UIStatusBarStyle PreferredStatusBarStyle does not work on iOS 7

Question

In my iPhone application built with Xcode 5 for iOS 7 I set UIViewControllerBasedStatusBarAppearance=YES in info.plist, and in my ViewController I have this code:

-(UIStatusBarStyle) preferredStatusBarStyle
{
    return UIStatusBarStyleLightContent;
}

But the status bar is still black against the black background.

I know its possible to change this app-wide by setting UIViewControllerBasedStatusBarAppearance=NO in info.plist, but I actually need to alter this on a viewController by viewController basis at runtime.

Solution 1

OK, here's the trick. You do have to add the key "View controller-based status bar" and set the value to No.

This is counter to what it appears the meaning of this key is, but even if you set the value to No, you can still change the appearance of the status bar, and whether it shows or not in any view controller. So it acts like "Yes" but set it to "No"!

Now I can get the status bar white or dark.

Solution 2

I discovered that if your ViewController is inside a navigationController then the navigationController’s navigationBar.barStyle determines the statusBarStyle.

Setting your navigationBar’s barStyle to UIBarStyleBlackTranslucent will give white status bar text (ie. UIStatusBarStyleLightContent), and UIBarStyleDefault will give black status bar text (ie. UIStatusBarStyleDefault).

Note that this applies even if you totally change the navigationBar’s color via its barTintColor.

Solution 3

For preferredStatusBarStyle() to work within UINavigationController and UITabBarController I add the following code, which will get the preferred status bar style from the currently visible view controller.

extension UITabBarController {
    public override func childViewControllerForStatusBarStyle() -> UIViewController? {
        return selectedViewController
    }
}

extension UINavigationController {
    public override func childViewControllerForStatusBarStyle() -> UIViewController? {
        return visibleViewController
    }
}

For Swift 3 those are not methods but properties:

extension UITabBarController {
    open override var childViewControllerForStatusBarStyle: UIViewController? {
        return selectedViewController
    }
}

extension UINavigationController {
    open override var childViewControllerForStatusBarStyle: UIViewController? {
        return visibleViewController
    }
}

The Swift 4.2 properties have been renamed:

extension UITabBarController {
   open override var childForStatusBarStyle: UIViewController? {
        return selectedViewController
    }
}

extension UINavigationController {
   open override var childForStatusBarStyle: UIViewController? {
        return visibleViewController
    }
}

Usage

class ViewController: UIViewController {

    // This will be called every time the ViewController appears
    // Works great for pushing & popping
    override var preferredStatusBarStyle: UIStatusBarStyle {
        return .lightContent
    }

}

Solution 4

I may be coming to this a bit late, but incase anyone else is looking for a working and verified app wide solution.

@mxcl is correct in describing why this is happening. In order to correct it, we simply create an extension (or category in obj-c) that overrides the preferredSatusBarStyle() method of UINavigationController. Here is an example in Swift:

extension UINavigationController {
    public override func preferredStatusBarStyle() -> UIStatusBarStyle {
        if let rootViewController = self.viewControllers.first {
            return rootViewController.preferredStatusBarStyle()
        }
        return super.preferredStatusBarStyle()
    }
}

This code simply extracts the first view controller (the root view controller) and unwraps it (in obj-c just check that it is not nil). If the unwrap is successful (not nil) then we grab the rootViewControllers preferredStatusBarStyle. Otherwise we just return the default.

Hope this helps anyone who might need it.

Solution 5

To provide more detail into the accepted answer, put the following line in your app delegate's didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: method:

[UIApplication sharedApplication].statusBarStyle = UIStatusBarStyleLightContent;

Then, in your Info.plist, add View controller-based status bar appearance and set it to NO.

I believe that's how it should be done, NOT from the navigation controller, if you want the same status bar color for the entire app. You might have screens that are not necessarily embedded in a UINavigationController, or a different UINavigationController subclass somewhere else, and other things.

EDIT: You can also do it without typing any code: https://stackoverflow.com/a/18732865/855680

View more solutions

Comments

[Noundla Sandeep]

Hi, I have the same issue like you mentioned in question. Did you get the solution? Please provide me that.

[1218GG]

You can have a look at: Change applications status bar text color

[Andrew Smith]

This does cause the preferredStatusBarStyle method to be called, but still the status bar is black.

[User 1531343]

please see my updated answer..let me know quickly if that works or not

[Andrew Smith]

My original question explicitly says that I need to do view by view control of the status bar.

[User 1531343]

can u please check your code with reference to my updated question?

[Andrew Smith]

I've edited the original post, to show what I am actually doing. Still not working. Again, I need to set UIViewControllerBasedStatusBarAppearance to NO.

[User 1531343]

stackoverflow.com/questions/17678881/… please see this link

[Andrew Smith]

Yes, that link agrees with me, it does not work unless you set UIViewControllerBasedStatusBarAppearance to NO and set the toolbar globally.

[mxcl]

Do you mean [self setStatusBarNeedsUpdate] in the second block? (Or something else at least).

[Nick]

this makes sense to me...great

[mxcl]

I believe it's because the UINavigationController’s preferredStatusBarStyle doesn’t call through to the ViewController it hosts, and instead just returns based on its navigationBarStyle.

[Andrew Smith]

In this case the view is not inside a navigation controller.

[joel.d]

For me this was wrong. The key needed to be set to "Yes", as you would expect. I'm on Xcode 5.1 iOS 7.1, so maybe it's changed.

[Arjun Mehta]

I'm using Xcode 5.1 and iOS 7.1 as well and NO worked for me... STRANGE.

[Hadi Sharghi]

Where should I add this key?

[Saren Inden]

In your [AppName]-Info.plist file

[bpolat]

It works fine when "View controller-based status bar" key set to "YES" with Xcode6.0, iOS 8.0

[Matej]

Very counterintuitive to think that bar style takes preference over an implemented method in the view controller, and only when presenting modal views!

[Thomás Pereira]

In Swift 2.0 You must remove "as? UIViewController" of the condition statement.

[Unome]

Brilliant, I made one modification in addition to removing the "as" statement, I changed it from "first" to "last" this way whatever view controller is being seen by the user at the top of the stack will have the ability to control the color of the status bar. Awesome work, thanks for sharing!

[bearMountain]

If your navigation controller doesn't have any view controllers, this would cause an infinite loop. return self.preferredStatusBarStyle() would call back into this exact same method.

[Benjamin]

This is the only one that worked for me and I have to say I DO find it counter intuitive.

[Mohd Asim]

Seems in iOS9 UIViewControllerBasedStatusBarAppearance by default contains value YES, as I needed to add it manually in .plist and set to NO to work properly.

[Ric Santos]

In my case, instead of using the rootViewController, I used the topViewController as during the stack the style may change.

[Thanh-Nhon Nguyen]

UIBarStyleBlackTranslucent is deprecated, use UIBarStyleBlack instead

[Kesava]

This is by far the best answer(For apps that use UINavigationController or UITabBarController

[Admin]

This post would be much improved if you could explain why and how this fixes the problem.

[Cœur]

@Unome visibleViewController would be even better

[Unome]

Perfect! Thats even better @Cœur

[Asad Ali]

It will work only if you set "View controller-based status bar" key to "YES". I tested on Xcode8.1, iOS10.1

[Marcel Zanoni]

For me it worked with YES too, but only after setting it to NO and then back to YES first.

[Kyle Begeman]

@bearMountain We are returning from super, not self.

[Scott Jungwirth]

I ended up with the almost identical solution after struggling with this for hours.

[AnBisw]

what is the usage for this?

[Daniel Wood]

@Annjawn these methods are used by UIKit. You don't need to do anything other than add it to your project.

[AnBisw]

@DanielWood yeah I figured that out and completely forgot that I used this exact same thing in one of my previous projects, although slightly differently.

[wilforeal]

Instead of subclassing UINavigationController you can also just create an extension for UINavigationController and achieve the same result without having to subclass.

[ricks]

2018 - navigationBar.barStyle = UIBarStyle.blackTranslucent

[Andrew Plummer]

At some point this seems to have been fixed, just using preferredStatusBarStyle in each VC works fine for me now.

[Jaime S]

The UINavigationController is a container view controller, as mentioned by @mxcl it uses its default preferredStatusBarStyle. There is a childViewControllerForStatusBarStyle that is meant to be overridden by container view controller to provide the view controller for the preferred status bar style. In my opinion, the UINavigationController should provide by default the top most pushed view controller as its default implementation. Anyway, you may need to subclass (or use a category) for the nav controller to customize childViewControllerForStatusBarStyle .

[nananta]

Appears the recommended way now is to set navigation bar to... "isTranslucent = true" and "barStyle = .black".

[Musa almatri]

This indeed the best answer

[Supertecnoboff]

[self setNeedsStatusBarAppearanceUpdate]; such a great method, thank you!

[P1xelfehler]

You can delete this key now as it is default in newer Xcode versions.

[Mohamed Salah]

Note that this way is deprecated from IOS 9.0

[Arun Kumar]

@DanielWood Bravo!! upvoted your answer and this is by far well deserved. The only problem I'm having now is when I dismiss modally presented screen (that screen had a lighter status bar and after dismissing it the new screen has default/darker status bar) it changes the status bar to light.

[Andrew Kirna]

This is a great answer pre iOS 13. However, this is now considered a "legacy customization" in iOS 13+. See my answer below 🙂

[henrique]

Very complete answer, thanks! Also, something I struggled for a while, on iOS 13 the .default style takes dark mode into consideration and it's not documented, so if you're also supporting previous iOS versions you can add if #available(iOS 13, *) { return .darkContent } else { return .default } if you trying to setup the status bar style manually according to the color behind the status bar and that color is "bright".

[Marc Etcheverry]

Note that the extension method of doing override var does not work anymore in Xcode 11.4/iOS 13.4

[Marc Etcheverry]

Note that the extension method of doing override var does not work anymore in Xcode 11.4/iOS 13.4

[Marc Etcheverry]

Note that the extension method of doing override var does not work anymore in Xcode 11.4/iOS 13.4

[Vyacheslav]

@MarcEtcheverry so, why did you downvote the answer? it seems strange.

[Marc Etcheverry]

Because extending objective C classes in Swift is implemented through Objective C categories. Overriding methods through Objective C categories is not recommended and likely to break. See stackoverflow.com/a/38274660/2438634

[Marc Etcheverry]

This is wrong and it breaks in iOS 13.4. Because extending objective C classes in Swift is implemented through Objective C categories. Overriding methods through Objective C categories is not recommended and likely to break. See stackoverflow.com/a/38274660/2438634

[Marc Etcheverry]

Because extending objective C classes in Swift is implemented through Objective C categories. Overriding methods through Objective C categories is not recommended and likely to break. See stackoverflow.com/a/38274660/2438634

[Marc Etcheverry]

Because extending objective C classes in Swift is implemented through Objective C categories. Overriding methods through Objective C categories is not recommended and likely to break. See stackoverflow.com/a/38274660/2438634

[Vyacheslav]

@MarcEtcheverry 'not recommended' != 'never use it!'. for jul2018 the answer was correct. Even this answer is not up-to-date this is not a reason to downvote it. I can't see the future

[Igor Vasilev]

Although overriding the UINavigationController definitely works, it looks like a bug on Apple side that it doesn't do the childForStatusBarStyle by default returning its topViewController. Eg UITabBarController does this for its tabs. To me, there's no reason why UINavigationController, being a strictly container controller for hosting "real" View controllers rather than presenting its own UI, should "eat up" those status bar stylings. Will create a radar for Apple.