BoldLion, I've corrected this.

[Karan Pal]

Next: Select your view controller in storyboard and then in Attributes Inspector change the Top Bar from Inferred to anything else except None. As soon as you do that, you will see your Navigation bar added on top. Drag a Bar Button Item and you are ready to go.