[Bug] UINavigationBar BackgroundColor can no longer be changed

[PaulMercer-SDS]

Description

NavigationBar background colour can no longer be changed with UINavigationBar.Appearance.BackgroundColor

Steps to Reproduce

In AppDelegate.FinishedLaunching,
UINavigationBar.Appearance.BackgroundColor = UIColor.Blue;

Expected Behavior

Expect background colour of navigationbar to change

Actual Behavior

Background colour of NavigationBar remains white

Basic Information

• Version with issue: XF v5.0.0.1829-pre6
• Last known good version: 5.0.0.1539-pre2
• Platform Target Frameworks:
  • iOS: 14.3
  • Android: not tried
  • UWP: not tried
• Android Support Library / AndroidX Version: N/A
• NuGet Packages:
• Affected Devices:

Environment

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Build Logs

Screenshots

Reproduction Link

Workaround

[raz0r777]

I have the same problem. Any solution?

[PaulMercer-SDS]

Any update on this?
It is holding back release of our enterprise app to a client who has strict corporate style and colour requirements.

[pboisso]

Same here, any fix coming in?

[PaulMercer-SDS]

Is this likely to ever be fixed???

[lostptr]

For anyone that's dealing with this issue, I found a workaround but its not perfect.
On AppDelegate.cs:

public override bool FinishedLaunching(UIApplication app, NSDictionary options)
{
    ...
    UIColor color = Color.FromHex("FBAF4E").ToUIColor();
    UINavigationBar.Appearance.BackgroundColor = color;
    UINavigationBar.Appearance.BarTintColor = color;

    return base.FinishedLaunching(app, options);
}

Coundn't find a way to fix the status bar though...

[thisismyself]

This bug is almost one year old, it happens in some of the first executed lines of many apps, but nothing has happend here? A fix here would be appreciated very much!
This is one reason we still stick on XF 4.8 as long as possible.

[jfversluis]

Hey everyone, sorry this one slipped through somehow! Can anyone maybe provide a reproduction for this? I'm not really sure how you would style the navigation bar like this and why you wouldn't use the Forms API for this?

FWIW, I think this isn't a Forms issue or at least this is in the mix here as well; the way iOS changed their behavior here in iOS 13. See: https://sarunw.com/posts/uinavigationbar-changes-in-ios13/

But seeing that it still works for 4.8 it seems like there is still some Forms issue going on here... Anyway, a repro project would still be very helpful to understand how you all are trying to use this :)

[PaulMercer-SDS]

Hi jfversluis
As an example, this is what we have been doing in the AppDelegate FinishedLaunching() method

			UINavigationBar.Appearance.TintColor = UIColor.White;
			UINavigationBar.Appearance.SetTitleTextAttributes(new UITextAttributes { TextColor = UIColor.White });
			UINavigationBar.Appearance.BackgroundColor = UIColor.Blue;
			UINavigationBar.Appearance.BarTintColor = UIColor.Blue;

[jfversluis]

@PaulMercer-SDS could you do me a favor and check if it still works on iOS 12? Else I will try. I have a feeling in what piece of code this is going wrong. We probably don't check if anyone is setting it this way and we then override it.

Also my questions stands, why do you set it like this? I think we have APIs do to all of this in Forms as well, right?

[jfversluis]

OK it does work on iOS 12 as expected provided that you don't set it (override it) through the Forms APIs. Then I have a pretty good idea where this is happening.

[jfversluis]

Hey all, a PR (#14923) for this is open now, would you be able to grab the NuGet as described here and let us know if this fixes this issue? That will greatly speed up the review process.

Besides verifying if this particular issue is fixed also be sure to check other scenarios in the same area to make sure that this fix doesn't accidentally has side-effects 🙂

Thanks!

Hm nope, this one seems to crash

[jfversluis]

@PaulMercer-SDS OK, I have a version I think that does the correct thing as per the comment above. If you would mind testing it? Or anyone else of course :)

[jfversluis]

Gentle reminder I would love some feedback on this so it can be included in the next release!

[pboisso]

Morning @jfversluis, I thought the proposed fix was crashing as per your edited comment, so we did not try. We just gave a try to build 7902 to our code base and still no luck. The Navigation bar is still not the color we wanted.

This is how we set it on our end. Working fine in XF4.8

                UINavigationBar.Appearance.BarTintColor = AccentColor;
                UINavigationBar.Appearance.TintColor = TextColor;
                UINavigationBar.Appearance.TitleTextAttributes = new UIStringAttributes
                {
                    ForegroundColor = TextColor,
                };

[jfversluis]

@pboisso I can see the confusion, sorry about that :)

Mind you that you need to test a very specific version as the PR builds will only have one specific change and not all the rest. In this case you should be testing version 7887. Would you mind trying that one? Thanks!

[pboisso]

Thanks for the clarification on the specific build number, @jfversluis.

Unfortunately, XF 7887 installed and still broken for our project. Both (iOS 14.4 & iOS 15) still show white navigation bar with build 7887 whereas they are the proper color with XF 4.8.1821.

I tested in Debug mode with the simulator on iPhone 12 mini with iOS 14.4 and iPhone 13 mini with iOS 15.0.

[jfversluis]

Interesting. However trivial it may sound, would you be able to put this in a reproduction sample? Just start a new Xamarin.Forms project and add the code that you expect to work, but doesn't. Then I can see exactly what you're trying to do. If you could create a GitHub repo for it that would be amazing.

Secondly, is there any specific reason you don't use the Xamarin.Forms APIs that can do this for you?

[pboisso]

@jfversluis , I guess we never used the Xamarin.Forms API because we never had to. :) Apps were originally built using UINavigationBar.Appearance for some reason (most likely because we originally built our app using Xamarin Classic and moved to Forms later). Would you have a code snippet or a link to a reference on how to do the same with XF Api by any luck?

Thanks!

[jfversluis]

That makes sense! There are different ways to do it, but the NavigationPage has properties for:

• BarBackgroundColor to set the background color
• BarTextColor to set the text color for the navigation bar

The only thing looking at your code, is that you can't set the tint color and the text color separately I think. I believe the tint color will also be set to BarTextColor.

You can set this directly to your NavigationPage instance, create a inheritance or do it through styles.

Just to be absolutely sure: could you try the nightly feed (instructions in the README on the frontpage) that should be version 7903 and confirm it still doesn't work? If so, if it's not too much trouble, would you be able to create a reproduction project that shows your issue?

That might seem trivial, but will help me understand your situation better and also gives me something to test code changes on. Thanks!

[pboisso]

Hi @jfversluis, we finally ended up implementing the style to the NavigationPage.BarBackgroundColor and BarTextColor like you suggested and it's working well now! We never saw build 7903 (sounds like it is stuck to 7902) so we could not test the fix for the native method just yet, sorry about that, but very happy that it's working now, we will finally migrate over XF5! Thanks so much for your help, it's good to see someone caring for developers out there. :) Have a great one.

[jfversluis]

Awesome @pboisso, thanks you for the kind words! Don't worry about the other thing if this is working for you :) Let me know if you need anything else!