Tinting UIImage to a different color, OR, generating UIImage from vector - ios

Question

I have a circle with a black outline, and a white fill that I need to programmatically make the white into another color (via a UIColor). I've tried a handful of other stackoverflow solutions but none of them seem to work correctly, either filling just the outside or an outline.
I have two ways I could do this but I am unsure of how I would get the right results:
Tint just the white color to whatever the UIColor should be,
or,
Make a UIImage from two circles, one being filled and one overlapping that with black.

Answer 1

If you decide to use two circles, one white and one black, then you may find this helpful. This method will tint a uiimage one for you but it addresses the problem of only tinting the opaque part, meaning it will only tint the circle if you provide a png with transparency around the circle. So instead of filling the entire 24x24 frame of the image it fills only the opaque parts. This isn't exactly your question but you'll probably come across this problem if you go with the second option you listed.
-(UIImage*)colorAnImage:(UIColor*)color :(UIImage*)image{
CGRect rect = CGRectMake(0, 0, image.size.width, image.size.height);
UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(rect.size, NO, image.scale);
CGContextRef c = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
[image drawInRect:rect];
CGContextSetFillColorWithColor(c, [color CGColor]);
CGContextSetBlendMode(c, kCGBlendModeSourceAtop);
CGContextFillRect(c, rect);
UIImage *result = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
return result;
}

Answer 2

Extend a UIView and just implement the drawRect method. For example, this will draw a green circle with a black outline.
- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect {
[super drawRect:rect];
CGContextRef gc = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
[[UIColor greenColor] setFill];
CGContextFillEllipseInRect(gc, CGRectMake(0,0,24,24));
[[UIColor blackColor] set];
CGContextStrokeEllipseInRect(gc, CGRectMake(0,0,24,24));
}

Answer 3

For such simple shapes, just use CoreGraphics to draw a square and a circle -- adding the ability to set the fill color in your implementation.
If it's just black and white - then altering the white to another color is not so difficult when you know the color representations. Unfortunately, this is more complex to write and execute so… my recommendation is to just go straight to CoreGraphics for the simple task you outlined (bad pun, sorry).
here's a quick demo:
static void InsetRect(CGRect* const pRect, const CGFloat pAmount) {
const CGFloat halfAmount = pAmount * 0.5f;
*pRect = CGRectMake(pRect->origin.x + halfAmount, pRect->origin.y + halfAmount, pRect->size.width - pAmount, pRect->size.height - pAmount);
}
static void DrawBorderedCircleWithWidthInContext(const CGRect pRect, const CGFloat pWidth, CGContextRef pContext) {
CGContextSetLineWidth(pContext, pWidth);
CGContextSetShouldAntialias(pContext, true);
CGRect r = pRect;
/* draw circle's border */
CGContextSetRGBStrokeColor(pContext, 0.8f, 0.7f, 0, 1);
InsetRect(&r, pWidth);
CGContextStrokeEllipseInRect(pContext, r);
/* draw circle's fill */
CGContextSetRGBFillColor(pContext, 0, 0, 0.3f, 1);
InsetRect(&r, pWidth);
CGContextFillEllipseInRect(pContext, r);
}