set title color for UIButton when highlighted iOS 7

Question

I have the following code in a viewController, all the outlets and action are hooked up correctly. the WHITE and PURPLE are UIColors that I've defined constants for. I've also set the UIWindow's tintColor to PURPLE and that propagates down to the button.

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];
    [button setTitleColor:[UIColor whiteColor] forState:UIControlStateHighlighted];
    button.backgroundColor = WHITE;
    button.layer.borderWidth = 1.0;
    button.layer.masksToBounds = YES;
    button.layer.cornerRadius = 5.0;
    button.layer.borderColor = PURPLE.CGColor;
}

-(IBAction) buttonTouchDown:(id)sender {
    button.backgroundColor = PURPLE;
    button.layer.borderColor = WHITE.CGColor;
}

-(IBAction) buttonTouchUpOutside:(id)sender {
    button.backgroundColor = WHITE;
    button.layer.borderColor = PURPLE.CGColor;
}

-(IBAction) buttonTouchUpInside:(id)sender {
    button.backgroundColor = WHITE;
    button.layer.borderColor = PURPLE.CGColor;
}

When I click the button the text doesn't go white like i told it to in viewDidLoad

here's some screenshots that I could've cropped better! As you can see in the highlighted state it's not white but like a white and purple mix. Will I need to use UIButtonTypeCustom? I heard if I do that I won't get the advantages of iOS 7 doing its magic with tintColor. Not sure what's the correct way to go about this. Thanks in advance.

Solution

Shouldn't you be using UIControlStateSelected?

Okay, I just tried this out myself it don't want to work well.

You need to set your button style to Custom. The UIButton system style does a lot of things that you can't change. The highlighted button state defaults to its own implementation which is a lighter version if your tintcolor.

UIButton *button = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom];
[button setTitleColor:self.view.tintColor forState:UIControlStateNormal];
[button setTitleColor:[UIColor whiteColor] forState:UIControlStateSelected];

That should get you the white text background.

Comments

[greenisus]

You shouldn't need to use UIControlStateSelected because UIButton does not have that state. UIControlStateSelected is for things like the selected tab of a UISegmentedControl.

[David Wong]

@greenisus please note that UIButton, UISegmentedControl and other UIKit classes inherit off UIControl which has selected state. Both Interface Builder and code support the visual changes made using UIControlStateSelected UIControlStateDisabled, etc. Great thing about UIControl's selected property is calling isSelected from the button and allowing the button to handle the boolean property.

[AXE]

Setting button style to Custom worked for me! Thanks!

[Ashley Mills]

Seems like this is just a copy of an answer 3 years prior.