UISearchBar in navigationbar - ios

Question

How can I show a UISearchBar in the NavigationBar?
I can't figure out how to do this.
Your help is very much appreciated.

Answer 1

To put searchBar into the center of navigationBar:
self.navigationItem.titleView = self.searchBarTop;
To put searchBar to the left/right side of navigationBar:
UIBarButtonItem *searchBarItem = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithCustomView:searchBar];
self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = searchBarItem;

Answer 2

As of iOS 7, the UISearchDisplayController supports this by default. Set the UISearchDisplayController's displaysSearchBarInNavigationBar = YES to get this working easily.
Per the documentation:
Starting in iOS 7.0, you can use a search display controller with a navigation bar (an instance of the UINavigationBar class) by configuring the search display controller’s displaysSearchBarInNavigationBar and navigationItem properties.

Answer 3

As one commenter noted, using searchDisplayController.displaysSearchBarInNavigationBar = true ends up hiding any existing left/right bar button items.
I've found two different ways of adding a searchBar to a navigationBar using iOS7's new property on searchDisplayController.
1) Nib Based Approach
If you're using a .xib, you can set a User Defined Runtime Attribute for this value and for whatever reason, the leftBarButtonItem stays in tact. I have not tested it with a rightBarButtonItem.
2) Code (Timing Matters)
If you want to implement in code, timing seems to matter. It seems that you must add the searchBar to the navigationBar first, then set your barButtonItem.
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
...
self.searchDisplayController.displaysSearchBarInNavigationBar = true;
self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = [UIBarButtonItem new];
...
}

Answer 4

Check out Apple's UICatalog sample code. It shows how to use the new UISearchController in three different ways: modally, in nav bar, and below the navigation bar.

Answer 5

Objective C code snippet for UISearchBar in NavigationBar
- (void)viewDidLoad {
UISearchController *searchController = [[UISearchController alloc] initWithSearchResultsController:nil];
if (#available(iOS 11.0, *)) {
self.navigationItem.searchController = searchController;
} else {
self.navigationItem.titleView = searchController.searchBar;
}
}
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