Giving a regular button a bar button identifier in swift - ios

Question

I want to get a button which isn't a bar button item to display the trash bin icon. Does anybody know how to do this programmatically?

Answer 1

Add your action:
func buttonAction(sender:UIButton!)
{
println("Button tapped") // add your button tapped logic here
}
Then inside viewDidLoad:
var image: UIImage = UIImage(named: "Icon")! //Icon = your image name, no need for the extension
let button = UIButton.buttonWithType(UIButtonType.Custom) as! UIButton //UIButton type must be CUSTOM or you will get a plain blue system button
button.frame = CGRectMake(100, 100, 100, 50) // Size and Co-ordinates
button.setImage(image, forState: .Normal) //for normal non touched state
button.addTarget(self, action: "buttonAction:", forControlEvents: UIControlEvents.TouchUpInside) // "buttonAction" received here
self.view.addSubview(button) //adds subview to display the button

Answer 2

If you need something to easily more around, here is a hacky solution that seems to work. If you need other features from UIButton, this won't be much good.
BarButtonView.swift
import UIKit
class BarButtonView: UIView {
var toolbar = UIToolbar()
var toolbarFrame = CGRect() {
didSet {
display()
}
}
var button = UIBarButtonItem() {
didSet {
display()
}
}
override init(frame: CGRect) {
super.init(frame: frame)
toolbarFrame = frame
}
required init(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented")
}
func display() {
toolbar = UIToolbar(frame: toolbarFrame)
toolbar.setBackgroundImage(UIImage(), forToolbarPosition: .Any, barMetrics: .Default)
toolbar.setShadowImage(UIImage(), forToolbarPosition: .Any)
addSubview(toolbar)
let space = UIBarButtonItem(barButtonSystemItem: .FlexibleSpace, target: nil, action: nil)
toolbar.items = [space, button, space]
}
}
In your view controller:
let button = BarButtonView(frame: CGRect(x: 10, y: 10, width: 40, height: 44))
button.button = UIBarButtonItem(barButtonSystemItem: .Trash, target: self, action: nil)
view.addSubview(button)