How to prevent UIButton from flashing when updating the title

Question

When I call setTitle on a UIButton, the button flashes in iOS 7. I tried setting myButton.highlighted = NO, but that didn't stop the button from flashing.

[myButton setTitle:[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] stringForKey:@"elapsedLabelKey"] forState:UIControlStateNormal];

myButton.highlighted = NO;

Here is how I set up the timer that updated the titles:

- (void)actionTimer {
    if (myTimer == nil) {

        myTimer = [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval: 1.0
                        target: self
                        selector: @selector(showActivity)
                        userInfo: nil
                        repeats: YES];
    }
}

Here is the method that actually updates the titles:

- (void)showActivity {

    NSString *sym = [[NSLocale currentLocale] objectForKey:NSLocaleCurrencySymbol];

    if (pauseInterval == nil) {

        // Update clock
        seconds = [[NSDate date] timeIntervalSinceDate:startInterval] - breakTime;

        // Update total earned
        secRate = rate.value / 60 / 60;
        total = secRate * seconds;
        [totalLabel setTitle:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@%.4f",sym,total] forState:UIControlStateNormal];

        days = seconds / (60 * 60 * 24);
        seconds -= days * (60 * 60 * 24);
        int hours = seconds / (60 * 60);
        fhours = (float)seconds / (60.0 * 60.0);
        seconds -= hours * (60 * 60);
        int minutes = seconds / 60;
        seconds -= minutes * 60;

        // Update the timer clock
        [elapsed setTitle:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%.2i:%.2i:%.2i:%.2i",days,hours,minutes,seconds] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
    }
}

It shouldn't be flashing. Are you trying to do this on a background thread? — BergQuester, Oct 15 '13 at 00:55
Yes it's being set in a timer to update the button title every second (which I think create its own thread) — FierceMonkey, Oct 15 '13 at 04:47
Timers only run on a separate thread if you set them up to do so. Could we see the method where the title gets update and how you set up the timer? — BergQuester, Oct 15 '13 at 05:36
Possible duplicate of [How to stop unwanted UIButton animation on title change?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18946490/how-to-stop-unwanted-uibutton-animation-on-title-change) — Cœur, Aug 22 '16 at 03:31
This answer from G.S.Koti worked for me https://stackoverflow.com/a/35362156/9576580 — Brar, Jun 08 '18 at 00:11

Quanlong · Answer 1 · 2015-12-30T01:04:20.310

234

Set the button type to UIButtonTypeCustom and it'll stop flashing

edited Dec 30 '15 at 01:04

answered Aug 02 '14 at 14:49

Quanlong

24,028
16
69
79

18

This should really be the preferred answer. The simplest solution. And it´s working. – Johan Karlsson May 21 '15 at 08:58
4

Agreed. I tried a lot of other solutions and this is the thing that did it, all by itself. – BBQ Steve Jun 29 '15 at 16:12
2

This should be the accepted answer. Simplest solution so far. – Machado Sep 21 '16 at 14:55
1

Works like a charm! Thanks – Dec 29 '16 at 14:52
2

I think this a really good solution without writing any code for that. – Chauyan Oct 16 '17 at 09:28
1

This is the best answer – Nazariy Vlizlo Oct 23 '17 at 11:25
1

This works for me too. However failed to understand the reason behind it. – Anoop Nyati Dec 06 '17 at 15:07
It says cannot assign to buttonType, it is a get only property – ScottyBlades Apr 27 '18 at 20:19
Works for ios 12. – locomotion Oct 02 '18 at 10:04
1

This solution works, but you lose some benefits of the system button such as the pressed state animation (when the user taps and holds on the button they get visual feedback the button is pressed). I prefer Cœur's solution https://stackoverflow.com/a/39071660/337934 – SamB Jan 20 '19 at 19:32

Cœur · Answer 2 · 2019-05-18T01:10:30.410

64

A better approach than [UIView setAnimationsEnabled:NO] which may affect other animations is to only disable the specific title animation.

Objective-C:

[UIView performWithoutAnimation:^{
  [myButton setTitle:text forState:UIControlStateNormal];
  [myButton layoutIfNeeded];
}];

Swift:

UIView.performWithoutAnimation { 
    myButton.setTitle(text, for: .normal)
    myButton.layoutIfNeeded()
}

edited May 18 '19 at 01:10

answered Aug 22 '16 at 04:57

Cœur

37,241
25
195
267

Just now tried the Swift solution on the latest iOS - works great. – Ronen Rabinovici Jun 13 '17 at 19:38
1

Day savior. Cheers! – pkc456 Jun 27 '17 at 06:45
Just tried this in Swift 3, and it works without the use of layoutIfNeeded() – user1898712 Sep 20 '17 at 08:20
3

This should be the accepted answer without a doubt! – Julius Oct 19 '17 at 19:53
You are a genius! An accepted answer is a lame hack, the second popular one just destroys tap animation which is the whole point of having a button. Thanks! – Ivan May 17 '19 at 16:39
1

This is the best way to do this. Great answer! – aecend May 28 '19 at 16:06
BEST answer. Thank you! – Dmytro Yashchenko May 18 '21 at 15:55

score 30 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 21 '13 at 11:32

*Please note *

when "buttonType" of _button is "UIButtonTypeSystem", below code is invalid：

[UIView setAnimationsEnabled:NO];
[_button setTitle:@"title" forState:UIControlStateNormal];
[UIView setAnimationsEnabled:YES];

when "buttonType" of _button is "UIButtonTypeCustom", above code is valid.

score 19 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:26

19

See the responses from How to stop unwanted UIButton animation on title change? :

[UIView setAnimationsEnabled:NO];
[elapsed setTitle:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%.2i:%.2i:%.2i:%.2i",days,hours,minutes,seconds] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
[UIView setAnimationsEnabled:YES];

edited May 23 '17 at 12:26

Community

1
1

answered Nov 01 '13 at 04:54

Marius

3,589
3
27
30

7

@FierceMonkey try adding a call to `layoutIfNeeded`:`[elapsed layoutIfNeeded];`. This removed the blinking in my case. – Klaas May 19 '14 at 12:48
1

layoutIfNeeded did it for me. – Kaolin Fire Jun 11 '14 at 20:58
It seems to be a rather dirty workaround, however `layoutIfNeeded` would appear to be working – Przemysław Wrzesiński Jan 24 '17 at 15:36

score 9 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 19 '17 at 23:36

You can simply just make another function for UIButton for easy future usage.

extension UIButton {
    func setTitleWithoutAnimation(_ title: String?, for controlState: UIControlState) {
        UIView.performWithoutAnimation {
            self.setTitle(title, for: controlState)
            self.layoutIfNeeded()
        }
    }
}

That is it!

And just set the title as you would before but replace setTitle with setTitleWithoutAnimation

score 7 · Answer 6 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Default "setTitle" behavior is definitely hateful!

My solution is:

[UIView setAnimationsEnabled:NO];
[_button layoutIfNeeded]; 
[_button setTitle:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"what" forState:UIControlStateNormal];
[UIView setAnimationsEnabled:YES];

Also, in storyboard, under button's property I uncheck:

Reverses On Highlight
Highlighted Adjust Image

And check:

Disabled Adjust Image

Tested and working on iOS 8 too.

Update - Swift

I suggest you to create your custom button and override setTitle method.

class UnflashingButton: UIButton {
   
    override func setTitle(title: String?, forState state: UIControlState) {
        UIView.setAnimationsEnabled(false)
        self.layoutIfNeeded()
        super.setTitle(title, forState: state)
        UIView.setAnimationsEnabled(true)
    }

}

I tried this approach (subclassing, overriding setTitle:forState: and disabling-enabling UIView.setAnimationsEnabled). Not working for me in iOS 9 and 10 beta. It works if I only disable the animations, but then they're lost for every UIView... — cdf1982, Aug 09 '16 at 09:42

score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 27 '18 at 20:10

Try this, this works in newer versions of IOS:

class CustomButtonWithNoEffect : UIButton {
    override func setTitle(_ title: String?, for state: UIControlState) {
        UIView.performWithoutAnimation {
            super.setTitle(title, for: state)
            super.layoutIfNeeded()
        }
    }

}

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Apr 05 '18 at 22:39

I'm new to coding and Stackoverflow, so don't have enough reputation to comment directly to expand on https://stackoverflow.com/users/4673064/daniel-tseng excellent answer. So I have to write my own new answer, and it is this:

extension UIButton {
    func setTitleWithoutAnimation(_ title: String?, for controlState: UIControlState) {
        UIView.performWithoutAnimation {
            self.setTitle(title, for: controlState)
            self.layoutIfNeeded()
        }
    }
}

Works great, EXCEPT:

If all my calls later on in the code to "setTitleWithoutAnimation" do not specify a sender, then I get these weird messages related to CoreMedia or CoreData, e.g., "Failed to inherit CoreMedia permissions from 2526: (null)"

This is probably pretty basic to coding and iOS, but for me as a new coder, it sent me on a rabbit trail for a while, as in: Today Extension Failed to inherit CoreMedia permissions from, where people had interesting answers but that did NOT reach the root of my problem.

So I finally found that I had to go through and give my parameter-less functions parameters, i.e., I had to specify a sender. That sender could be UIButton, Any, or AnyObject. All of those worked, but ultimately there appears to be a conflict between adding a button extension with "self" and not specifically saying later on that a button is using it.

Again, probably basic, but new to me, so I figured it would be worth sharing.

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Jan 09 '19 at 21:21

Another trick

@IBOutlet private weak var button: UIButton! {
    didSet {
        button.setTitle(title, for: .normal)
    }
}

This works only if you know the value of the title without making any API calls. The button's title will be set before the view is loaded so you won't see the animation

How to prevent UIButton from flashing when updating the title

9 Answers9

Update - Swift

Linked