Navigation Bar Contents not showing

Question

I am having a real hard time trying to get all of my navigation bar elements to show in my app I am creating. As you can see the right button appears just fine but my titles and my back button do not show. If I change the code below for my backButtonItem to leftBarButton it will work fine.

Believe me when I say that I have tried going through several SO posts even when I was creating this I was looking up the related posts as well and I couldn't find anything that worked.

Here is my UINavigationController class:

import UIKit
class NavViewController: UINavigationController, UINavigationBarDelegate {
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
    }
    override func viewDidAppear(animated: Bool) {
        super.viewDidAppear(true)

        let navigationBar = UINavigationBar(frame: CGRectMake(0, 20, self.view.frame.size.width, 44)) // Offset by 20 pixels vertically to take the status bar into account
        navigationBar.barTintColor = UIColor(red: 0.0627, green: 0.4862, blue: 0.0627, alpha: 1)
        navigationBar.delegate = self;
        // Create a navigation item with a title
        let navigationItem = UINavigationItem()

        //Create the Back Button
        let backButton = UIBarButtonItem(title: "Back", style: UIBarButtonItemStyle.Plain, target: self, action: nil)
        backButton.tintColor = UIColor(red: 255, green: 255, blue: 255, alpha: 1)
        navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = backButton

        //Create the Right Button (Go Home) Button
        let rightButton = UIBarButtonItem(title: "Home", style: UIBarButtonItemStyle.Plain, target: self, action: "goHome")
        rightButton.tintColor = UIColor(red: 255, green: 255, blue: 255, alpha: 1)
        navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = rightButton

        //Change the Navigation Bar Title Color
        navigationBar.titleTextAttributes = [NSForegroundColorAttributeName:UIColor.whiteColor()]

        // Assign the navigation item to the navigation bar
        navigationBar.items = [navigationItem]

        // Make the navigation bar a subview of the current view controller
        self.view.addSubview(navigationBar)
    }
    override func didReceiveMemoryWarning() {
        super.didReceiveMemoryWarning()
        // Dispose of any resources that can be recreated.
    }
}

Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!!!

EDIT

So I went ahead and added this to my appdelegate.swift and I can get the Back Button to show the way I want along with my Title(s) but not my Right Button does not show.

import UIKit

@UIApplicationMain class AppDelegate : UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {

var window : UIWindow?
var navigationItem = UINavigationItem()

func application(application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [NSObject: AnyObject]?) -> Bool {

    window!.backgroundColor = UIColor(red: 0.2078, green: 0.2078, blue: 0.2078, alpha: 1)


    //Create the Back Button
    let backButton = UIBarButtonItem(title: "", style: UIBarButtonItemStyle.Plain, target: self, action: nil)
    navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = backButton

    //Create the Right Button (Go Home) Button
    let rightButton = UIBarButtonItem(title: "Home", style: UIBarButtonItemStyle.Plain, target: self, action: "goHome")
    navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = rightButton


    // Assign the navigation item to the navigation bar
    UINavigationBar.appearance()?.items = [navigationItem]

    //Change the Navigation Bar Color
    UINavigationBar.appearance()?.titleTextAttributes = [NSForegroundColorAttributeName:UIColor.whiteColor()]

    UINavigationBar.appearance()?.tintColor = UIColor.whiteColor()
    UINavigationBar.appearance()?.barTintColor = UIColor(red: 0.0627, green: 0.4862, blue: 0.0627, alpha: 1)

    return true
}

    func goHome() {
        var rootViewController = self.window!.rootViewController as UINavigationController
        let mainStoryboard: UIStoryboard = UIStoryboard(name: "Main", bundle: nil)
        var homeViewController = mainStoryboard.instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier("Home") as HomeViewController
        rootViewController.popToViewController(homeViewController, animated: true)
    }

}

Answer 1

As per your question it seems that you don’t want to set left and right bar button in an individual call and u require to get both of them by writing it once and get them in all other class. Here’s what you need to do.

In AppDelegate.swift

func application(application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [NSObject: AnyObject]?) -> Bool {

    UINavigationBar.appearance().titleTextAttributes = [NSForegroundColorAttributeName:UIColor.whiteColor()]
    UINavigationBar.appearance().barTintColor = UIColor(red: 0.0627, green: 0.4862, blue: 0.0627, alpha: 1)
    UINavigationBar.appearance().tintColor = UIColor.whiteColor()
    return true
}

The above code will set this attributes for navigation bar throughout the application.

Now, Add New File and name it as RootViewController - “Subclass of - UIViewController”.

import UIKit

class RootViewController: UIViewController {

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    // Do any additional setup after loading the view.
}

override func didReceiveMemoryWarning() {
    super.didReceiveMemoryWarning()
    // Dispose of any resources that can be recreated.
}

func setLeftBarButton() {
    // Below line will Create Custom leftBarButton.
    var backBtn = UIBarButtonItem(title: "First", style: UIBarButtonItemStyle.Bordered, target: self, action: "popBack") as UIBarButtonItem
    self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = backBtn
    // Below line will Remove default backBarButton.
    self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = nil;
}

func setRightBarButton() {
    let rightBtn: UIBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(title: "Home", style: UIBarButtonItemStyle.Bordered, target: self, action: "goToNext")
    self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = rightBtn
}

func popBack() {
    self.navigationController?.popViewControllerAnimated(true)
}

func goToNext() {
    print("Go to Next View.")
}

Now In all your View Controller you just need to do is “ Replace - UIViewController with RootViewController”.

Now in Second View Controller all you need to do is call methods from RootViewController in ViewDidLoad of SecondViewController.
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
self.navigationItem.title = "Second View"
setLeftBarButton()
setRightBarButton()
// Do any additional setup after loading the view.
}

Output :

Hope this saves your problem.

Answer 2

@KyleMassacre, UINavigationController is used for navigation from one controller to another controller UINavigationController Apple Doc

It show automatically back button.

In your AppDelegation you only need:

        //Change the Navigation Bar Color
    UINavigationBar.appearance()?.titleTextAttributes = [NSForegroundColorAttributeName:UIColor.whiteColor()]
    
    UINavigationBar.appearance()?.tintColor = UIColor.whiteColor()
    UINavigationBar.appearance()?.barTintColor = UIColor(red: 0.0627, green: 0.4862, blue: 0.0627, alpha: 1)

In a Example with 2 View Controllers. Button "Push" from the first View Controller to SecondViewController:

The code in SecondViewController:

import UIKit

class SecondViewController: UIViewController {

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()

    // Do any additional setup after loading the view.
    let rightButton = UIBarButtonItem(title: "Home", style: UIBarButtonItemStyle.Plain, target: self, action: "goHome")
    rightButton.tintColor = UIColor(red: 255, green: 255, blue: 255, alpha: 1)
    navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = rightButton

    
}

override func didReceiveMemoryWarning() {
    super.didReceiveMemoryWarning()
    // Dispose of any resources that can be recreated.
}


/*
// MARK: - Navigation

// In a storyboard-based application, you will often want to do a little preparation before navigation
override func prepareForSegue(segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: AnyObject?) {
    // Get the new view controller using segue.destinationViewController.
    // Pass the selected object to the new view controller.
}
*/

func goHome() {
    
    // navigation where you want. You can use:
    //navigationController?.pushViewController(<#viewController: UIViewController#>, animated: <#Bool#>)
    //navigationController?.popToRootViewControllerAnimated(animated: Bool)
    //presentViewController(<#viewControllerToPresent: UIViewController#>, animated: <#Bool#>, completion: <#(() -> Void)?##() -> Void#>)
}

}

And the result: