How to remove shadow below UINavigationBar with UISearchController - ios

Question

I could successfully remove the shadow below the navigation bar with the following line of code.
self.navigationController?.navigationBar.shadowImage = UIImage()
When I added a search controller however, the shadow reappeared.
self.navigationItem.searchController = UISearchController(searchResultsController: nil)
I tried the following, but resulted an unexpected behavior.
self.navigationController?.navigationBar.setBackgroundImage(UIImage(), for: .default)
self.navigationController?.navigationBar.barTintColor = .white
self.navigationController?.navigationBar.isTranslucent = false
How do I remove the shadow under a navigation bar when there is a search controller attached?

Answer 1

I have not found good solution too...
for now I will hide it this way:
override func viewDidAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
super.viewDidAppear(animated)
if let imageView = navigationItem.searchController?.searchBar.superview?.subviews.first?.subviews.first as? UIImageView {
imageView.isHidden = true
}
}

Answer 2

Here's the solution that I use
Create a separate class extending a UINavigationController instance, lets call it BaseNavigationController. Here's your class for you
If you are using storyboards, assign BaseNavigationController to your UINavigationController scene in the storyboard
If you are initializing a navigation controller via code, ex: UINavigationController.init(rootViewController: someViewControllerInstance) then simply use BaseNavigationController.init(rootViewController: someViewControllerInstance)
An example of the class is shown below:
open class BaseNavigationController:UINavigationController {
override open func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
setNavigationBar()
setNavBarBorder(false)
}
func setNavigationBar(color:UIColor?=UIColor.white, tint:UIColor?=UIColor.darkGray){
let appearance = UIBarButtonItem.appearance()
appearance.setBackButtonTitlePositionAdjustment(UIOffset.init(horizontal: 0.0, vertical: 0), for: .default)
self.navigationBar.barTintColor = color!
self.navigationBar.isTranslucent = false
self.navigationBar.tintColor = tint!
self.navigationBar.titleTextAttributes = [ NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor: tint! ]
}
func setTitleColor(_ color:UIColor?=UIColor.darkGray){
}
func setNavBarBorder(_ enable:Bool) {
self.navigationBar.setBackgroundImage((enable ? nil : UIImage()), for: UIBarMetrics.default)
self.navigationBar.shadowImage = (enable ? nil : UIImage())
self.navigationBar.setValue(true, forKey: "hidesShadow")
}
}
Now, the fun part, if you are handling ambiguous layout you might need to do this in viewWillLayoutSubviews otherwise putting this bit of code in viewWillAppear
of the viewController instance.
(self.navigationController as? BaseNavigationController)?. setNavBarBorder(false)
the interesting bit of code is in self.navigationBar.setValue(true, forKey: "hidesShadow"), for some versions of iOS.

Answer 3

You can instead add searchBar to your viewController in storyBoard and set its Search Style property to Minimal and it'll be look like this:

Answer 4

My little contribution about this issue. Of course, it is not the right way to do it but it's working for opaque navigation bar. The idea is to add a view on top of this shadow.
let searchBar = searchController.searchBar
let maskView = UIView(frame: .zero)
maskView.backgroundColor = .white // or any color you want
searchBar.addSubview(maskView)
//We need to use constraint so the mask view follow the search bar animation
maskView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
let views = ["maskView": maskView]
searchBar.addConstraints(NSLayoutConstraint.constraints(withVisualFormat: "H:|-(0)-[maskView]-(0)-|",
options: NSLayoutConstraint.FormatOptions.alignAllCenterY,
metrics: nil,
views: views))
searchBar.addConstraints(NSLayoutConstraint.constraints(withVisualFormat: "V:[maskView(1)]-(-1)-|",
options: NSLayoutConstraint.FormatOptions.alignAllCenterX,
metrics: nil,
views: views))