how to change the UISearchBar to replace the search icon inside the text field with text

Question

I have UISearchBar and I want to remove the search marker(magnifier icon) and put a text instead of it

Answer 1

You Can Change the magnify Icon in the following way , adapt it to your needs :-

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@interface SearchBoxExperimentsViewController : UIViewController {  
    IBOutlet UISearchBar *searchBar;
}
@end 

#import "SearchBoxExperimentsViewController.h"
@interface SearchBoxExperimentsViewController (Private)
- (void)setSearchIconToFavicon;
@end

@implementation SearchBoxExperimentsViewController
- (void)viewDidLoad 
{  
    [self setSearchIconToFavicon];  
    [super viewDidLoad];
}

#pragma mark Private
- (void)setSearchIconToFavicon 
{  
    // Really a UISearchBarTextField, but the header is private.  
    UITextField *searchField = nil;  
    for (UIView *subview in searchBar.subviews) {    
        if ([subview isKindOfClass:[UITextField class]]) {      
            searchField = (UITextField *)subview;      
            break;    
        }  
    }    
    if (searchField) {      
        UIImage *image = [UIImage imageNamed: @"favicon.png"];   
        UIImageView *iView = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:image];    
        searchField.leftView = iView;    
        [iView release];  
    }  
}
@end 

It worked for me :)

Answer 2

You can use UIAppearance method

Swift 3.0

UISearchBar.appearance().setImage(UIImage(named: "image_name"), for: .search, state: .normal)

Objective-c

[[UISearchBar appearance] setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"image_name"] forSearchBarIcon:UISearchBarIconSearch state:UIControlStateNormal]; 

Answer 3

Something a little more approved-API friendly is to use a normal UITextField instead, with the following code to add a label within the UITextField (if you want to remove the magnifying glass, what's your attraction to the search box anyway?):

UILabel *searchFieldLeftLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(5, 0, 32, 15)];
searchFieldLeftLabel.text = @"find:";
searchFieldLeftLabel.placeholder = @"e.g. wings, Boathouse";
searchFieldLeftLabel.font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:14];
searchFieldLeftLabel.textColor = [UIColor grayColor];
self.searchFieldLeftLabel.leftView = locationSearchFieldLeftLabel;
[searchFieldLeftLabel release];

The result is a nice looking text box that looks like:

And when you start typing text, it replaces the placeholder, but the label remains:

Answer 4

See this post Removing the image on the left of an UISearchbar. There is no public API to change or remove the magnifier and you should just use a UITextField.